Some of the hightlights...
Van Gogh Museum
Amazing! What a prolific artist. You really realize when seeing so many of his works together how versatile he was. He changed styles continuously throughout his career. I also appreciated seeing how much his style changed once he moved to France. There was a series of paintings describing how much his colour palette changed. And he was untrained! The number of paintings he produced in such a short time was unbelievable, and we both left feeling like we had some catching up to do.
Anne Frank House
Moving. And well worth the wait in line. This museum chronicles the period that Anne and her family, along with four others spent hiding in the upstairs annexe of her father’s business. Quotes from the book displayed on the wall really brought the situation to life. Neither of us had read the book before, and I'm now halfway through it, and wow. It's even more powerful being able to visualize the space and the people.
The city itself.
Neither of us had any idea how great this city would be. It had never been on my list of places to go, but now I'm imagining us going there for long weekends....it's the same amount of travel time as we would do between Toronto and Ottawa. My first impression of Amsterdam as we left the train station was that we were about ten years too old to appreciate the city. We got in around noon, and the streets were swarming with the 'I'm backpacking around Europe before starting university' types who looked like they'd just rolled out of bed (or been kicked out of their hostel), and were looking for a quick greasy meal to soothe their stomachs after a wild night on the town. However, the farther away you get from the red light district, the more laid back the city gets. The city centre is ringed with canals, with many of the buildings facing out over the water. We spent a good part of our time there hopping from one patio to another. The weather was great while we were there, and the canals were packed with all sizes of boats as people cruised around the city. We couldn’t figure out why this isn’t done on the Seine…
There's a concert going on in the middle of all the boats
(blurry, I know...)We also had a great meal at De Kas, a restaurant basically inside a greenhouse that serves mostly locally grown/raised foods. Our waiter warned us that our duck main course might have bullet shards in it....not a very appetizing description, but the fact that it was wrapped in bacon and then barbequed made us forget about all that! Delicious! Erik also appreciated the solar panels.
We of course visited the Heineken Experience, which I think Erik enjoyed more than I did. It's not that there was anything wrong, but I couldn't get past the fact that a brewery tour could cost more than the Van Gogh museum.
We spent a morning walking around the Jordaan neighbourhood. It was full of markets and cute stores. Had a nice tapas lunch.
Our hotel was pretty cool too, not bad for a Radisson.
After visiting the Resistance Museum (excellent, if poorly displayed, and incredibly dense) we stopped on a bridge and had drinks while watching the continual parade of boaters.
On Sunday afternoon we hopped on the train and headed out to Utrecht, a small university town where Erik's conference was being held. Utrecht was a great little town, kind of like a miniature Amsterdam, with the same great canals and architechture, but minus the hoards of tourists. Not that there's anything wrong with tourists. I'm happy to be one, and I'm getting used to the Paris lovers in our neighbourhood. But I can appreciate their absence.
We had tapas canal-side, and once again, watched the boats. We saw a couple that were set for little dinner parties or barbeques. We'll look into that next time.
Walking back to the hotel, I saw this door to nowhere. And this:
I'll take one, please.
Getting back to Paris was a bit less fun (remember the lady on the TGV to Basel who was complaining about how slow the train was going? Hah! That was me this time!!!). First of all, the train station in Amsterdam is completely devoid of any signage to tell you what track your train is on. I finally found an info counter, with a long line of people, all asking the same question. The two ladies 'manning' it had just turned their screens around, and so when each person asked what track their train was on, they'd just point. So I get 'directed' to my track, which has a sign advertising the arrival of another train. There was another poor employee on the track, whose sole purpose, as far as I could tell, was to deal with all the people, who like me, wanted to make sure they were in the right place. Because, you know, the train is supposed to LEAVE in five minutes and hasn't arrived yet, and the sign says something else. Yes, we were in fact in the right spot, and the train did arrive, pulled out of the station five minutes late, made an 'exceptional' stop in Utrecht (where I'd come from much earlier that morning) then pulled out of the station and stopped. We sat on the tracks for at least 45 minutes before continuing our journey VERY SLOWLY. The Thalys is supposed to be a fast train. I could have walked faster.
I'm on a roll today! Don't even get me started on the post office....
Anyway, we were only gone for three days, same as Brussels, and I was still surprised how long it felt like we'd been gone. It's so nice just to get out of Paris, and see something different.
The Happy Travelers
