AMSTERDAM
Over the course of three days, we spent our time exploring this beautiful and quaint city along its canals. I fell in love with it immediately! We enjoyed Amsterdam’s “Greatest Hits” (like the the Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House), but we also visited with friends and wandered around the city.
We spent time with many friends here! Jen and Jean, friends of ours from New York City, met us here and spent two days with us! We also met two of Dad’s friends: Fleur, a friend of his from high school who lives in Amsterdam, and Dana, a friend from Wieden + Kennedy who just happened to be visiting Amsterdam the same time we were. It was very nice to see them after not seeing familiar faces for a long time!
We went to two museums, the Van Gogh Museum (see Harper’s post) and the Rijksmuseum.
The Rijksmuseum has a total of 1,000,000 artifacts, with only 8,000 on display, many of which are pieces by Dutch artists. Some of the more famous paintings are a self portrait by Van Gogh, and “The Milkmaid” by Vermeer, and “The Night Watch” by Rembrandt.
One afternoon, we took a lovely boat ride with Jen and Jean. It took us around on the canals for an hour and a half and we got to look at Amsterdam from a different perspective. We learned about the beautiful, unique architecture, including its crooked houses and many bridges. I learned that the houses were built so narrow and tall because, in the olden days, homeowners were taxed based on the amount of square footage you used on the ground. Everybody took a small piece of land and then built up so that they would not be taxed so much. I thought that was very cool and smart!
My favorite thing to do in Amsterdam is just… wander. It’s easy – and enjoyable – to get lost on purpose!! We took a stroll through Vondelpark, stopped in cute cafes and cake pop stores, and walked through little alleyways and over bridges.
Amsterdam is just such a beautiful city, with bikers everywhere and flower boxes on bridges and windows and over doorways. It has easily become my favorite European city (so far), if not one of my favorite cities in the whole world! I cannot WAIT to come back and smell the roses again!
