A Day Visiting Vincent Van Gogh and then A Morning At the Royal Palace

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We had an early morning at the Van Gogh Museum, at least early morning for us at 10 am. It is about a ½ hour walk which meant leaving at 9:30. We really had to wake up early, by 7:30 am. OMG.

We went thru 2 of the 3 floors of the museum by probably 1pm and were tired and hungry. As it turns out the café isn’t open yet, due to Covid so we went down to the entry and got a coffee from the kiosk. It was easy and the coffee filled our belly’s.

But the coffee kiosk is by the store so of course we had to visit that. After buying things like an umbrella and a silk scarf for me we sat and had another cup of coffee. Finally, we got up and started the tour over. There were so many paintings to take photos of.

I have this idea to print up small photos and make a collage but am not sure how the photos will turn out. But I love Van Gogh, have since forever, so it was so amazing to be in his presence.

It is difficult to write about art museums, I just don’t have words to describe most of it to convey what I see. Also, there are just too many paintings to write about so I’m attaching a link instead.

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en

But basically, the museum is divided up into years. The 1^st floor contains lots of his self-portraits. It struck me how his eyes are full of anguish, a haunted look. The 2^nd are the middle years and the 3^rd his last year, with the last painting being the one that he was working on just before shooting himself. Apparently, the paint had not dried, but it was striking that it was of tangled up tree roots.

Thank goodness, his sister-in-law had her wits about her and only sold a few paintings. His nephew kept the collection together so that we could enjoy it today.

As we are nearing the end of our stay in Amsterdam, we are starting to feel the heat to get lots done: eat our favorite foods, drink our favorite drinks, see our favorite places.

But for the next day, we did have tickets to see the Royal Palace. Fortunately, those tickets were not early so we could sleep in, since we don’t go to bed until well after midnight.

The Royal Palace was interesting, but we didn’t see the King or Queen. Why? I have no idea! But the palace is still decorated from the time of Napoleon, and the heavy French baroque stuff. It was a City Hall before Napoleon came along but he decided that it would make a great palace and there you have it.

https://www.paleisamsterdam.nl/en/

It is always fun to see the balcony where the royalty steps out on to great the masses and rooms where they entertain other heads of state. Also, when this was a City Hall, in Rembrandt’s time, it is where he went to settle his alimony suit with his mistress and where he filed bankruptcy.

We were quite cold after the tour so popped into the New Church Café for a bowl of soup and coffee. The steaming hot tomato soup warmed us so that we could walk to get our Covid Testing, this is required to return to the US.

I’d wanted to go for one more friets but had to realize that then I’d be too full for another meal at the Mediterranean restaurant. Oh, the choices we must make!

We had our tests done and what is nice is that here in the Netherlands there is no charge. Quite a change from other EU countries.

Anyway, we quite forgot about our tests and to check to make sure that we got the results. Off we went for pre-dinner drinks at the Lockkeepers house and then dinner.

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