Two Days in Amsterdam

 

We had a reservation for 10:30 a.m. at the Rijksmuseum. This museum is about a 30-minute walk from our hotel and has paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer and other Dutch Masters. Additionally, there are exhibits of furniture, silver objects and other things. It isn’t as large as the Louver in Paris but large enough to be too much for 1 day.

It is interesting as there is a passageway thru the middle for bicycles and pedestrians to use to get to the other side instead of having to go all the way around. A café is on one side of the passageway and the entry is on the other with 2 stories above with the exhibits.

We got to the museum at 10:30, entered with only a small bit of hassles when the tickets didn’t download until we were inside. But we got in, dropped our backpack at the locker and went on our way.

This museum is a must see for anyone visiting Amsterdam. We did stop for lunch at the Café, which is a real Café with real lunch selections. After a glass of wine, food and then coffee, we went back to where we left off, at the Dutch Masters. We were able to see the Night Watchmen, Rembrandt’s self portrait of himself as an old man which moved us to tears, and so many other amazing paintings.

We only saw about ½ of the exhibits so have bought tickets to return on Sunday. The link should take you to some of the paintings: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/rijksstudio?ii=0&p=0&from=2021-08-24T22%3A55%3A42.5434058Z

We had planned to go to the northern area of Holland on Sunday, but it was forecast to rain all day. After a day of standing in the museum, we were getting a late start and thought we’d start off with a drink at another Brown Café, “In ‘t Aepjen”. I have provided 2 links that give a good background, but basically it is called In ‘t Aepjen as in “Stayed with the monkeys”. The links provide a fun explanation.

https://www.amsterdamsights.com/nightlife/intaepjen.html

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27t_Aepjen

Looking from our table on one side of the shop to the other side, the bar.

At the café we met a guy, you can see his back at the bar, on the right in black. He is from San Francisco living and working in The Hague. He and Dale had a lively discussion on the San Francisco Giants. Since I am a L.A. Dodgers fan, I did not have anything positive to add to their conversation, but did feel free to clarify with negative remarks.

We did discuss working and living in the Netherlands; however, we are not inclined to live here even though it is a wonderful place. We still prefer the areas around London, but are already committed to Canada.

We took the Rick Steves walk around the Jordaan area, passing by the Anne Frank House. We have tickets for a tour of the house, but feel that after visiting the Dutch Resistance Museum, we will skip a tour of the house. This is a cop-out we know, but we just don’t

want to see more of the Nazi issues this time. The Jordaan walk is not long but really pretty, lots of green plants. Blocks of flats have plants in front of their house and, as per the guide book, plants in front of a flat are ok as long as they do not extend further than one tile.

We are lucky that the walk is not a long one as it started raining, like pouring rain. Fortunately, we had our good rain jackets and had just purchased new umbrellas at the museum so we stayed mostly dry. But the rain was coming down sideways so it was a challenge.

Cold and a little damp we popped into the favorite Argentine restaurant for some hot Goulash soup and a glass of wine. The owner knows us by now and he knows what we like!