More of Amsterdam

The Van Gogh Museum

Our visit to the Van Gogh Museum was really a great experience. Of course there were lines, but somehow the Dutch have figured out how to handle crowds and moved us through quicky. There were also tour groups, but Jack is always encouraged if these groups are teen agers; their attention span is nonexistent, so they move quickly through the exhibits.

The museum itself is beautiful; huge and very modern. It can handle exhibits very nicely. We saw a temporary exhibit on Gaugain and it was very well done. Unfortunately, there are so many Van Gogh's spread around the world that if one came to this museum to see some of the favorites, one would be disappointed. I over heard one man mention that he wanted to see "Starry Night" but it is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Ann Frank's House

Everyone has heard her story or read her diary, and yet looking at the house gives you a very sad and eerie feeling. All of these houses facing the canal are tall and narrow; of course they have renovated the original house, but the tour through the house is similar to what was there in the 1940's. It is dark and gloomy to represent how they spent most of their time there. I did not know that the Dutch government, who had fled to London when the Germans first occupied the Netherlands, encouraged the people left there to keep diaries of their experiences. So Ann had worked very seriously on her diary, hoping that someday she could publish it.

The sad part is that her family was there for so long before someone informed on them. They do not know who, of course, but they are convinced that that someone went to the Germans and told them. The interesting thing was, as we toured the house, it was almost like visiting a church. Everyone was very quiet and reflective.

The Resistance Museum

That afternoon it only seemed fitting that we visit the Resistance museum, to see how the Dutch handled occupation. For awhile, it seemed that the Dutch could live with occupation. Things seemed to get back to normal after the Germans strode into the city. But little by little the began to realize that things would never be the same when the restrictions on the Jews got tighter and tighter. The museum had some good artifacts and photographs. We were a little spent that day, after these two tours.

The Concert

We were in walking distance of their concert house, so we bought tickets to a Sunday matinee. We were on the 9th row so we could see the musicians breathing and bowing. It was a visiting group; the Brussels orchestra. They played the Debussy Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel's Valse. The concerto was a Schumman concerto for cello and orchestra. The soloist was a young woman from Germany, I think. She was wonderful. We could see her perfectly; she was so into the piece that she almost led the orchestra. The acoustics in here were really unbelievable. Jack said that the researchers for the Myerson came here to visit this house for its configuration and its acoustics.

Visits to Edam, Voldenham and Maarken

A couple of mornings we took the bus to small towns north of the city. They were very old towns which were typical of the old Dutch towns of the 15th, 16th centuries. Edam was a few miles north, and the bus trip was very interesting. Once outside Amsterdam, the suburbs are beautiful; huge trees and greenery everywhere, nice wide bike paths, and the cows munching the grass or just enjoying the nice weather. I just couldn't get over how flat this county is, but I kept reminding myself that this land is mostly reclaimed from the sea so of course it would be flat.

The two little towns are very quaint, a little too quaint for us, but they had nice town squares and charming little souvenir places. Maarken had been an island but the sea kept flooding it, so they finally filled up the area and it became part of the larger countryside. Voldenham is really touristy, but they did have good places for lunch. We took the bus back to the city after a couple of very restful days in the countryside.

I am going to add photos next time. We are just out of time for Amsterdam, so our next stop in Haarlem, just a few miles west of the city.