Last night the four of us were coming home from a dinner party, riding our bikes along our favorite canal in the half-light that is Amsterdam at 10:30 p.m. in June. The hour was late because we had stayed to see the end of the Spain-Portugal soccer game. We stopped on a bridge to look at the reflection of the little lights beneath the bridges in the canal, and the four of us were simultaneously enveloped in sadness. How hard it will be to leave this beautiful city behind us!
It was the perfect spot to indulge our anticipated grief. Reguliersgracht is the canal we always trace when we ride our bicycles into the center of Amsterdam from our home in De Pijp. It is Dennis's route to and from work. It is narrow and mostly free of traffic, and it runs past seven little bridges in quick succession. It also goes over quite a few. Here is a daytime photo of the spot where we were standing last night. Two canals come together here, creating a world of water under the street:
And look, I just found a photo online of the same spot at night, taken by a better photographer than I. This is just how it looked last night:
For us, Reguliersgracht brings together many of the things we love best about Amsterdam. It's small and pretty and quaint, with lovely crooked houses, bountiful rosebushes and few sounds but the jingle of bicycle bells and the animated voices of its coffeeshop patrons. It is a joyful ride with the gentle ups and downs of the bridges (Clara likes to take a jaunt to the side at each bridge we pass, riding up the slope in order to get a longer coast down as she turns back onto Reguliersgracht), it is a route we all know well, including the children, who have a better idea of how to get to the center of Amsterdam, both by bike and by tram, than they do how to get to downtown Columbus from our home in Ohio. This brings a special kind of freedom. Riding along Reguliersgracht is one of the shared memories we will all take with us from this family adventure, and it is very sweet.
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