Okay. The real reason I came to Amsterdam? That was to see the tulips! Oh, I’ve been to Amsterdam three times before, but every single time, it was been in the winter— raining, cold and miserable. In fact, what I remembered about Amsterdam was that there were two things on the street: dog poop and dead umbrellas! You see, an umbrella is absolutely useless in the winter because the wind will just blow it inside out.
I booked a ticket for the Keukenhof Gardens, located about an hour outside of Amsterdam, and is definitely THE place to see tulips, with about 7 million of them arranged artfully there. The gardens are only open eight weeks of the year, and are an exhibition of 100 flower growers to show their best. The only trouble is, it is a very popular place to visit, and one million tourists will visit the gardens in the eight weeks. What blew my mind, though, was that after the eight weeks are over, the flowers are all dug out and the bulbs stored until next season. It means that every year, the gardens look different.
I had already gone to the Van Gogh museum on Wednesday, but after I got a survey email asking me for my comments, the museum revealed that the entire collection of over 900+ paintings are online! Wow! I could have saved myself 18 euros in admission! Here is the link to the complete online Van Gogh museum collection.
No, of course, in real life the paintings are much, much larger and the colors more vivid, but I felt I wanted to look again at Van Gogh’s “Almond Blossoms,” since I had bought a potholder, an oven mitt, two packages of paper napkins, two pillow cases, a passport cover, a shopping bag, etc. with the Almond Blossom design! (yes, I went crazy over all the Van Gogh merchandise!)
Today I visited the Rijksmuseum— along with crowds and crowds of people, especially around the popular paintings in the museum. I took a lot of pictures, but the ones I think are the most interesting are those of the people taking photos of paintings.
Yikes! That’s a lot of people!
My visits to the museums also included two different canal cruises, in which I enjoyed the gorgeous scenery, but sitting in the sun was HOT! and with the high humidity, made it pretty uncomfortable. One cruise I took yesterday, and the other today after the Rijksmuseum visit.
But I saved the best for last . . . see my next post on my visit to St. Nicholas Basilica.
[…] This morning we went on a bus and walking tour of Amsterdam. Even though this is not a musical tour, I still managed to find two pipe organs when we visited the English Reformed Church! We also visited the Van Gogh museum, and I couldn’t help myself but buy more things with the Almond Blossoms design—this time, an umbrella, a computer mousepad and more paper napkins. (See the post on my last visit to the Van Gogh museum!) […]