Sep 5th, 2010 Posted in Activities, Amsterdam, Tamara Georgick | Comments Off on Tamara Georgick Amsterdam Day 3
Eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul interrupts Ev’s completion of her travel blog no more . . .
We managed to pack a lot of activities into our last full day in Amsterdam.
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Since it was directly across the street from us, we stopped by De Nieuwe Kirk. There must be thousands of centuries old churches scattered across Europe, seen one seen them all, right? Ha, the interior art and architecture remains so interesting, impressive. |
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| We took a fun and interesting Canal cruise in the morning with the Blue Boat Company. A very nice way to see the cityscape. One of the unexpected highlights was that the boat actually went out beyond the canals, into the open water and near the shipping lanes. |
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From where we got on and off the boat it was easy walking distance to the Rijksmuseum, unexpectedly it only took us an hour to go through it, and I mean sure, we saw 50 well known masterpieces, but it still seemed to be strangley lacking. It wasn’t until we were walking away that we noticed and read the sign that said due to renovation, only a small portion of the collection was currently on display. |
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| Not done with museums, we powered on to the Van Gogh Museum, which was a really fascinating collection of his work and correspondence and other pieces, anything connected to him, all very well representated. I didn’t realize that the period during which he created his most recognizable works of art, the style we think of when we think of Van Gogh, only lasted a few short years. |
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| That evening we tried to find the red light district, and strangely enough couldn’t manage to. No exposure to vice for us, we remained innocents. We did stumble across the worse example of municipal trash pick I’d ever seen, or expect to see. A dozen men who seemed drunk singing and chanting and haphazardly throwing filled trash bags through the air. About half of the bags would miss the back of the trash truck and come crashing back down onto the hard street only to rip apart and spill out their contents. They were like pirates on shore leave, I remembered gaping at them open mouthed in horrified fascination. After that it was back to our hotel for us. |
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Tags: De Nieuwe Kirk, Hotel Die Port van Cleve, Rijksmuseum, Tamara Georgick, Van Gogh Museum
Jul 19th, 2010 Posted in Activities, Amsterdam, Tamara Georgick | Comments Off on Tamara Georgick Amsterdam Day 1
Eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul interrupts Ev’s completion of her travel blog no more . . .
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We were armed with an I amsterdam Card which is a great tourist tool. Purchase it for either a 1, 2 or 3 day period for free use of all local public transportation options, free entrance to most of the national museums, a free canal cruise, as well as a variety of other store and restaurant discounts. |
| Our hotel was centrally located, really smack dab in the middle, so we ended up walking to most places, but we had the flexibility of hopping on and off anything we wanted to without having to give it a second thought. The morning we checked in we wandered around the neighborhood. We came across the Anne Frank House which was only three canals/streets away directly east of the hotel. There was a line of people wrapped around the building waiting for their timed entrance into the museum. I started crying. I’ve been there before (with my dad when we traveled around the northern parts of Europe before he dropped me off in London for my freshman year in college); but Tamara Georgick never has. She asked me to describe the rooms, since we weren’t going to have an opportunity to visit it this time around. Honestly, I couldn’t remember many details, it was so long ago, other than such small, narrow spaces and overwhelming sadness. |
See arrow pointing to the circle locating our hotel in the center of the map!
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Lots of old buildings in the immediate vicinity, including Magna Plaza which is now a shopping center, but was originally the central post office, constructed in 1899 (in a neo gothic style). Our hotel, Die Port van Cleve, abuts it just off to the right.
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We were directly across the street from the Dam Square and overlooked the Queen’s Palace and the adjacent New Church where most of the royal coronations, inaugurations and weddings take place. The Palace was covered in scaffolding and closed to visitors while undergoing some major renovation.
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I was exhausted and trying to fight off a cold, so I stayed in to get some much desired rest while Tamara Georgick went back out and did more sight seeing. A good night’s sleep seemed to do the trick and I was definitely re-energized for the last two days of our vacation. The hotel room was a bit odd, sunken with a short, low window, but I think they needed to do that in order for the building to be converted into more rooms and to give each room a window while preserving the original facade of the building. The photos side by side above show our actual hotel room window from both the inside and outside. Nope we didn’t get the rooms with the tall windows and balcony.
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Tags: Dam Square, Hotel Die Port van Cleve, I amsterdam Card, Magna Plaza, New Church, Royal Palace, Tamara Georgick
