Amsterdam

After much stressful schlepping of luggage and anxiety about whether we on the right trains, we finally arrived at our last destination, the NH Amsterdam Centre Hotel. The hotel was great - spacious, clean and modern and within walking distance of all of the sights we wanted to see. Since we were both sick for most of our time in Amsterdam, having a comfortable room turned out to be more important than usual.

We were exhausted when we arrived in late afternoon, so we found a market around the corner, bought some beer and snacks and headed back to the hotel to search out some English language TV.  The Dutch, like the Belgians, are apparently big fans of the Dog Whisperer, so we got another dose of Cesar and his calm, assertive state.  We ventured out later in the evening to find dinner and stumbled upon a great Asian wok place, so we ordered food to go and settled in for the night.

We started our first Amsterdam day with poffertjes, which are delicious small puffy pancakes covered with powdered sugar. I regret that we never made it back to that café for another round.  We started with the Rijksmuseum, which houses primarily paintings by the Dutch masters.  I was a little skeptical about this, but it turned out to be one of my favorite museums.  The paintings were arranged beautifully and each one was accompanied by a history and explanation which greatly enhanced the experience.  The museum is undergoing renovation, so they have gathered the best paintings into a few rooms while the rest of the museum is closed.  This was lucky for us, I think, because every painting we saw was a winner, and there weren’t enough to cause museum fatigue.

Since we were not suffering from museum fatigue we were up for the Van Gogh museum, which was also a real gem.  The paintings were arranged according to the different phases of Van Gogh's life, and also paired with paintings that inspired Van Gogh and were inspired by him.  It was a wonderful museum.  Again, one of my favorites.

Tuesday we had a reservation at the Anne Frank house, a half hour walk along one of the canals, which allowed us to see more of Amsterdam on our way.  We arrived early, so had breakfast at the café next door before our 10:30 reservation.  They have done a wonderful job of preserving and restoring the house.  The visit is a moving experience and worth a trip to Amsterdam.  

Afterwards we tried out a couple of walks from the Rick Steves book (my only resource for Belgium and Amsterdam),  We managed to avoid getting terribly lost, and walked through some beautiful neighborhoods along the canals.  We made it to Dam Square, which is the central plaza of the city and home to the royal palace.  It was a bit underwhelming, as the palace is completely covered in saran wrap for some kind of renovation, and the other main attraction in the square seems to be Madame Tussauds wax museum.  There is a definite air of the cheesy and seedy in Amsterdam.  

We had a late lunch at an Italian restaurant around the corner from our hotel where we had the dubious pleasure of dining next to the only really ugly Americans we encountered on our trip. They were complaining that there was nothing to do in Amsterdam except eat, and they were getting tired of eating sports bar food every day.  We got the impression most of their vacation had been spent at the Hard Rock Café and the red light district.

After lunch we strolled through the Vondelpark, which Rick Steves describes as Amsterdam's Central Park.  I think that is somewhat exaggerated, but it is a beautiful park, and one of our favorite times in Amsterdam was the afternoon we spent enjoying a rare day of sunshine with Amsterdam's populace (including some of the cutest kids I have ever seen).

We spent Wednesday outside of Amsterdam visiting Haarlem, which is my next blog entry.  Our last day we were both pretty sick, so our efforts at sightseeing were pretty weak.  I didn’t have the energy to take the camera out of my coat pocket, so I don’t have one picture of the day.  We decided we couldn’t be in Amsterdam without seeing the red light district, so we headed out (without much enthusiasm) on the Rick Steves (!) red light district walk.  Rick seems to take a bit too much of a pervy delight in the red light district if you ask me, but we won’t deal with that here.

The red light zone is (obviously)seedy and sleazy.  We were there at noon on a weekday, and  I think it might be better at night– at least there might be a more festive atmosphere.  We headed down one of the narrow alleys, which are only wide enough for one person.  The alleys are lined with large windows on either side lit with red lights and featuring a scantily clad female beckoning you in (well, they weren't actually beckoning ME in).  Not too many of the windows were occupied, but it was still a bizarre experience.  After one trip down an alley, we were done, although there are many others just like it.  After this adventure my cold really kicked in and we returned to the hotel to rest and pack.

Because both of us were sick we didn’t really do Amsterdam justice.  I would like to come back some day when the skies are bluer and the tulips are out and explore more of the countryside and villages outside of Amsterdam.