Amsterdam by Numbers

This entry is essentially Amsterdam by numbers and to start it off I must admit that I have miscounted. With a visit to Scheveningen the official grand total for all the Seas on this trip will be eight. I might have to include a footnote somewhere to add in the North Sea but I refuse to change the wed address or the title. The “Eight Seas” simply doesn’t have the same ring as seven. Why else would there only be seven wonders of the world or seven continents? I guess I could justify it since it's not officially on my route. That doesn't start until we get to Cairo and Amsterdam with all its neighboring attractions is simply a stopover.

As I said, this is Amsterdam by numbers so I won’t bore you guys with all the details of what we did today aside for quickly listing off the places that are worth a visit:

• Keukenhof Gardens: the world’s largest flower gardens where approximately 7,000,000 flower bulbs are planted every year
• Zaanse Schans: with its 400+ year old windmills and one of the earliest grocery stores (Dutch?)
• Scheveningen: fantastic beachside restaurants and lounges
  

Now to the numbers:

• Amsterdam has approximately 1.3 million inhabitants, 600,000 flower bulbs, 600,000 bikes, 150,000 bike thefts a year, 2,500 houseboats, 1,402 bars and cafes, 206 Van Goghs, 165 canals (15 more than Venice), 22 Rembrandts, 21 markets, 8 wooden drawbridges and six 17th and 18th century windmills
• If you thought crime (theft) was bad in Vancouver, think again. In 1999, the most audacious bicycle thief ever, Chiel van Zelst, confessed to stealing over 50,000 bikes since the 1980s.
• The narrowest house in the world is one meter wide and just a few centimeters bigger than its front door (Singel 7, Amsterdam).
• Holland is one of the smallest yet most densely populated countries. On 42,000 square kilometers there are approximately 16 million inhabitants or the equivalent of 482 people per square kilometer (taking into account all the water reservoirs).

For completeness sake, I'll also throw in a number of interesting facts:

• Raw herring is a great delicacy in Amsterdam (and a well deserved one). I wish I knew how many of these are eaten every year, but I don’t – so this last one is just an odd tidbit of information.
• The XXX which appears on all flags around Amsterdam, on sidewalks, official buildings and government stationary, is not a reference to the city's Red Light District. That is merely an unusal coincidence. In fact Amsterdam's coat of arms is three St. Andrew's crosses. St. Andrew was a fisherman who lived in the 1st century AD and was crussified on an X shaped cross. In 1505, when Amsterdam was a fishing town, the coat of arms was established as a symbol for the city itself and it also flew on all the ships registered to Amsterdam.