Amsterdam's smallest apartment
 

Does anyone know the address of this apartment. I heard about it on a travel show.
Thanks

I took a cruise on the canals and they showed it to us. It is a narrow house with only one window on each floor, on one of the canals.

Can't remember where it was, but a cruise on canals, if you go on one, will take you by it.

I don't know the address either, but here are (purportedly) two pictures of it. Seems to match the description by gabriel...

http://people.tribe.net/tumewa/photo...0-6206b1f5b46d

and

http://whereishawkins.fotki.com/trav.../dscf0056.html

Oh, the things you can google! But I don't seem to be able to come up with an address on google, and wikipedia doesn't have anything either.

And wikipedia has some _very_ obscure entries...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ly_long_titles

Best wishes,

Rex

Thanks,
Rex, I had the same problem. gabrieltraian,
Which cruise did you take?
Mike

The story they told me when I lived in Amsterdam was that a very rich merchant boasted of his huge and wide new home to his servant, saying, "Now I have this wide house I will be content." The servant replied that he would be content if he could have a house just as wide as his master's front door.

So the merchant built him one.

:-)

P.S. I was also told that the building is wider toward the back, as the frontage on the canal is what limits it's width.

Isn't that funny? I Googled it and the first link is on Frommer's. I wonder what keywords Rex used?

http://www.frommers.com/destinations...043021197.html

I give an excerpt below, but Frommer's gives a few other candidates.

The narrowest house in Amsterdam (and who knows, maybe even the world) can be seen at Singel 7. It's just a meter (3 1/2 ft.) wide, barely wider than the front door. It is, however, a cheat. Only the front facade is really so narrow; behind that it broadens out to more normal proportions.

I've seen these houses on Globe Trekker and they said they were originally alleys between houses. That's why they are so narrow.

Mike,

I took a cruise at random. Somewhere to the right of the Central Station there are some cruise piers, on the opposite side.

I took one of them, but I think all will take you on about the same itinerary. There are a few "musts" on this cruise, and they all talk about them. One was the narrowest house, another was the point from where you get to see seven bridges as one.

The story we were told about the narrowest house, was that the owner couldn't afford the high taxes on the house.

When the taxman would see the house so narrow, he would not increase the taxes. Now of course, the backside wouldn't be seen.

I thought I read that when the Netherlands was the wealthiest nation in the world, home owner's were assessed their taxes by the width of their homes along streets/canals, so they were narrow, but multi-storied.
But I did enjoy the aspect that the merchant built his servant a house as wide as his front door.