Doesn’t this street strike you as being rather broad? That is because this Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal was once a canal and until 1884, water flowed down the middle of this street and ships, not trams, would pass by. The picture shows the street as it was in bygone days.

The people of Amsterdam had good reason to build their city along the waterways: the canals of yesteryear were the motorways of today. Merchants transported their goods by ship and people preferred to travel long distances by boat, which was much more comfortable than a bumpy coach ride or taking a horse and cart along bad roads. Nonetheless, as the years went by, transport by road increased - at the expense of many of the waterways, even in Amsterdam. Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal was not the only canal in the city to be filled in; unfortunately, about seventy canals in Amsterdam have had to make way for cars, bikes, trams and buses.