Tag: Amsterdam

Around Amsterdam

I did some walking around Amsterdam after the museum. It’s such a unique city.

A beautiful canal.
I used to collect little houses like this.
The beautiful interior of the Rijksmuseum.
Cheese for tourists.
I had some famous Amsterdam pea soup. It was very good.
They have crepes that are thicker than those in France. I got one with Nutella on it. It was too rich for me to finish but very good. The guy next to me had M&Ms added to his. There were huge waffles all over the place too, and pancakes.

Art

After the Vermeer exhibit, I went into the rest of the museum which is wonderful. I was here many years ago.

It’s famous for having The Night Watch by Rembrandt. My memory from seeing it over fifty years ago was of it being in a small room, not at the end of a huge hall. I asked a man there if it had always been in this location and he said yes, as it was right by an emergency exit if ever need. This is a photo of a copy of the original as it is being restored as you can see by the next photo.
There is a platform in front of it for work. If I had been two months earlier it wouldn’t have been there but on its front as they took out nails and did what was required before it was turned over.
Also by Rembrandt.
These as well.
They have a fabulous library there too.
A pretty lamp seen at night through a hand blown glass window somewhere in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam

I love the architecture seen in Amsterdam. We did a canal boat tour on a wonderful sunny day and saw many examples of it.


Just one of many. All of them have beam sticking out at the top with hooks so furniture and other heavy objects can be pulled up to windows. Most of the houses are very narrow as they were charged more taxes if they were wide so they built up and back with rooms going deep.


A shot of a line up of bridges. There are over 100 canals and 100 bridges in Amsterdam. Also, even though there are a lot of barriers, an average of one car a week ends up in the water.


Some more architecture. As you can see, there are bikes parked everywhere. There were a few cars parked too.


We took a tour through the red light district. There were women sitting or standing behind windows available for business even in the afternoon. I wanted a photo of one but just didn’t feel comfortable doing it and I think they wouldn’t have liked it anyway. Most of them looked young and attractive to me. I guess they closed the curtain if a man came in.


There were several “museums” about marijuana there. I know it’s supposed to be easy to buy and it’s legal. I saw some young people sitting around really stoned.

Amsterdam and Beyond

My son had some business in the Netherlands, a city called Utrecht in particular, which I had never heard of. We made a quick trip there by train for a visit and a little exploration.


Utrecht does’t have many canals like Amsterdam, just one big one which makes a circle through the city. It’s pretty far below the level of the streets.


A little reflection from the setting sun.


Here is a view from our hotel room where you can see just some of the many bicycles. There were very few cars in the city, just some buses and thousands of bikes. Utrecht is a university city with lots of young people. We could sit in the cafe on the ground floor and watch them zoom by on bikes especially around 8 AM, on the way to school or work. Some women had two kids either in a cart in front of them or one in back and one in front, or you would see a mother on her bike holding the shoulder of a child on his bike next to her. Even people holding hands. I really had to watch out on the streets so I didn’t get hit. The streets seemed devoted to people on bikes with special crossings for them at lights and lanes everywhere. At the train station there were thousands of bikes in two level parking metal frames. I didn’t see one person wearing a helmet.


The next day we went to Amsterdam by train which took about twenty minutes to go to the Van Gogh Museum which was really good. It was really interesting to see Van Gogh’s beginning paintings and how he progressed. So sad he died so young. No photos were allowed so this is from a poster, a self-portrait, of which he did many since he couldn’t afford to pay models.


There was also an exhibit of paintings and prints done of prostitutes in Paris, around the time of Toulouse Lautrec. There’s a whole history of that time in Paris. Most of the women, if not in houses, were on the streets dressing “normally”, becoming street walkers. Toulouse Lautrec made friends with them and did many drawings of them. Degas did many paintings mostly of ballet dancers many of whom did a little business on the side. Men could come into the Garnier and watch them during rehearsals. It was an interesting display. There were a few photos, etc., that were risqué as you might think. I was especially taken with this bed set in a red room. I couldn’t find information on it but I assume it must have been used by a courtesan, well known women who were highly paid.