Blogs from Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 4

“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” Anne Frank Considering what Anne Frank and her family, and hundreds of thousands of other Dutch Jews, went through during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, I’ve always thought it amazing that she still believed that people were good at heart. But more on that later. First, our flight and arrival in Amsterdam! We had uploaded our proofs of COVID vaccines prior to our flight, so our check in with KLM was a breeze. We spent a few enjoyable hours in the Plaza Premium lounge at the airport before our flight, enjoying drinks and snacks. We had quite a pleasant 9 hour flight to Amsterdam. They gave us lunch (KLM didn‘t have a record of my vegetarian meal ... read more

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 ... read more

Today was forecast to be sunny, no clouds and warm, a perfect day to spend outside. Of course, most of Amsterdam felt the same way but it wasn’t so crowded. After a leisurely breakfast we walked over to the botanical gardens, stopping to shoot photos on one bridge over a canal. The sun was so bright with people walking and biking every which way. The gardens are not on a large area but very efficiently planted. There are areas of evolution, and then categories of plants. The whole thing was started in 1638. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortus_Botanicus_(Amsterdam) If you know us well, you know that we can’t grow much of any kind of plant, even when we try. And what we know about plants we could write in 1 word, nothing. So, starting with this it was going to ... read more

We had a reservation for 10:30 a.m. at the Rijksmuseum. This museum is about a 30-minute walk from our hotel and has paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer and other Dutch Masters. Additionally, there are exhibits of furniture, silver objects and other things. It isn’t as large as the Louver in Paris but large enough to be too much for 1 day. It is interesting as there is a passageway thru the middle for bicycles and pedestrians to use to get to the other side instead of having to go all the way around. A café is on one side of the passageway and the entry is on the other with 2 stories above with the exhibits. We got to the museum at 10:30, entered with only a small bit of hassles when the tickets didn’t download until ... read more

We started at the Rembrandt house; this was the house that he lived in from 1639 to 1656 when he went bankrupt. The home is set up the way it was when he lived there. It was so amazing to see where he lived and how he lived. The items inside are not his but as close as possible to the same as there is a detailed inventory that exists from when he filed bankruptcy. https://www.rembrandthuis.nl/nl/ We spend an entire morning in the house, admiring the paintings done by Rembrandt’s pupils and his own etchings. We tried to find where he stood when painting, as there isn’t a mark in the flooring but we could only guess in the end. We love Rembrandt and are looking forward to seeing his paintings in the museum. For now, ... read more