The city has a lot to experience, but I’m going to write about my favorite places. The list includes the Anne Frank house, the Van Gogh museum, and tours of the city by bicycle and by boat. In addition, there are many popular places like the Royal Palace, the Heineken Factory, Rijksmuseum National Museum – places I didn’t go this trip. And I could also write a lot about the diversity of food, beverage and wide range of nationalities. But let’s start with my reflections on the Anne Frank house. (by the way, no photography is allowed inside). |
Another favorite attraction in Amsterdam for me is the Vincent Van Gogh museum. When Terry and I first came to the city years ago, we toured the museum along with my father who was working in Germany and came over for a few days. On this recent visit, Terry was under the weather for half of the time in Amsterdam so Sundance and I toured the museum alone. The museum has several floors and there’s a recent installment on the first floor that wasn’t here on my last visit. It’s a sound and light show – a sensory experience: “Van Gogh Dreams: A journey Into His Mind.” This is a narrative installation where visitors walk through rooms as a light show, auditory excerpts and 3-D pieces offer an interpretation of how Van Gogh’s mind functioned during a turbulent time in his life in Arles, a village in southern France. This was a period that had a major impact on Van Gogh both as an artist and as a person. Just one of the memorable aspects of this installation is the space featuring 900 hand-made glass sunflowers reminding visitors that Arles is where the artist painted his popular Sunflower painting. Of Arles he wrote “Under the blue sky, the orange, yellow, red patches of flowers take on an amazing brilliance, and in the limpid air there’s something happier and more suggestive of love than in the North.” I learned a lot about Vincent and his brother Theo in this museum as well as some of the artists that influenced Vincent. And recently we watched At Eternity’s Gate a film nominated for an Oscar for Willem Dafoe’s depiction of the tortured Vincent Van Gogh. (We found it in Redbox if you’re interested in seeing a well-crafted dramatization of the popular artist’s life.) The museum advises visitors buy tickets in advance online (19 Euros for adults, ages 18 and under are free). https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/plan-your-visit/ticket-price |
The first day we arrived in Amsterdam we took a canal cruise. Craig arranged for us to have a private tour, just the 7 of us on a beautiful boat with a personable captain who showed us the canal system, pointed out landmarks and served us champagne. The weather was delightful and it was nice to see all the folks enjoying life on the canals.
All in all, our time in Amsterdam was enjoyable, except for Terry not feeling well. We did a lot of walking, some biking, took the trams, ate a wide variety of foods (one night Sundance and I ate Ethiopian), even had dinner with a colleague from my Discovery Channel days (Paul King). We took advantage of the nice weather to be outdoors but also toured some museums, and we enjoyed just hanging out at the hostel (The Generator) that has a nice café with outdoor seating – a good place for a pint of Dutch beer. |