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| One of the canals |
Two of us arrived in Amsterdam after a not so
positive adventure transferring from American Airlines to British Airlines through
Heathrow. Although the airlines tell you that you can make your flight if you
have at least 90 minutes, this is not actually the case during high season. We
did make our plane, but our luggage did not. It showed up at our hotel a few
hours later, in good repair, so we were able to continue our adventures on a
more positive note. The lesson from this, plan for a two, or better yet, three
hour lay-over in Heathrow rather than sprinting through the airport and sweating
through internal security that does nothing in a hurry. You’ll arrive at your
destination a bit later, but without the anxiety of trying to make a connection
that could depend on the whim of a security person, bus driver, or gate clerk.
Amsterdam, and the area surrounding
the mouth of the Amstel River, has had a record of human habitation since about
2600 BCE. In that long time inhabitants have used the river as
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| Rijksmuseum |
a fishing area,
a place of commerce and a fruitful abode. However, it wasn’t until the 1300s
that fishermen built a bridge across the river. This bridge had locks that
turned the bridge into a dam that protected the villagers from floods. With
this more stable environment, the culture flourished giving rise to the arts including
poetry and drama; museums for the fine arts were built and painters flourished.
Visitors brought other forms of art and theaters were created to house operas,
ballets and finally musicals and vaudeville. By the 20th century,
Amsterdam had a strong entertainment culture that survived World War II and has
remained productive through today.
We’d chosen the Park Hotel because it was very
close to the two museums we had planned
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| Different types of gables |
to visit before we left Amsterdam for Maastricht.
Happily, it was also across the street from one of the several groups that take
tourists on guided canal tours. This was a great way to learn more about the traditional
architecture and orient ourselves to the geography of the city. The canals are
arranged in concentric half-circles with the original canals making up the
Canal Ring, a UNESCO designated World
Heritage Site. The area has some of the city’s most beautiful mansions,
draw bridges and lots of tour boats, ours included. All along the canals, the
houses are multi-storied, tall and skinny; evidently this is due to the fact
that houses are taxed by the amount of street frontage they require. The older
houses also have one of the six types of traditional gables that hide the
actual roof line. These include the ‘point’ (a simple triangular gable), the ‘cornice’
(a ledge running under the gable), the ‘step’ (a series of steps that make up
the sides of a point gable), the ‘bell’ (yes, it looks like a bell), the ‘spout’
(a rectangle at the top of the gable replacing the point), and the ‘neck’ (a rectangular
piece with rounded sides at the bottom called shoulders). Many of these gables
have a pulley system at their apex with a hook attached to the rope. Since the
buildings were so narrow, so were their staircases. This prevented moving
furniture from the street level to one of the upstairs rooms; whatever the
owners wanted moved had to be lifted by the pulley and brought in through a
window. There are also a lot of people living in house boats along the canals.
Our guide told us that this used to be an economical way to live in Amsterdam;
now the areas where you tie your boat
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Top L to R: Canal, decorated boat
Bottom: House boat |
can cost as much as €100,000 and are
handed down through families just as the houses are! Our trip on the canals took us
out into the mouth of the river and past the Amsterdam Central Train
Station with its Neo-Renaissance architecture. Each of the canals has its own story to add to
the history of the city and it would take quite a while to explore each of the districts
that these canals serve. We decided to spend most of our visit in the Museum
Quarter. The area contains the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum, plus the Vondelpark.
The Van Gogh Museum, created by the
nephew of the celebrated artist, was
both smaller and more complex than I had
imagined. The paintings I was most familiar with, The
Church at Auvers, Irises and Starry Night
are not housed in this museum. However, the museum is full of paintings,
sketches, and drawings that I (a science major with not one art course to my
credit) had never heard about, but was delighted to see. I found Van Gogh's self-portraits fascinating and the
information about his mental issues touching. This information raised the
question that if Van Gogh was around today and took the medication that is
now available, would he be as amazing an artist or would the drugs dull that ability. And if they did, which would he choose: his sanity or
his art. One of my favorite paintings displayed at the museum was his Blossoming
Almond Tree that he painted for his brother’s new baby; the boy who would
grow up to establish the Van Gogh Museum. Of course, I also like Landscape with Rabbits.
After spending time with Van Gogh, we went to
the Rijksmuseum for a commune with Rembrandt. The museum began as a part of The
Hague in 1800 but moved to the Royal
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Top L to R: Rembrandt, Rembrandt's son
Bottom L to R: Rembrandt, Work by Bruegel |
Palace in Amsterdam eight years later,
then finally to the Trippenhuis. In the late 19th Century, the
collection was moved into its current Neo-Gothic building. However, while the
collection has remained in the building, the structure underwent a ten-year
renovation in 2003, reopening the main building only a couple of years ago.
This building is magnificent, if confusing. Even with a map, we ended up outside
and had to rely on the kindness of a guard to let us back in and walk us
to the area we were trying to find. The collection includes many of Rembrandt’s
works including his painting of his son as a monk and several self-portraits.
His jaw-dropping piece, The Night Watch,
fills an entire wall and is every bit as impressive up close as it is from the
end of the hallway. There are some 8000 pieces in the Rijksmuseum, so seeing
the entire museum in one day was more than we could do. However, we did take a
look at some Flemish Primitive paintings that were very interesting because of
their attention to detail but their almost flat look. My favorite painters were
Jan van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch; Barb really liked Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s
work.
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| Miffy by various artists |
In the park that links the Rijksmuseum with the Van
Gogh Museum are all sorts of places to sit and look at yet more art. I was
thoroughly delighted that the display when we were there was celebrating the 60
years of Miffy with the Nijntje Art Parade. I loved these giant statues of
Miffy and the manner in which the artists had chosen to
decorate them. I’d bring them all home to my backyard if I could.
We wandered through other areas of the city more
frequented by tourists and quickly found that it is dirty and bicycles are a
major hazard. Literally thousands of bicyclists travel to and
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| Statue of Atlas on building |
from work each
day, not to mention those few hundred who are running errands or taking the dog
for a ride. The bike lanes are on the sidewalk rather than in the street which
makes walking a bit dangerous if you happen to step into the lane. We did make
it over to the Amsterdam
Royal Palace, but were sorely disappointed. With a beach volleyball tournament
taking up the entire front mall of the Palace, it and the area were ghastly:
cigarette butts were ground into the cobblestones and the trash had not been
collected in days if not weeks. There is a mega-mall in an historic building near
the Palace, but it adds nothing to the appeal of the area. It appears as if there
are either no funds to restore the historic buildings and clean up around them or that those with the money don’t
care to do so. My advice is to go to the museums and the canals, then head for
other cities.
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| Amsterdam Train Station |
For information on What we did, Where we stayed and What
we ate, go to ‘Review of Traveling through the Netherlands’.
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