Amsterdam: Highlights (7-13 October)
This week, my childhood friend Elissa came for a visit and that meant there was a lot of this…
…and this…
Our biggest adventure of the week was a Saturday day trip to De Hogue Veluwe National Park in search of fall colors. You explore this preserve using free white bicycles that are dropped in strategic locations around the park.
An easy 7k(ish) loop took us all around the grounds. Unfortunately, it was pretty gray and wet for most of the ride, but this didn’t stop us. And, in truth, only was the latest example of me spinning up ideas that are meant to be fun but really are border-line torturous to Elissa. (The subhead to our friendship would be something like “Just barely tolerating me for 29 years…”)
Look! It’s a Smurf house!
One of the gems of the park is the Kroller-Muller museum, a private art collection and sculpture garden turned public space.
Helen Kroller-Muller was one of the first people to recognize the talents of Vincent Van Gogh. Her collection includes nearly 200 Van Gogh works, the most anywhere outside of the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. She also collected Gaughin, Mondrean, Seurat, and many of the Hague School masters.
Because of the museum’s out-of-the-way location and lesser known status, it is much less crowded (and therefore more enjoyable) than the Amsterdam museums.
A sketch made by Van Gogh before attempting the Potato Eaters on canvas.
PIcasso and Ben.
While we had moments where the kids were digging it, they also made it clear when they had enough culture and art for one day.
Portrait of my kids for Instagram.
Portrait of my kids for real life. This was taken just before a guard said, “It is not possible to lay down in the museum.”
We also took a minute to try to recreate a family photo of my cousin taken at this museum more than twenty years ago. Ben reminds me of my cousin David, so it was fun to see the comparison. How’d we do?
On Sunday, we took Elissa to see some cutey-patooty Dutch towns just north of Amsterdam. Marken, a former fishing village turned tourist town is just 30-40 minutes from Amsterdam and offers a little bit of history, some lovely sea side cafes, and small streets made for meandering.
From here, a short ferry to Volendam delivered us to a second village where we had a snack, fresh stroopwafels, and then caught the bus back to Amsterdam.
While Elissa was here, she managed to also do four of the five “must do” items on most tourist lists. We went to the Rijksmuseum together and she went on her own to the Anne Frank Huis and the Van Gogh Museum. We explored the 9 streets and walked the canals. We hung out with Jill and Ben made sure there was suitable after-dinner entertainment. A solid Amsterdam showing, I think.
Honorable mention this week: The kids and I took a little time on Wednesday afternoon to do the Family Treasure Hunt program at the Rijksmuseum. This is an audio guide supplement that provides clues to seek 8 items in the museum. As you find each one, you must answer trivia questions to unlock pieces of a puzzle. The puzzle, once complete, is redeemed at the gift shop for a free family prize. The game kept us busy for more than 75 minutes and the we all loved it.
