Despite our taxi driver trying to install us on a houseboat on a canal in Amsterdam, we eventually and collectively worked out that our accommodation was facing the canal rather than on it! It was a delight to stumble through the few steps of cold and rain to be greeted by a blazing fire and the smiling faces of the young women working the desk at the amazing "apart-hotel", The Wittenberg. After a fullish day being jettisoned across Belgium and The Netherlands from our old home base of Ghent, this home away from home was just what we'd hoped for.
We were obviously the first guests to stay in our apartment, price tags and guarantee flyers still on products. It had designer furniture, a huge comfortable bed and a fully equipped kitchen (which we were determined not to use too much!), along with a slick bathroom and the latest electronics. Cass had picked it from a myriad of options based on a few photos and a description....brilliant call! We took the desk girl's recommendation and ventured out in the early evening to a nearby restaurant, Cafe de Plantage and it was upmarket and housed in a regal old restored building. Despite the majesty of these offerings, little did we know we'd be bewitched by the spell of two nearby Italian style restaurants, so much so that we would eat in one or the other four times during our stay!
Our first wander in the neighbourhood alerted us to a unique issue associated with the streets of Amsterdam. Unlike other cities around the world, here the bike is king. He rules with arrogance and entitlement and has had a long reign. An imperial decree has allowed him dedicated pathways across the entire city and, in fact, the whole country. Unfortunately, the non-regal peasants co-existing in this city are afforded lesser rights: Bikes whiz and fly with barely a tinkle of their bells, and cars and pedestrians need beware. Even the vice-regal cousins in this city, the trams, have to bow to the status of their king. We're big, big supporters of this monarchy of course, but we did nearly get skittled a number of times!
On our first full day, we wandered the grid of canals in the bottom half of the city to get our bearings along with visiting Rembrandt House to view the great man's works in situ as well as experience how he lived and worked. It was fascinating blend of the restored house and a blended gallery which had a good feel and flow. Onward to "Katten Kabinet" on an inner canal, where an eccentric collector has thrown open his doors to visitors in order to view his collection of paintings, sculptures and curiosities all related in some way to cats: as you can imagine, Cass loved it, especially patting the resident cats luxuriating on and around the central heating. I demurred on the delights of The Bag and Purse Museum while Cass toured, but I found myself a comfy chair near the gift-shop and people watched as well as eavesdropped on the twittering clerks using their slightly discordant native tongue.
We were also unprepared for the sheer majesty of the artistic offerings and great museums which housed them. Centered around a relatively small quadrant in the southern area of the main city canal links these galleries were quite astounding. Like the huge edifices of all major European cities, they stored works of import and gravitas, attractions and magnets in their own right, apart from the thousands of other quality pieces. While fresh, we thought we'd attack the vast marble chambers of the Rijksmuseum and it was a treasure trove of Dutch masters and other European stars who were their contemporaries. We walked and admired, walked and pondered, walked and reflected and pretty much just walked. My phone step tracker had us walking over 10 kms each day, most of that withing the walls of galleries and museums. On another day, we drank our fill of contemporary art at the nearly indescribable Stedelijk Museum. The modern building's interiors soared and impressed and the basement start to the journey was just out of this world. Masterpiece upon masterpiece spanned out across, between and along each wall. It was a breathless experience to stand in the middle of the room as we picked out and identified 5 or 6 artist's works, only to have our guesses confirmed as we checked the badges in turn. Picasso and Matisse, Chagall and Mondrian, Lichtenstein and Monet, a brushstroke of excellence, or a pastiche of one, around every cleverly laid-out corner or false wall. All this "hard arting" was very exhausting, so at the end of the day, we'd often retreat to our special little corner of the city to re-fuel at a wonderful restaurant. We couldn't split the two little Italian style eateries near The Wittenberg: their menus almost replicated each other, and we only alternated between them as we were too embarrassed to go there on consecutive nights! One was Palorma and the other La Roma. Check this menu.
Not massive fans of the organised tour, we had relented on this one to get a little taste beyond the city of some of the other famous delights of Holland. We'd planned a day tour to visit windmills, cheese factories, clog making shops and a boat trip beside to visit Volandam. The trip was pretty touristy, but we expected that so tried to "go along for the ride". After catching a tram early morning into the main station, we met up with our crew and the slightly annoying Adrian, the guide, and we were herded onto a large bus for further fun. Despite some droning patter, we learned some intriguing facts about The Netherlands as a country and its necessary obsession with water and the constant pumping to keep it afloat and not let the North Sea just take over. The inside of the working mills was fascinating, and even the demonstrations at the clog factory and cheese factory with the obligatory chicane straight through the expansive gift shops, tolerable, and we ended up having a reasonable day which included a ferry ride across to the tourist fishing village of Volendam and a delicious lunch of local fish and chips.
We tried to get into the Van Gogh Museum, but the near three hour wait in the line deterred us. We managed to secure some tickets for our very last afternoon. We'd booked online weeks ago at the Anne Frank House and experienced similar traffic. Now our last day would be jam-packed: Van Gogh, then a dash across the city to catch our 7.30 p.m. deadline at Anne Frank! Meanwhile we managed lots of other adventures! One rainy morning we ducked into a quaint cafe in a park to have our best coffee of the trip along with a light lunch. The Museumplein square was very touristy, but we managed to find a superb Indian restaurant in a back alley off the square which filled us up with warm and hearty familiar fare. Of course, Amsterdam and diamonds go hand in hand, so it was inevitable we visited the Diamond Museum. It ended up being quite fascinating, housing, among other treasures, a million euro diamond encrusted tennis racquet and a diamond covered gorilla skull (see video above). And no, I don't know why!
Possibly the greatest find of all which we stumbled upon only because we saw a queue snaking from its door, was the MOCO. Great swathes of giant Lichtenstein canvases assaulted us as soon as we walked in the doors. There were iconic masterpieces from the 60s as well as more recent works. The British graffiti and political artist Banksy was the other featured artist, partly famous because of his unknown identity but mostly because of his simple but incisive political commentary, many of his works had been removed from London streets, or chiseled off walls. There were bollards and witches-hats, sections of brick walls and metal signs, all emblazoned with iconic symbolism. We also managed to sneak in a little high end shopping, where someone bought a very special belt as well as dashing through the red light district in the early evening drizzle, still managing to spot a few of Amsterdam's infamous window girls advertising their wares.
We were to finish our time off in a flurry, as indicated previously. Our skip-the-line tickets saw us ushered in early to our time slot in the Van Gogh museum and each floor and room was a sight to behold. We've seen various renditions of some of his most famous subjects like the sunflowers, the irises and his own face in many galleries around the world, and these particular paintings were not in evidence. What was, however was the greatest concentration of his work that has ever been assembled, and to say it is incandescent is an understatement. Along with versions of his familiar themes were other earlier and later paintings along with etchings and some of the actual items he painted displayed alongside the completed works: fascinating. As always, the crowds of people were suffocating, but we were about to experience an even deeper claustrophobia as we entered the house of the famous Dutch Holocaust victims, Anne Frank and family. After a flying tram ride across town and some quick GPS navigating, we made our appointment with some minutes to spare. It was at times uplifting and at other times quite depressing as we trod the halls, climbed the staircases and stooped behind the moving bookcase to Anne's hidden world. The museum and house have been tastefully fitted-out and lovingly maintained respectively, so despite the large numbers of people traipsing through, everyone was able to see clearly and understand the fear of these families as they huddled in their tiny hiding place for so long.
In some ways, this was a fitting end to our incredible holiday: along with our visit to WW1 battlefields, it had helped solidify in us a belief that we are very, very lucky in all sorts of ways. With this reinforced knowledge, we were happy to train, then plane, our way back to Taipei and work the following day with heads spinning full of awe and wonder.
Here is the link to the entire photo album.