A lazy morning greeted us on this fair Boxing Day. After a bit of a lay in, off it was again to visit some sights.

 

 

On our travels I was greeted with a surprise waiting on a street corner. I know we are in Amsterdam, but get your mind out of the gutter. Up on the corner of one of the canal buildings was an Invader! It was nice to spy another after finding a few in Paris. I had a sense that there was a bunch around Amsterdam, so I would have to get on the hunt later in the week.

 

 

Our wandering also took us past a sight we would most likely come back to, the Pathe Tuschinski. This is apparently one of the most gorgeous cinemas on the planet. From what we have heard it sounds very much a kindred spirit of our beloved Astor (although with more of a focus on current films), so I could feel another viewing of Star Wars in my future 🙂

 

 

Finally we arrived at the house of an old master… yep, it was a visit to Rembrandt’s house. The old master lived in Amsterdam in a well-to-do house on one of the main canals. Even though he moved out at one point (because he couldn’t afford it), it had been reclaimed and turned into a museum commemorating the way he lived and his studio.

 

 

Although quite small, it is nice to head up and down the narrow stairs, getting a feel for how he operated back in the day and how he ran his studio. There was not too many rooms to go through, although each had been done up as close to what they think they were like, which they could do based on an inventory the taxman took when Rembrandt went broke!

 

 

There was also the odd demonstration of paint making and print making, as well as a small exhibition of print work from many Dutch artists.

So it was well worth a visit. If you were on time constraints it probably wouldn’t make the cut, but definitely worth a look with time and our museum pass.

 

 

 

Next up we headed toward the main city square, or Dam. Located there was the old town hall, now a Royal Palace. The main square was bustling, and certainly the busiest we had seen anything in our time in Amsterdam so far. Maybe this was a combination of being Boxing Day, a Saturday, and also being in probably the most touristy place in the city. Your usual cast of busker type characters were hanging out in the square, but with a bit more of a Star Wars theme it seemed.

 

 

In we went to the Royal Palace. I found this one a bit more interesting than some of the other palaces we had visited in this trip. I think that was mainly because since the building started as a town hall, the layout was such that rooms that were for the tax officers and the like were turned into bedrooms and other rooms for visiting dignitaries. It also meant there was a huge open space that was originally designed for the people visiting the town hall.  It had a great astral theme, with planets represented and Atlas high above.

 

 

We took the self-guided tour through. Sadly, there were no Kings or Queens there to say hi, so I had to make do with the photo in the main entrance.

It was getting later in the afternoon, but we decided to keep wandering for a bit. Given it was a Saturday and the place was bustling, we decided to head toward the red light district to see some of the seedier side of Amsterdam. To this point in our explorations, given we had been in the museum districts, we hadn’t really seen anything of the ilk that Amsterdam is notorious for.

We knew we were wandering toward the red light district, as the number of “coffeeshops” started to increase dramatically and the nature of the people on the street changed ever so slightly. Not that the people suddenly became a dodgy looking bunch, rather the number of tourists grew, as did the packs of guys obviously in Amsterdam for a bender of a weekend.

 

 

Before we hit the district in real force, we came across the Oude Kerk, or Old Church, which unfortunately now sits nestled in the red light district… as evidenced by the gold plaque strangely sitting out the front!

This was a true oddity. The church is no longer in use, and going in we were greeted with a dull, unkempt, church. For whatever reasons, it is clearly not a priority to do much with this sadly. Inside was a huge pipe organ, but I can’t imagine it gets played anymore. And also in the huge space was some pews and booths and remnants of days gone by. So strange in comparison to all other churches we had visited. I guess it is symptomatic of the Netherlands lower interest in faith like this.

 

 

 

Inside there was some evidence of tombs and those buried. One that Kate found was Rembrandt’s wife Saskia. Apparently Rembrandt was a frequent visitor to this church back in the day.

 

 

We found some very strange wood carvings in one of the areas. 32 carvings told different stories. This one of a guy pooping money was just too weird not to take a photo.

It was well and truly dark by now and given there was no electrical lighting in the church, it was time to leave. And we were smack bang in the red light district.

To be honest, I’m not sure really what there is to say about this area. More so than find it confronting or sad, I just find it surreal. You have an amazing beautiful old city, with gorgeous canal houses and streets, and then you start to walk past red windows with women in them and you are immersed in an altogether different place. While some ladies would try to “entice” the lads walking by, most seemed disinterested, checking their text messages or somesuch on their phones. For most visitors to Amsterdam, like us I guess, it is just a tourist spot of some perverse interest no different to any other tourist spot. When in Rome.

 

 

So after experiencing some of the other sights that Amsterdam has to offer, we slowly made our way back toward the hotel, having a bite to eat on the way. Kate’s ankle was giving some grief, so I decided to head out for a bit more of a wander for an hour just to see Amsterdam thriving on a Saturday night. The annual Light Festival is in full swing (more about that in the next blog post), so I decided to visit a couple of those sights, before heading back to the hotel to call it a night.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Well, it was a couple of days ago, since it I am behind a couple of days on the blog posts, but the sentiment is there. I hope you all had a great day.

Kate and I woke to our Christmas present being the fact we were in Amsterdam. Not a bad one hey? The question was though what would we do on Christmas day? If we were at home nothing would be open and we would probably just have to settle for finding somewhere we could have a couple of good meals. But here in Amsterdam, I would almost go as far as to say it was business as usual. The vast majority of things were open, outside of the odd museum and restaurant. So we had options!

 

 

 

After a slow start we decided to visit a couple more of the museums we had in mind. So off we went to Museumplein, just a couple of minutes walk away. Seemed like a lot of people had the same idea as it was buzzing. The “I AMsterdam” sign was chock full of people clambering over the top of it. Cute slogan, and they seem to be doing their marketing well here.

 

 

Outside of the Rijksmuseum, the other big one to visit is probably the Van Gogh Museum. Dedicated to a more modern master, this houses an extensive collection of his work. Sunflowers? Check. Starry Night? Check. A lot of the big ones were here as well as a myriad self-portraits (as was Van Gogh’s thing).

Seemed like a lot of other people had this idea as the museum was pretty busy, certainly the busiest we had seen anything. So we drifted along with the crowds.

 

 

Photos weren’t allowed in most of the museum, so again there will be a lack of pics in this part of the story. I did take one before I realised however, one of this small painting that I really dig a lot. “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” is an early work and not typical of the rest of his oeuvre. But something about it is fascinating. Those of you who are avid readers may recognise it from the cover of a David Sedaris book too!

The museum charts his work in a fairly chronological manner, telling his story of mental breakdown along the way. It is a sad tale (like many artists unfortunately) and really it is thanks to his brother’s wife that Van Gogh achieved the posthumous fame he did.

Some of the major works of Vincent’s appeared to be missing from the walls of the main collection, and that was because they had been moved into one of the temporary exhibition spaces in the museum. Why? Luckily for me, there was a temporary exhibition in its last weeks of Munch / Van Gogh! Score!

Munch is a favourite of mine and I have been fortunate to visit the Munch Museum in Oslo, as well as see visiting exhibitions in Melbourne and Helsinki. This was another chance to see his works in the flesh.

The exhibition was designed to draw parallels to the two artists which, when looking side by side, become quite clear. Many of the Munch paintings I had seen before, either in Oslo or in Melbourne. But it is a thrill to be greeted again by a pastel Scream, a Vampire, a Madonna, and the Dance of Life. We wandered through, and given we have museum passes, I see me popping in a agin before our time is up here in Amsterdam.

 

 

On the way out we said goodbye to Donald Duck. We were allowed to take photos of this guy 🙂

Kate was up for a break, but I was still in museum mode, so I wandered into the Stedelijk Museum, otherwise known as the modern art and design museum. These kinds of museums are not really Kate’s thing, so I took the opportunity to pay it a visit.

 

 

Like every other modern art museum I have written about, it was a love/hate thing. I love to see some of the work of the more modern masters… Van Gogh was again present, but also the other Dutch modern figurehead, Piet Mondrian.

 

 

 

 

While everyone can pick a Mondrian from a mile away (those lines and colours are a little bit of a giveaway), it is great to see a piece of an artists work that is totally not what you expect. The windmill above was also by Mondrian and is a good example to show when people wonder if some modern artists can actually paint.

 

 

One painting that jumped out was this one by Anna Boch. The name didn’t really jump out at me, and I can’t recall having seen much of her work in other places. But this was just gorgeous. I will have to read up on my fringe impressionists by the look of it.

 

 

The rest of the gallery was the usual mix of great modern works (I LOVE this Man Ray photo, above), and many head scratching moments.

The main head scratching was when I entered two large, empty rooms. In the first, I wandered through when an old man started walking along side me, chanting in Dutch (I assume). As I kept walking, smiling at him, and when I got to the exit, he said what sounded like a title and date, as if that was the name of the piece, and then wandered off to the next unsuspecting people. Hhhmmm!

 

 

The next room was also large and empty, except for three people. Two were on their knees facing toward a younger girl who was VERY slowly moving about. A small crowd was transfixed by what was going on. I can’t claim to understand. On the wall was actually a card indicating a title and the date acquired. Was this the piece? I was confused (not a bad thing when visiting these places).

It was almost closing time so I wandered back to the hotel. Kate and I weren’t necessarily up for a fancy Christmas dinner, so we decided to visit another museum, but one a little less serious…

 

 

Amsterdam is known for a lot of things, some high brow, and some not so much. It was time to indulge in some of the lower-brow with a trip to the Heineken Experience! Ha! I had visited 15 years ago and remembered a kitschy trip through the Heineken history with the promise of beers at the end. While some of the exhibits had changed a bit, it was still what I remembered… a kitschy but kinda fun way to get people to not simply race to the end to start drinking.

 

 

 

As such we wandered through the exhibit, stopping at every cheesy photo stop we could. Sure we learned about the company and the beer making process, but it was the cheesiness of it that made it fun. If you want serious, there is Museumplein. But we were up for a giggle and this was alright.

 

 

We got to one point in the tour when greeted by a bartender who poured us each a beer and guided us through what apparently makes Heineken so different and special. The head, the way the bubbles float, and the colour. When a question was thrown out there about the colour, Kate answered and boo-yah! Another beer coming our way! Nice work Kate! You can see the spoils of her victory above, which ended up being my spoils given her distaste for beer. We were both winners 🙂

 

 

 

 

We reached a football zone where we could indulge in Heinekens sponsorship of the Champions League tournament with lots of goofball photos. Why not we said!

 

 

Along the way there were some other activities. Have you ever wanted to feel like you’re a beer? Of course you have! So why not jump on their pretty lame beer ride! That is being a bit harsh, as it is not really a ride, rather a little bit of an experience of being bumped around, a little wet, and shaken up. Everyone giggled.

 

 

The other was to try out your expertise at the perfect pour. Kate was not too bad, I was a little better, but neither of us could perfect it. I’m happy to leave it to the professionals.

 

 

With that we reached the end of the tour. Two beers awaited us each at the end, meaning by the time Kate got a soft drink I had an extra one. I opted to try out their “extra cold” too, which in the end was a colder, slightly less flavoursome, version of their normal beer. But tasty regardless.

 

 

Job done. 8pm, a few beers under my belt, and we had to find some dinner. Rather than wander aimlessly trying to find something that had space, we visited the Hard Rock that was just across from our hotel. You can always count on them to deliver a tasty burger and this was the case again, with my strange seasonal burger (with goats cheese and apple amongst other things) being pretty delicious. We some celebratory Magical Mystery Mojitos under our belt as well, it was a Merry Christmas all round.

 

Amsterdam! A new city for Kate and like Berlin, a place I had not been in 15 years. Last time was also a whistle-stop visit, so having a week here this time was something I was really looking forward to. Unlike Berlin, we felt we would be a little less rushed here too which would be cool.

So where should we start? Why not orient ourselves by hitting the Amsterdam streets? Good idea! To do that properly though you also have to hit those other “streets” of Amsterdam… the canals! So off we headed, wandering the streets back towards the main train station where most the canal boats departed from too.

 

 

Around Amsterdam is a bit of cool street art and on our first day I was lucky to walk by and notice a Faile! Yes! I had seen this image before as one of their screenprints so it was cool to see it in the flesh direct from the crew themselves. And don’t worry… it was not just slap bang on a building, rather in a discreet location. Very cool.

 

 

We reached the main station area and I saw a glorious sight. A massive multi-story parking lot. A parking lot? Yep! But for bikes! So great to be in a city where bikes are what you have to worry about rather than cars. And boy do you have to keep an eye out. Many many times Kate or I would squeeze the others hand as a “woah there! watch out!” when walking.

There were a few canal cruise boats to choose from that were all pretty similar so we jumped on one and headed off on tour with Captain Louie. Captain Louie was a very affable Dutch dude who delighted in talking about himself in the 3rd person which made me laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the next hour and a bit we saw the sights of Amsterdam from water level. Lots of canals that blended into each other a bit, but past all the sights like the opera house, Rembrandt’s House, the Hermitage, amongst others. It was good to get a bit of an idea of the layout (although I got a bit disoriented to be honest) and just start to experience the city. It was a delight to see all the narrow houses lining the canals, a stark difference from the streets of Paris and Berlin.

With a number of museums to experience in the city as well, we decided to get a museum card that would let us get into almost all the museums in the city and let us do it at our leisure over the next week (actually the next year if we wanted to!). Because of that we decided to visit bits of the museums at a time to not get overwhelmed by it all. So we decided to start at the biggest.

 

 

The Rijksmuseum is one of the most important museums in the world. While it houses art from all over the globe, given the importance of Dutch work, that is obviously where its focus lies and how it establishes itself as one of the key museums of the world.

We decided just to visit some of the more important works to ease into it, so it was off to the second floor to visit some Dutch masters. And that means Rembrandt and Vermeer (amongst others).

 

 

There were three gorgeous Vermeers in the collection. While Kate like The Milkmaid, was drawn to the Woman In Blue Reading A Letter (and even The Love Letter was just exquisite too).

 

 

The Rembrandts were another highlight. I had seen a bunch of his work in the past, but here there seemed to be works of a different nature that I hadn’t associated with his style. The large one above in particular was incredible… the colours just beautiful and a style I hadn’t seen from the Dutch master before.

 

 

Kate was also happy to chance upon some Delft pieces in the collection too. I forsee quite a bit of Delft-ware in our future, so stay tuned.

The museum had hit closing time so we decided to rest a little at the hotel. While chilling we decided to investigate visiting the Anne Frank house, and as it turned out we could book ourselves some tickets for the late night visit later on that evening. Why not?! Given it is one of the most popular places to visit in the city and waiting to get in can be hours we decided to take that opportunity.

So off we headed to visit the historic house. It was nice to arrive and not be greeted with hoards of tourists, rather only those select few that had pre-booked. So we were able to enjoy (I use that term a bit loosely here) it without being shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others.

There are no photos allowed in the museum. While I clearly like taking pics in the places we go, I also don’t mind when we can’t. Here I think it is respectful but also keeps people moving along, especially important when dealing with the narrow staircases and small rooms.

The museum is the house/warehouse where the Frank family as well as 4 others hid during WW2. They were in hiding for about 2 years before eventually being ratted out by person/s unknown. Using Anne’s diary as the narrative to pull it all together it is one of those places that you are experiencing but then it will hit you what REALLY was going down in the places you are standing. Things like this have an element of the surreal about them… no matter how much you read or see, it is sometimes difficult to wrap your head around everything that took place.

 

 

We finished up at about closing time and took the casual stroll back to our hotel, enjoying the almost full moon guiding us along.

 

 

We were a bit peckish so took an easy option for some food… Maccas. I like to give it a go in each country and eat whatever is different on the menu. So here? McCroquet! It was fine… just what you think a croquet in a bun would taste like.

So that was the first full day in Amsterdam. Canals, Rembrandt and Vermeer, Anne Frank and McCroquets. Ha.