Vier putdeksels from the Venice of the North. Amsterdam sits at the head of the Amstel river which feeds the IJ. 165 canals and 1,281 bridges split and span this water, although that number seems to be changing all of the time given the ongoing expansion of the city. Like Venice, the city was originally built on swampland with numerous timber piles. Buildings do lean forward, but that makes it easier to haul things up without smashing the windows. When the buildings lean to the side….that’s when to get nervous! The area around the river was prone to flooding, thus the Amstel needed to be dammed, hence the mash-up name. Amsterdam’s Grachtengordel, the centraal area of the four main canals is, as of 2010, a Unesco heritage monument. The canals radiate outward like a spider’s web or more appropriately like a raindrop in a canal. While these are historically the city’s avenues, there are streets where a multitude of confident bike riders fluidly navigate the waves of tourists and traffic. On those streets, you can find these four representative covers of AMS: DWR, RWA, GEM and DYN. Learn more about the city in Russel Shorto’s book Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City.

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