Postcards from Emily and Gloria
Heart of Belgium and Holland in 11 Days
Amsterdam
Our second-to-last full day on the tour began with a tour through the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, ending at the Anne Frank house. The Jordaan was originally built in the early 17th century as a place for immigrants and working-class people to live. There was a large Jewish population that came to the area, and no one is truly sure if Jordaan is named for the Jordan river in Jordan and Israel, or the French word 'jardin' meaning garden. The Anne Frank house does not allow photos inside, so for that, we'll have to paint a picture with words instead of color. Our group split into two smaller groups, half of us going with one local guide, half with another.
In front of the town hall (left), our guide talked about the sandy foundations that Amsterdam was built on. Most buildings built before the 1920s were built by pounding large
wooden pilings into
the sand, then
building the stone
foundation on top
of those. However
with time, those
wooden beams can
deteriorate and the
buildings can sink!
I'm not a perfect journal-keeper by any means. Sometimes I remember to write down details I want to remember, sometimes I don't! I wish I had written our local guide's name down here, because he was so animated and informative. Learn from my mistakes here, friends: don't wait until the end of the day to write things down, take a note in your phone if you need to!
The shop window below belongs to "Electric Ladyland: The First Museum of Florescent Art". We stopped outside during our Jordaan walk, and our guide told us a little about Rick visiting here personally. Remember when I told you to embrace the weird? Here's a good opportunity!
I don't know why the cows are a thing, but they were so neat!
I can't explain the ducks either, but there were a few of these little places! I've never seen so many different kinds of rubber ducks in one place.
This is the Anne Frank memorial. It's small, and easy to miss, but the simplicity feels impactful. It's almost a metaphor for Anne herself: young, hidden away, not easy to find... but deeply impactful for many people.
If it weren't for the people gathering around, it would be fairly easy to miss the Anne Frank House. The exterior is pretty sleek and made of glass, forming a modern museum next to the preserved house and annex which look much like they did during Anne's time.
What do you do when both sides of a thing are cool? Make sure you can see both!
The church on the right is the Westerkerk. Construction began in 1620 (so basically like new!), and it was the "first largest" Protestant church in the world. Rembrandt is buried here, and the tower of the church is mentioned in Anne Frank's diary. To the left here is a little cheese store. The thing I found the funniest about this unique little place is that it is built right into the side of the Westerkerk. It feels like the church mice went into business!
Our last stop with the local guide was at the Anne Frank House for our timed entry. The lines were long, and we observed a man trying to get tickets, only to be told that they'd been sold out for several days. But since we were with our Rick Steves tour, all of that had been taken care of a long time ago, and we were able to almost go right in when our time slot came! Nico met up with the groups as we reconvened - instead of joining us on the walking tour, he had gone to get us a special treat. According to him, the cookies from Van Stapele Koekmakerij are made by a single lady who usually sells out in under three hours. She only makes one kind, and people will line up for hours to get them. The cookies are chocolate, with white chocolate cream stuffed inside. And he saved one of the boxes for me to add to my journal, so I made the top of it into a fold-out! We enjoyed our cookie break, then entered the Anne Frank House - a stark change of tone. Amsterdam is a city best known for hard-partying ways, but this museum is a reminder of the other side of the city's past. We don't often think about Jewish persecution in the Netherlands specifically, even during the Nazi expansion in the 1930s and 40s, but they were here, and real people suffered. The inside of the Secret Annex is quite tight, with steep stairs (people with mobility or knee problems take caution!), and it's hard to imagine two entire families staying there in complete silence most of their days.
TRAVEL TIP
Rick wrote a book entitled "Travel as a Political Act". Approach travel thoughtfully, as he puts it, and you'll come home with a richer understanding for your fellow man.
With our afternoon free for the rest of the day, Mom and I decided to go do a little more walking around Rembrandt square and the streets between our hotel and the Red Light district, although we didn't get quite to the district itself. We had to get some pretty photos of the city for Mom's "followers"!
Mom has crocheted for most of her life, and is teaching herself how to knit. We try sometimes to find yarn stores on our trips, to bring back a little skein of something different. What would you call that knitted bike cover - a bicycle cozy?
There were window boxes of violets along some of the canals, and the colors were so pretty against the greenish canal waters.
Wish you were here!
We grabbed an early dinner after wandering around Amsterdam until the early evening, and headed back to the hotel while there was still a little light left - and had a coffee by the windows of the hotel lounge while we watched students come and go from part of the University of Amsterdam - and I finished up the postcard for Nico!
The Last Day...
Welcome to the last full day of our tour! We had a day earlier that was all about water, and today was all about art. The group took the city train from the hotel towards the part of Amsterdam built outside of the concentric rings of canals, to the aptly-named Museumplein. If you're an art lover, or a fan of museums in general, then you want to come here! From the Rijksmuseum at the head of the park, to the MOCO Museum of surrealist and modern art, the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum of contemporary art and design, and the Diamant Museum, there's enough here to keep you busy for several days. We started at the Rijksmuseum to see the works of Rembrandt among other Dutch masters, and then we had free time until our farewell dinner. As a lover of Van Gogh, I was particularly interested in going to the Van Gogh museum, which is just across the park from the "Rijks". Sadly my favorite of his works, Starry Night, is on display at the MOMA in New York City and not here in the Van Gogh Museum, but I love so many others of his painting that there was plenty to see. So Mom and I went to see the Van Gogh museum, while Lori and a few other members of our group continued in the Rijksmuseum to see the Vermeer exhibit.
The Rijksmuseum
The modern, sunny atrium of the Rijksmuseum.
Rembrandt's famous painting, "The Night Watch". We had to see the painting from behind glass, as it's currently in the process of being restored. You can see the little laser-robot that is working on it in the corner there, and the exposed canvas being stretched on a frame before it is given a decorative frame again.
These two, also painted by Rembrandt, are portraits of newlyweds. Both paintings before being in the Rijks were displayed in a private bedroom in Paris, belonging to Éric de Rothschild. The man on the left really reminds me of Oliver Platt in the 1993 The Three Musketeers for some reason, but I love that movie so it's a
good thing!
TRAVEL TIP
If you enjoy art museums, book ahead for special exhibits you might want to see, and leave enough time to explore at your own pace. The last thing you want to do is feel rushed to hit the highlights before running off to the next thing.
But now we were through with the Dutch masters... and moving on to the brighter palette of Vincent Van Gogh (pronounced correctly as van hoch, like the scottish loch, Nico taught us). I'll try to not include every painting even though I love them all!
Check out the size of this miniature ship! Compared to the real thing it might be miniature, but compared to us it surely isn't!
This cheese looks so real that I want to take a bite out of it. Even though this sort of dark, rich color palette that the Dutch masters seem to favor is not my personal favorite, I have to be in awe of the skill they showed in making something so mundane look so vivid.
This room was in total silence. It is full of books on art history and other topics, and is called the Cuypers Library. Apparently, it is the largest and oldest art history library in the Netherlands; visitors, students, and art historians are all welcome to use the library, including the books and available iPads, to delve into the collection.
“Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses.”
― Rembrandt Van Rijn
This swan looks very angry, but the light coming through the feathers and the dynamic pose really made me enjoy this painting when I didn't expect to.