Amsterdam

Sunday 13^th May

A bright sunny morning and a little warmer but in spite of the improvement in the weather we decided to visit the Rijksmuseum which was closed on our last two visits to Amsterdam and even now the main portion’s renovations won’t be completed until 2013 and the full exhibition reopened.  I guess we will have to return again.

                                                
                                                                                    Rembrandt Drapers Guild

Because the main galleries aren’t open only a small number of paintings and other articles were on display and many of the works by the Dutch Masters weren’t exhibited, however there were a few Rembrandt, Vermeer and some lesser known artists on display, together with silver, porcelain and furniture and it took us about two and a half hours to wander through the collection.

                                                                                                                                                    Rembrandt - The Night Watch
Vermeer - The Kitchen Maid


Leaving the museum we strolled, constantly avoiding bikes, along the sides of the various canals to the floating flower market, which mainly sells bulbs and corms but also Do It Yourself Cannabis starter kits and Cannabis seeds of about fifteen different strains.  The interesting thing about Holland is, like Australia, you can’t smoke in pubs or restaurants and even though you can still buy cannabis in coffee shops you can’t smoke it there which explained the aromas we smelt in Vondelpark yesterday.

 

Most shops are open today and near the flower market was a Dutch Cheese Shop selling about thirty different varieties, including goat and sheep cheese and most were available to be sampled, we spent a tasty fifteen minutes trying the varieties.

Being a sunny day there was a lot of traffic on the canals and although there aren’t traffic lights at the canal intersections there was a lot of tooting of horns as boats approached the “cross roads”.

In the area we are staying there are literally hundreds of pubs and restaurants of all types competing for business, we went into an Irish Pub for dinner last night and the staff were all Irish, usually they are Australians and New Zealanders.  In the same vicinity there are Thai, Japanese and English restaurants amongst other nationalities as well as the typical Dutch bar and restaurant, the difficulty is choosing the style of meal.

On our way back to the Youth Hostel we called into a supermarket to stock up on breakfast items and snack bars to take to Norway for the first three days, as breakfast isn’t provided and prices in Norway are very expensive.  We’ve decided that our time in Norway will be alcohol free, last time we were there prices were up to twelve times those in Australia, Norway has very good water.

It is Mother’s Day in Holland today though we haven’t heard any reference to it and Ann was pleased and surprised to hear from both Wayne and Brian as she had forgotten that it was Mother’s Day.