Have you met Puss in Boats?

TRAVEL

I am sure you have heard of the story ‘Puss in Boots’, but this story is about another kind of cat — a lot of cats in fact. This story takes place in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, where people often live in houseboats that are moored in the city’s many canals that encircle the old part of Amsterdam.

The Dutch have a fine reputation as sailors and navigators. From the 16th century they crossed the oceans on voyages of discovery to what was then known as the New World and their legacy is visible in places all over the world. From Holland to India and into South-East Asia, across to Australia and New Zealand and further towards North America, the Dutch sailed and explored and traded.

So it should be no surprise that even today the Dutch still have a love of boats.  There is a very famous cat boat called Poezenboot. If you think that sounds a bit like ‘Puss in Boats’, then you are right!

Poezenboot is a houseboat that provides refuge to abandoned cats and has become one of Amsterdam’s unique tourist attractions. Poezenboot began in a very small way with one mother cat and her kittens and a kind lady who found them sheltering beneath a tree and who took pity on them.

Henriette van Welde took the cats home with her and gave them shelter. Pretty soon another stray cat joined them and then another and then another, and before too long Henriette had a house full of cats.

Hearing about this kind lady, people would bring cats to her. She filled her house and her garden with abandoned cats and earned the reputation of the ‘Cat Lady’ of Amsterdam.

Because she simply couldn’t turn one cat away, she soon found herself looking for larger accommodation for her feline family. She got to thinking that if people could live on houseboats in the canals of Amsterdam then so too could the cats.

She bought a houseboat that was moored outside her door and built the first Cat Boat, a feline-friendly hostel for all the sick and stray cats of the city. Word of her kind act of charity soon spread around the city and people who wanted to help care for the cats came knocking at her door. Soon she had so many cats that she had to buy another boat.

The Poezenboots are specially designed for feline fancies. The sides are covered in wire so that the cats don’t fall into the canal; the windows are designed so that cats can slip in and out without fear and it’s the first choice of many Dutch families who want to adopt a cat or kitten.

Everyone is welcome to visit the cat boat. In fact, the most difficult thing as a visitor is to not want to take one of these cats home! Poezenboot is now a registered charity and enjoys the full support of the city fathers.

As a visitor you can donate food or money to help with vet bills and other necessary expenses. ‘Puss in Boats’ is a not just a story about the lady who saved the cats, but a story about the city and her people. The people are mostly kind and above all very friendly and welcoming. That may be because by the standard of any city in the world, Amsterdam is rather small. People are always greeting each other as they walk or cycle around and you don’t have to be there for long before you are also recognised and greeted as you explore the city.

Apart from boating along the canals of Amsterdam, it is also a city that you can easily explore by bicycle — in fact there are almost as many bicycles as people. With a people population of 75 lakh, there are 65 lakh bicycles! There are even special trailers that parents attach to their cycles and transport their kids around the city.

With trams and bicycles providing most of the transport in the city, Amsterdam is very quiet. There are no horns blaring, no rumble of trucks and only the very odd tinkle of a bicycle bell. The city is very bike friendly and cycles have their own lanes on the road.

While bikes have to obey the same traffic rules as cars, there are two special safety warnings to remember.  First and most importantly, always cross a tram line at an angle. If your bicycle tyre runs into the groove of the tram line you are in for a rather nasty fall as I discovered for myself, and then you must also remember that the Dutch drive on the left of the road.

Once you have these two rules in mind, it’s all plain sailing!