the stories that I'm telling.

Category: Netherlands

  • Day 7 in Amsterdam – Wind Mills & Walking!

    Day 7 in Amsterdam – Wind Mills & Walking!

    When we first arrived in Amsterdam we’d planned to rent bikes and spend a day biking into the countryside to see windmills. Unfortunately, it was a lot colder and rainier than anticipated so that plan didn’t work out.

    However, there is one windmill on the East side of the city, not far from the Maritime Museum. And bonus: it’s attached to a local brewery!

    After spending 3 hours in the Maritime Museum, we were ready for some more drinking and eating, so we walked down to see the De Gooyer windmill at Brouwerij ‘t IJ (the IJ Brewery).

    The De Gooyer windmill is not opened to the public so you can’t go inside, but you can certainly look at it. It is the tallest wooden mill in the Netherlands and has a fairly serious history:

    The original mill was constructed in the 16th century. After destruction and some movements, in 1725 the mill stood on the site of the current Orange-Nassau barracks. Finally, in 1814 the mill moved again to its current location on Funenkade atop the stone base of a watermill that had been demolished in 1812.

    This mill is the last 26 corn mills on the bastions of the 17th century walls of Amsterdam. The location of the mills was at that time very favourable as the outskirts of town provided ample wind.

    After the mill had fallen into disrepair, it was purchased in 1928 by the city of Amsterdam for 3200 guilders and restored. Due to the lack of power during the Second World War the mill served as a corn mill for Amsterdam.

    In the building beside the windmill is a brewery with a large outdoor seating area. They serve a variety of beer, along with some traditional Dutch snacks. We ordered some snacks and a flight of beers, then spent a couple of hours relaxing in the sun beside a real windmill.

    After our afternoon snack we went on another long walk, eventually ending up at dinner. This was another Esther recommendation, but it wasn’t as successful as her previous recommendation. The restaurant Greetje fancies itself as a places that serves “elevated Dutch food”. The restaurant was lovely and the service was great, but the food just wasn’t that good. It was served in such a way that suggested they thought it was high-end, but the flavours just didn’t compute. Or perhaps my tastebuds aren’t sophisticated enough!

    In any case, our last day in Amsterdam included a couple of lacklustre experiences, but nothing can dampen your spirits when you’re never more than 5 minutes away from breathtaking canal views. We ended our night with a long and lovely walk home, with a pit stop for a few drinks.

    Overall, it was a really great trip. We had a lot of fun, learned a ton, and actually made time to relax quite a bit. Our nightlife was decidedly more low key than it was on our trip to Madrid, which meant we had plenty of time to sleep. We don’t usually make time to rest and restore when we go on trips, so this was a nice change of pace. We’re recommending Amsterdam to all our friends and family because it’s so lovely and so easy to manage. I’m sure we’ll be back again one day!

    back on the walking trail!
    the phrase on the bag made me think of the famous JFK quote…
    we made it! here it is!
    #selfietime
    blowing the wind to get the mill going!
    inside the brewery
    outside, fighting the pigeons away from my snack
    the view from afar
    back on the walk
    public urinals. so weird.
    reading the menu at dinner
    this was our appetizer. looks great but wow did not taste great.
    this was a downer
    this was odd but pretty good
    but the wine wasn’t bad!
    the end.
  • Day 7 in Amsterdam – Visiting Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum

    Day 7 in Amsterdam – Visiting Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum

    Up front disclosure: this was the worst museum we visited in Amsterdam. And according to Wikipedia, it’s famously bad:

    In 2013, there was a deadly shooting incident during the “Waterfront” festivity at the museum.[8] For the next three months, the museum was not allowed to rent out its space. After 2013, the number of visitors started to decline and director Willem Bijleveld, who had supervised the renovation of 2011, departed after a tenure of 18 years. The museum was criticised for having become too commercial for a cultural institution and having been turned into an amusement park.[9] The “Raad van Cultuur” – a government board that monitors cultural activity in the Netherlands and advises the government on subsidies for museums – judged that the Scheepvaartmuseum had focused too much on entertainment and not enough on its task as a museum.[10]

    The building is cool, and there’s lots to look at, but the educational component is questionable at best.

    When we visited the naval museum in Madrid, I found it had too much information. The Dutch National Maritime Museum, or Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, had the exact opposite problem. It feels more like a light entertainment centre for kids.

    We started our day out with a long walk through the city, so we headed right for lunch at the museum. The in-house restaurant was great, and we had a delightful lunch.

    We then headed outside to the boat element of the museum’s ‘collection’. It was interesting but not that educational and, oh my god, there were kids everywhere!

    Our favourite exhibit was all about Dutch shipping and ports. As a major shipping centre, the Netherlands have some serious port facilities and enormous-sized ships. We were able to take a virtual tour of a ship and journey along the shipping route that goes through Amsterdam. We also saw some cool exhibits about maps and navigational instruments. You can learn more about the range of exhibits here. For me, the range of interesting to boring was too wide. Visiting a museum requires a certain mindset, and if that gets thrown off, it can be hard to switch back into ‘learning’ mode.

    Overall, we didn’t learn much, but we did take a lot of photos! Check ’em out!

    (Note, if it seems like this post is out of order, that’s because it is. I forgot to click ‘publish’ months ago!)

     

    A long walk through Amsterdam means seeing lots of weird old cars
    Took this one for Tyler – apparently they do this facade-ism construction here too! #notjusttoronto
    another walk, another canal!
    we’re getting closer!
    the Naval Museum is in our sites!
    there it is! time to finish up those coffees
    Okay but that was a long walk. I demand to be fed before learning.
    delicious!
    The soup was awesome, and it was a special soup created for Dutch royalty in the 1500s!
    the bizarro hallway en route to the washroom
    a big ol’ boat!
    inside a room that holds an old small royalty boat for serious pomp and pageantry.
    like, a lot of pomp and pageantry
    and yet another boat!
    here’s the main boat, museum in the background
    it’s cold in here!
    I guess this is where the captain would chill with his Kindle
    #boatselfie
    This exhibit was all about Dutch industrial shipping and ports, which are still a major force in their economy today
    this was some kind of kids-oriented scavenger hunt. we couldn’t get the iPad-in-a-bucket to work so we left
    but we found an art section!
    it was pretty cool!
    this was all different statues from the fronts of boats. quite cool.
  • Day 6 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Hermitage Amsterdam

    Day 6 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Hermitage Amsterdam

    As you may have noted by now, we went to a lot of museums while we were in Amsterdam. Most of them were excellent – some of the best we’d ever visited.

    But not all met that standard. Enter: the Hermitage Amsterdam.

    The Hermitage Amsterdam is the sister museum of the famous Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia. The State Hermitage Museum was started in the late 1700s by Catharine the Great, and currently has one of the largest and most valuable art collections in the world. It spans across several buildings, including the Winter Palace where the Russian royal family once lived. It’s a bucket-list kind of museum for most museum nerds, which is why I was excited to visit the Hermitage Amsterdam.

    Since 2009 the Hermitage Amsterdam has been the Hermitage’s largest satellite location, in keeping with the museum’s mandate to increase the global reach of their impressive collection.

    Given the nature of their collection, and the difficulties of transporting art, I suspect that there is a wide range in quality of exhibits at the Hermitage Amsterdam. We visited in August, but beginning in October until May 2018 they’re hosting an exhibit called “Dutch Masters”. Prior to that, their last major exhibit ended in January 2017.

    The main exhibit on during our visit was about the Russian Revolution… while it was quite educational, it was light on art and on artifacts in general. The big disappointment was the ratio of fabrege egg information to fabrege eggs themselves… felt like a million to zero. But we did learn a lot about the Russian Revolution, which was interesting because this year marked the 100 year anniversary of its beginning.

    Still, for the price we paid to get in, we did not at all feel that it was worth it. However, for a different exhibit, I can imagine feeling differently. This may be one worth visiting, but do your research first.

    The one exhibit that we did quite enjoy was the “Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age”, which was entirely comprised of large scale photos of Dutch guild members and other merchants. Otherwise, we weren’t impressed, but we’ll have our eye on this place for future visits.

    Check out our photos below!

    in front of a very old building on the way to the Hermitage!
    love being the youngest in line 🙂
    The main gallery
    Rasputin!
    the story of Princess Anastasia, inspiration for the classic cartoon film. a must-see! (lol)
    The Hermitages!
    I started at this bird for 2 minutes trying to decide if it was real or not
    answer: yes, very real.
    another cat spotted!
  • Day 5 in Amsterdam – Paddle Boating Through the Canals!

    Day 5 in Amsterdam – Paddle Boating Through the Canals!

    During our time in Amsterdam we often saw people boating through the canals. It’s a relatively popular form of leisure transit. While locals seemed to treat their boats as picnic spots – spending time meandering down the canals while drinking wine and snacking – we also spotted many (presumed) tourists paddle boating.

    After spending a few hours indoors at the Stedelijk, we were ready to get some sun and try out paddle boating.

    You can see this video of our exploits:

    Overall the process was fairly straightforward. Along the canals there are a variety of kiosks where you can rent a boat. You get a map and some instructions on how to ‘drive’, which canals you’re allowed to traverse, and which kiosks are valid “drop off” sites. From there, you’re on your own. As long as you get the boat home in time, there’s nothing to worry about.

    Navigating the paddle boat was definitely a bit more challenging than I’d anticipated but eventually we figured it out, and we loved it. It was so relaxing and calming to boat through the canals and view the city from a new perspective. The rental company’s guide also included some fun facts about sites along the route, so again we were learning.

    And on the topic of learning, we also found this article about the history of Amsterdam’s city design. Yes, they are famous for being very cyclist and pedestrian friendly, but this wasn’t always the case. Walking and paddle boating around such a beautiful place, it’s easy to imagine that this place is just magical by nature. But in fact the accessibility of Amsterdam is the result of specific choices made by the people of Amsterdam.

    We wrapped up our day with dinner and drinks at a local hangout called Cafe de Prins. All in all, an excellent day in an excellent city.

    Check out our photos below!

  • Day 5 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Stedelijk!

    Day 5 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Stedelijk!

    Amsterdam has a LOT of museums. The most popular is probably the Van Gogh Museum, which we did not visit because it required advance booking and/or booking a ticket to stand in line for a pre-scheduled time. We don’t like to plan that kind of stuff ahead, so we skipped it. We’d also just seen a Van Gogh exhibit in Toronto, so we didn’t feel we were missing out too much.

    Just down the street from the Van Gogh is the Stedelijk, Amsterdam’s primary contemporary art museum. Here’s the ‘official’ Wikipedia description:

    The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈsteːdələk myˈzeːjɵm ˌɑmstərˈdɑm]; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.[8][9]

    The 19th century building was designed by Adriaan Willem Weissman and the 21st century wing with the current entrance was designed by Benthem Crouwel Architects. It is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South.

    The collection comprises modern and contemporary art and design from the early 20th century up to the 21st century. It features artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Karel Appel, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, Lucio Fontana, and Gilbert & George.[9]

    When approaching the museum, the first thing that you notice is the new wing, added onto the original historic building. It’s shaped like a gigantic bathtub, so it’s pretty tough to miss. Once you go inside, you work your work through all of the rooms, which are all white square or rectangular spaces. This museum, like many of the others we visited, offer complimentary audio guides… simply find a kiosk in the museum, grab a little “phone”, choose your language, and start walking!

    The collection is great, and ranges from audio visual modern art to more classical modernist or constructivist painting, to contemporary photography, to exhibits about new technologies being used to accommodate refugees. Some of the stuff that we saw here we saw again in Toronto at EDIT (Expo for Design, Innovation, & Technology).

    We took quite a few photos, so you can check it out for yourself!

    starting the day off with more coffee!
    can’t believe they sell these here!
    look at the bathtub design!
    checking out the sign for another modern art museum nearby, but my feet aren’t having it!
  • Day 4 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Rijksmuseum!

    Day 4 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Rijksmuseum!

    We started out our fourth day in Amsterdam by visiting the Tulip Museum for a quick visit. We then walked south through the city to visit their flagship art “quarter”. The section of the city has several museums, and on this day we visited just one of them: the Rijksmuseum. I’d read about this museum a few years ago when it was renovated to include a bike path that treads directly through the building, so we were quite excited to see it all in person.

    Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the museum and its collection:

    The Rijksmuseum (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɛiksmyˌzeːjʏm]; English: National Museum) is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South.

    The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1800 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace and later in the Trippenhuis.[1] The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened its doors in 1885.[3] On 13 April 2013, after a ten-year renovation which cost € 375 million, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix.[11][12][13] In 2013 and 2014, it was the most visited museum in the Netherlands with record numbers of 2.2 million and 2.47 million visitors.[6][14] It is also the largest art museum in the country.

    The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer. 

    We were in the museum for hours and still didn’t manage to see it all. Below are the many, many photos we took on our full day museum adventure. Read the comments to learn about all the highlights from our day! And shout out to Restaurant ‘t Zwaantje for serving us an incredible dinner.

    walking to the museum… like Toronto, this city has streetcars and bike paths too!
    we’re here!
    and people are looking chic as they cycle through the building!
    look at this amazing infrastructure!
    um, that baby is huge.
    the religious section of the museum, which our trip to Spain taught us to move through quickly. The religious art is usually at the beginning of these museums, but you have to pace yourself well to get to the whole collection!
    We also bought this cute little museum guidebook.
    you have to wear your back pack on your front in some of these fancier museums
    some classical Dutch art
    description of the previous image
    those abs!
    The Night Watch by Rembrandt is probably the centrepiece of this entire collection
    some of the more well known art included these handy guides to help viewers understand and interpret the significance of the work. Again, another example of top quality curation.
    The Night Watch is so popular that museum even includes a copy of the original… and they keep it near the original!
    selfie time!
    #nightwatchselfie
    A self portrait by Rembrandt
    Triptychs were also quite popular in the Netherlands, including this classic piece
    By this point I am getting tired, and I have already seen 1000+ works of art
    Behind me is a painting of a group of guild masters… in other countries, King’s were commissioning photos of themselves. But here, it was wealthy business owners #samesamebutdifferent
    cats everywhere!
    look at that snake!
    We made it through the main collection… onto the wild stuff!
    Like this entire room of items with the ‘delft’ pattern on them!
    or this cool library that was 4 floors!
    I dragged Kevin up several flights of stairs to get to this modern art exhibit
    worth it!
    we almost left…
    … then I realized that we’d missed some pretty key stuff, so we made our way back inside to see this Van Gogh classic!
    Napoleon is cool but I’m hungry!
    the classic amsterdam sign that many others (especially in Canada) have copied.
    #selfieinthesun
    the Amsterdam coat of arms is seriously everywhere…
    getting a bit jealous of how healthy these fig bushes look (our is doing well but these are serious!)
    more transit shots!
    Febo sighting!
    Dinner at a really great family-run restaurant called Restaurant ‘t Zwaantje
    And a cat to end the day!

     

  • Day 4 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Tulip Museum!

    Day 4 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Tulip Museum!

    If you’ve been following the news stories about bitcoin lately, you may have heard some references to tulips and Dutch tulip mania. Or perhaps you’ve been to the Ottawa Tulip Festival, connected to WWII and the Dutch love of tulips. Either way, it’s more than just a flower, which is why we stopped by the Tulip Museum in Amsterdam.

    Much like the Canal House Museum, this small, specialized museum was impressively high quality and educational.

    You enter the museum through their storefront. In the museum’s store you can buy a wide variety of tulip related souvenirs, but we skipped that to beeline for some learning. In the back of the storefront you go down a small set of stairs to enter the museum. It begins with the origins of tulips, then traces the plant’s migration to the Netherlands. Once the story arrives in Amsterdam, the exhibit goes into detail about Tulip Mania in the 1600s:

    The introduction of the tulip to Europe is usually attributed to Ogier de Busbecq, the ambassador of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperorto the Sultan of Turkey, who sent the first tulip bulbs and seeds to Vienna in 1554 from the Ottoman Empire.[14] The tulip was different from every other flower known to Europe at that time, with a saturated intense petal color that no other plant had. The appearance of the nonpareil tulip as a status symbol at this time coincides with the rise of newly independent Holland’s trade fortunes.

    As a result, tulips rapidly became a coveted luxury item, and a profusion of varieties followed.

    Tulip mania (Dutch: tulpenmanie) was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and fashionable tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then dramatically collapsed in February 1637.[2] It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble;

    This was another of our favourite museums from the trip, and it’s something I’d recommend to anyone. Most museums can be fun and educational, but they don’t all teach lessons that can be applied to modern-day economics. This one does, and it’s cute as heck to boot. If you’re in Amsterdam, you should check it out. See our photos below!

    starting the morning off with coffee!
    map self at the tulip museum
    learning about the science of tulips
    tracking the migration of tulips to Europe
    learning about tulips and hype!
    in a room of tulip bulbs!
  • Day 3 in Amsterdam – Walking Lots & Visiting the Foam Museum

    Day 3 in Amsterdam – Walking Lots & Visiting the Foam Museum

    Our last museum stop of the day was the “Foam” Museum, a well-reviewed photography museum.

    Before the museum though, we needed a lunch break. On the advice of Esther from the Hungry Birds Food Tour, we had lunch at Tomaz, an old restaurant in the old part of the city. When we asked where Dutch families might go out to eat together, this was the place she suggested. We had traditional Dutch beer with traditional Dutch food. The highlight was BitterBallen, little fried balls of meet & sauce & seasoning, best eaten with mustard and beer.

    Rested and fed, we headed back to Foam. Here’s how Wikipedia describes the museum:

    Foam or Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam is a photography museum located at the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The museum has four different exhibitions at any given time in which different photographic genres are shown, such as documentary, art and fashion. Two notable shows were Henri Cartier-Bresson – A Retrospective, work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Richard Avedon – Photographs 1946 -2004, a major retrospective of Richard Avedon. In summer 2016 Foam will present a major Helmut Newton retrospective exhibition. Next to large exhibitions by well-known photographers, Foam also shows the work of young and upcoming photographers, in shorter running exhibitions. The museum contains a café, a library, a commercial gallery called FoamEditions and a bookshop.

    We didn’t take many photos, but we certainly saw plenty. The highlight was the exhibit of Gordon Parks’ photography. Gordon Parks was a American photographer between the 1950s and 1980s who captured American life, and was a regularly featured contributor in Life Magazine. His work often touched on themes of social justice and civil rights in the country. You can learn more about Gordon and this exhibit right here. If you live in North America, odds are good that you’ve seen his work already.

    Check out our photos from the day below!

    On the way to lunch
    Finally… time to relax!
    BitterBallen and homemade meatloaf!
    Inside the museum
    Another neat exhibit…
  • Day 3 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Cat Museum

    Day 3 in Amsterdam – Visiting the Cat Museum

    After visiting the Canal Museum, we planned to head over to the Foam Museum (more on that later). On the way, our walk took us past the Cat Museum, and of course we had to stop in for a visit.

    The Cat Museum is properly known as KattenKabinet or “Cat Cabinet”. It’s an art museum located in an old home that is solely focused on exhibiting arts related to cats, cats, and more cats.

    As well established cat people, Kevin and I were more than happy to hand over a few euros to explore the house and the collection, and hopefully see a few cats.

    As far as museums go, this one is pretty unique, but unfortunately we only saw one real cat while we were there!

    The art collection is pretty cute, and they have a lovely outdoor space that includes seating areas and more cat art. We paid 7 euros each to get in, which probably isn’t worth it unless you really love cats, but we do, so it was.

    You can see the whole collection in under 30 minutes, and it’s also pretty interesting to walk through the house. After spending so much time in awe of the canals and the houses along them, it was nice to get inside and get an additional perspective.

    If you’re looking for a cute, quick and quirky museum to visit, you should definitely consider stopping by KattenKabinet! See below for our photos!

  • Day 3 in Amsterdam – The Canal House Museum

    Day 3 in Amsterdam – The Canal House Museum

    After visiting the Amsterdam Museum, we headed to the Canal House Museum, known as the “Museum of the Canals” or “Het Grachtenhuis“. The museum is located in an old house along an older portion of canals and it was delightful. While visiting Amsterdam we visited many museums, and we found nearly all of them to be incredibly well-curated.

    The Canal House Museum was one of our favourites. They made particularly good use of audio visual effects to tell the story of Amsterdam’s architecture as it relates to the canals and the houses built alongside them.

    Here’s bit of information from Wikipedia about the Amsterdam Canals:

    Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, has more than one hundred kilometers of grachten (canals), about 90 islands and 1,500 bridges. The three main canals (Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht), dug in the 17th century during the Dutch Golden Age, form concentric belts around the city, known as the Grachtengordel. Much of the Amsterdam canal system is the successful outcome of city planning. In the early part of the 17th century, with immigration rising, a comprehensive plan was put together, calling for four main, concentric half-circles of canals with their ends resting on the IJ Bay. Known as the “grachtengordel”,[5] three of the canals are mostly for residential development (Herengracht or ‘’Patricians’ Canal’’; Keizersgracht or ‘’Emperor’s Canal’’; and Prinsengracht or ‘’Prince’s Canal’’), and a fourth, outer canal, the Singelgracht, for purposes of defense and water management. The plan also envisaged interconnecting canals along radii.

    As you can tell, the Canal House Museum is the perfect follow up to the Amsterdam Museum. To get a sense of how the museum looks, check out this video:

     

     

    Th Canal House Museum is a must-see for anyone interested in urban planning or anthropology, or even just those of you who love quality museums. Check it out if you can! See below for a few photos from our visit.