Along the canal here, you’ll notice a particularly photogenic row of old canal houses that appear to be tilting, slouching, or leaning into each other at crazy angles – as if they had a bit too much to drink last night. These are often nicknamed the Dancing Houses. They’re one of Amsterdam’s most popular postcard images, and seeing them in person, you understand why. So, why are they really dancing or leaning over? Two main reasons: foundations and design. First, you have to know that Amsterdam is literally built on water and mud. The city’s soil is very soft, swampy and essentially a drained marshland at the mouth of the Amstel River. To build those impressive tall houses, the Dutch had to drive wooden piles deep into the ground to reach firmer sand layers and use those as foundation piers. In the seventeenth century, they used thousands of wooden poles under each structure. Over time, some of these timber piles have shifted or even rotted. As a result, buildings sink slightly unevenly, causing them to tilt to one side or another. But worry not – these buildings are monitored and if one is in danger of tipping too far, engineering fixes are done. Many have had their old wooden piles reinforced with concrete or new supports. Fun fact: There’s an oft-quoted figure that Amsterdam has over a million wooden foundation poles under it. If one day they all rot, we’d all be up to our knees in canal water! Second, some houses were deliberately built to lean forward toward the street. Why on earth? Well, in the old days most canal houses were also warehouses. They have those big hooks at the top gables which were used to haul goods up and down via ropes and pulleys. You can probably spot a hook on the gable of a dancing house right now. The houses lean forward so that when heavy barrels or furniture were hoisted up, they wouldn’t bang into the façade and smash the windows on the way. Pretty clever! By tilting outward, the house created a bit of clearance. Now combine that intentional lean with the unintentional settling, and you get quite the variety of angles.. If you are staying in an older building you might have seen that the narrow, often spiralling stairs make it nearly impossible to move furniture up and down and you can still see furniture being hoisted up using the hooks. Amsterdam’s building code nowadays wouldn’t allow such drunken antics, but the old houses have been preserved and the result, as you can see, is charming. As you photograph this spot as it’s irresistible, also note how narrow these canal houses are. That’s not perspective – many are only as wide as a single window. This was due to old taxes which assessed buildings based on frontage width. So the Dutch built up and back, not wide. That’s why the buildings all look tall and skinny – kind of like the Dutch people themselves who are statistically the tallest in the world, by the way! Our last stop on the tour continues the artistic and historic theme: we’re heading to Rembrandtplein, a square named after the Netherlands’ most famous painter, Rembrandt van Rijn. It’s a lively spot both day and night. Follow the map to get there.