Amsterdam - Life along the Canals

Amsterdam's canal belt combines history and the present. Along the canals, the film delves into Amsterdam's heyday in the 17th century and shows how the ingenious canal system still significantly shapes life in the port city today. The documentary looks into the gabled houses, meets one of the last bridge keepers, travels with the floating post office and a flying canal merchant, and shows alternative ways of living and working in houseboats and on former shipyard sites. The film portrays Amsterdam, a city built by globally active merchants. Tolerance towards others and different people still characterises Amsterdam today as a modern European metropolis. Equally identity-forming for Amsterdam's 850,000 inhabitants is the canal system that the merchants built from the beginning of the 17th century, above all to transport their goods to and from the merchants' and warehouses. Since the 17th century, Amsterdam's "Golden Age", the city has been accessible from the water. And from the canals, the documentary reveals a city that lives with water. The main canals connect with 160 cross-canals to form a canal network that, at 75km long, is twice as long as the canals of Venice. Since 2010, the canal belt has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts 18 million tourists a year. Along the waterways are the important shopping streets, many museums, the university and, of course, the old merchants' and bankers' houses with their magnificent gables. Parties are celebrated on and along the canals, the people of Amsterdam spend their lunch breaks by the water, and their favourite place to live is along the canals or on them, in a houseboat. In the 1960s, the canals were still heavily polluted, but now some of them are used for swimming again.