Amsterdam 2015: Dining Adventures

Since we were not only visiting a new city (Amsterdam) but also a new country (The Netherlands) with different culinary traditions and specialties, we were excited to try new cultural dining experiences.  Indonesian food is popular in The Netherlands, since Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony.  One of our most memorable dining experiences in Amsterdam was at the Indonesian restaurant Blauwe.  We would be partaking in a “rice table”, which we understood would be a set menu with a series of sharing plates.  It was a cold, wet evening when we arrived for our reservation, so I used the food warming vent to heat my hands.  We were given complimentary prawn chips and dip, and decided to start off with an appetizer of battered jumbo shrimp served with a sweet and spicy sauce.  Thank goodness they were not as big as they initially appeared to be, once you tear off the heads, because we needed the stomach room for what was to come.

We knew we were going to get a bunch of dishes but we could not believe how many.  They kept coming and coming and coming.  I didn’t think there was any way that all this food would fit on the table, but it was obviously designed to handle this.  The waitress expertly put all the meats and seafood dishes on the warming grill and positioned the vegetables, rice, condiments and skewers along the sides.  In total, we received 17 dishes which consisted of chicken and goat satay skewers, turmeric beef, spicy beef, sweet soy pork, curry fish, spicy fish, egg in sambal sauce, tofu in soy sauce, vegetables in peanut sauce, vegetables in coconut sauce, sweet and sour cucumber, fried potatoes, white rice, a crispy noodle-like dish, roasted coconut and finally deep-fried banana as dessert (although the banana came at the same time as all the other dishes), for the cost of 31.5 Euros per person.  The food was all very good and flavourful, but what we will never forget are the volume and variety of dishes.  It was fun but overwhelming watching them arrive.  Blauwe also has a great marketing policy of taking a photo of each group of diners with their table full of food and placing the photo on their website for you to retrieve for free.

We went to the French restaurant De Belhamel as much for the view and décor of the restaurant as we did for the food.  The beautifully Art Nouveau decorated eatery is situated in the trendy Jordaan area, at the junction where the Brouwergracht and Herengracht canals meet. We were seated by the window with a magnificent view of the canal and the outdoor patio, which would have been lovely to sit in, had it not been such a cold day.  Since the patio area was empty, everyone else must have agreed.

Our main courses of sirloin steak with king mushrooms, Swiss chard and roast potato, and veal chop with potato dauphin, grilled zucchini and morel sauce were tasty, but not that memorable.  There is not that much creativeness that you can instill in a serving of meat with vegetable and potato sides.  As with many restaurants, the appetizers were the highlights. Since it was the start of asparagus season, I selected the white asparagus spears with pesto sauce, which were so sweet and tender.  I was leery of Rich’s choice of velouté of eel and crayfish with croutons, until I asked for a little taste.  It was so delicious and flavourful that I was jealous and wish that I had ordered a bowl for myself.

Getting back to our search for Dutch dining experiences, we wanted to try the Dutch pancakes which are extremely thin and delicate compared to North American pancakes, and come in savoury as well as sweet options.  They are a cross between a crepe and a pizza.  We chose the restaurant “Pancakes!” since it was always packed each time we passed by, (usually a good sign) and how can you go wrong with a place that has an exclamation point in its name? Rich and I both chose the same tasty set combination of paprika, bacon, mushroom and cheese.  To see what we missed out on, we spied on some of our neighbours who were having smoked salmon pancakes, and sweet pancakes containing apple slices, mixed nuts, apple brandy and cinnamon. We did see one table order the “American” pancakes with maple syrup, which we thought was a boring choice when in Amsterdam.

Touted as a restaurant serving “authentic Dutch food”, we tried Hap-Hmm which was located close to where we were staying in the Vondelpark area and is frequented by many locals.  The Dutch must eat early (especially compared to the Italians and Spaniards who start eating after 8pm) since the hours of this restaurant are from 4:30-8:45, and the place was packed when we arrived just after 5pm.  It is also closed on the weekend, so it must count on the after work crowd.  We picked the house specialty of beef stew with vegetables, although we switched from the traditional boiled potato to roast potato.  The meal was hearty but a bit bland and the vegetables overcooked for my taste.  For me, the best part of the meal was my sparkling Nestea iced tea.  I have never had fizzy iced tea before and really liked it.

Some of our most fun dining experiences were not from formal meals in sit-down restaurants, but from quick, grab and munch snacking opportunities.  Our best adventure occurred in the FEBO automat shops, which specialize in hot snack foods dispensed from 1950s styled coin-operated vending machines.  By inserting 1.5 to 3 Euros in coins into a selected window’s coin slot, you can open up the door of that window and procure a piping hot hamburger, hot dog, kaassoufflé (melted cheese wrapped in deep-fried dough), or meat krokets (Dutch for croquettes - minced meat in a thick sauce rolled up in bread crumbs and deep fried).  My piping-hot beef ragout kroket for 1.6 Euros was one of the best quick snacks I’ve ever had, and the most entertaining to purchase.

We first discovered the croquette on a previous trip to Barcelona and have craved more ever since.  Having enjoyed the FEBO kroket, we decided to also try ones from Holtkamp, reputed to be the best in Amsterdam.  The Holtkamp krokets were plumper and crispier than the ones from FEBO and came with not only beef but also shrimp fillings.  But at over twice the price and only available in one single remote location, I would happily settle for my FEBO croquette in a pinch.  Akin to the croquette is the bitterballen – breaded meatballs served with a mustard sauce, which we tried at the cafeteria in Eye film museum.  We enjoyed eating the crispy French fries served in a paper cone that came with a choice of over 10 different sauces including several varieties of mayo, curry, chili, gravy and more.  These fries are sold everywhere but we got them from the punfully named “Chipsy King”, which had a sit-down counter with holes drilled into it for you to put your cone into.

Every time we visit a new city, we always check out the Mcdonalds to see what different items it might offer that reflect the local culture.  In Amsterdam, instead of chicken nuggets, we found the McKibbeling – nuggets of white fish with tartar sauce.  Because of this experience, I thought for days that kibbeling meant fish but eventually I realized it probably meant nugget since all further offerings were made of chicken and not fish.  Wandering around the canal streets, we found a fish stand that was selling mackerel (makreel) sandwiches.  Mackerel seems to be quite popular in Amsterdam and much less available in Toronto, so we decided to try a sandwich.  We were not brave enough to try to Dutch tradition of eating a raw herring (haring), which is to be eaten by tilting your head back, holding the herring by its tail and letting the slippery raw fish then slide into your mouth.

One Dutch delicacy that we did embrace wholeheartedly was the stroopwafel, made from two thin layers of waffle-ridged cookies sandwiching a sweet caramel filling consisting of syrup, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon.  We bought ours from a stall in a farmers market while on our walking tour, but versions of the stroopwafel can be found in most bakeries.  While eating the crispy cookie right out of the bag was really tasty, our tour guide clued us in on how the locals often eat it.  They make themselves a hot cup of tea or coffee, place the stroopwafel on top of the mug and let the steam slightly melt the cookie and filling so that it becomes gooey.  Both ways are really good!

Because we were spending entire days in museums, by necessity, we ate in many of their cafés.  Luckily they were usually beautiful, with some décor aspects reflecting the contents of the museum and the food was quite good.  One of our favourite venues was the café in the Bags and Purses museum.  The smaller museums situated in old canal houses all seem to maintain beautiful gardens and we were able to snag a table overlooking the one in the back of this museum.  Looking out at the flowers and greenery, I noted that someone had left their purse by a bench, until Rich pointed out that it was actually a really realistic garden sculpture of a purse.  Our quick meal consisted of sharing a sausage roll and a grilled cheese sandwich.  But what really blew us away was the chocolate hazelnut coffee, consisting of individual layers of rich dark chocolate, coffee and hazelnut flavouring, topped with a dollop of whipped cream, resulting in a lovely presentation and a delicious drink rivaling the ones we were ordering in Vienna.  It even came with a small chocolate brownie on the side.  These drinks were so good that when we were wandering around the canal area another day and wanted a coffee, we headed back to the Bags museum.

The walls of the café in the Rijks museum contain the same red brick that covers the gorgeous exterior of this building.  On display was one of the giant Delft porcelain flower vases that we had seen in the exhibition area, but this one had actual flowers in it, so we could better envision how they would have been used in the past. They also had a version of the eel soup that I regretted not ordering at De Belhamel, so I decided to redeem myself and get it here.  This one was made with Abraham mustard, smoked eel, crispy fried potato and eel foam.  It was really good with a strong mustard taste that I’ve never experienced before in a soup, but not quite as good as the gold standard one at De Belhamel.  For my main course, I had another Holtkamp kroket on a bed of greens accompanied with a potato salad and piece of country bread.

One of the biggest advantages of staying in a home swap residence out of the busy tourist area is the opportunity to shop at the local grocery stores, delicatessens, bakeries and meat shops and be able to prepare, or at least reheat a meal at home.  After long days of sight-seeing, we often did not feel like sitting in a restaurant.  It was much more comfy and economical to dine at home in our jammies.   Being able to grab a quick breakfast in the morning before heading out was also convenient.  We stumbled across the bakery Simon Meijssen with its amazingy savoury and flavourful ham and cheese croissants and bought them several times to eat at breakfast with some fruit and coffee.   The excellent local deli, Keurslager, just two blocks away from our home, became a regular haunt for us as we tried their many meats and prepared foods, including a scrumptious pork and mushroom casserole with a creamy sauce, piri-piri salad, breaded chicken kiebbling, rare roast beef slices with truffles, and a sausage that had melted cheese rolled into it.  It was also great being just a block away from the local grocery chain Albert Heijn, which provided us with all of our regular staples.  We took advantage of it being asparagus season to cook some white asparagus with mushrooms and onions.

Towards the end of our stay in Amsterdam, we stopped in at one of the higher-end grocery chains, Marqt, to see if we could pick up something special for our last meal.  It was really fun traversing up and down the aisles checking out all the different offerings. The fresh food items were often labelled only in Dutch so I used Google translate up on my IPAD, with varying degrees of success.  Often the translation is guessable if it is close enough to English or French spellings (e.g aspergesoep = asparagus soup), but for a few items, I had to ask for translation help.  We ended up getting a zucchini soup, crab cakes, white fish cakes, a home-made mackerel salad which we made into a sandwich with some fresh buns and cucumber, and some Sicilian sparkling lemonade to wash it all down with.

When we were arranging our home swap, we agreed with our fellow exchanger that we would leave each other a sample of local chocolate. We chose a box of Dufflet’s chocolate covered pistachios, one of my favourites, and she left us a big bar of Tony’s Chocolonely Hazelnut milk chocolate.  We fell in love with the rich, creamy, chocolatey taste of this bar and went out to buy another one from the Albert Heijn.  Then in Marqt, we found an even larger selection of different varieties and had to get some for our ongoing travels to Ireland.  We bought a dark chocolate with meringue and cherries, and a milk chocolate coffee crunch.  Both were good, but I do miss our original hazelnut variety and hope to find some more at the Amsterdam airport on the way home.

This marks the end of the blogs for the Amsterdam leg of our trip… on to Ireland!

Amsterdam 2015: Off the Beaten Path

Often our most memorable experiences in a new city come from exploring areas off the beaten path, where the typical tourist usually doesn’t venture.  Because we tend to spend much longer in one place than most people, we have the luxury of time to visit all the “must-see” attractions and still have the chance to wander farther afield.

During our stay in Amsterdam, multiple locals recommended that we take the free ferry from behind Central Station for a 5 minute ride to get to Eye, a film museum, exhibition space and cinema for art house movies with a mandate that seems similar to that of Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox.  It was a bit of a challenge navigating our way through the enormous Central Station terminal in order to find the ferry, but once we did, it was merely a matter of joining the queue and boarding the boat which can hold pedestrians, bicycles (of course!) and even cars.  The ferry was a bit smaller than the ones that traverse to Toronto’s Islands but had a similar feel.  We were told that the Eye café had a nice view of the harbour and was that ever an understatement.  The view was amazing and the food was good too.  Looking around, I would say that there were at least as many locals enjoying the atmosphere in the café as there were tourists.

While we were there, we figured we might as well check out the exhibits and the film museum.  The main exhibit featured a fascinating video installation by South African artist William Kentridge, who is known for his animated films which incorporate charcoal drawn backgrounds with sculptural objects, sound and music.  The film “More Sweetly Play the Dance”, which he created specifically for the Eye’s large viewing space, consists of a never-ending procession of the silhouettes of men and women carrying cardboard and wooden cut-outs of various shapes including baskets, telephones, musical instruments, a typewriter, and sticks attached to the faces of historic political figures. They are walking, marching and dancing across eight connected screens 45 meter-long, to the beats an African brass band playing what sounds like New Orleans Jazz funeral music. He achieves his effects by placing his figures just in front of an illuminated screen that is projecting his charcoal-drawn backgrounds of terrain typical of Johannesburg.  Every once in a while, the lighting changes to reveal the actual people behind the silhouettes.

Prior to entering the video display, we were shown some of the cut-out props that the people were carrying, but we did not really understand what it was that we were looking at until we saw the film.  While Kentridge’s work never directly addresses Apartheid, it usually refers to the “inadequacies of the human race” and hints at his country's turbulent past.  He describes this procession as a dance of death but also a dance of hope.  This was one of the coolest film experiences that I have ever encountered.  You can see an excerpt of it on YouTube, but you really don’t get the full effect unless you are sitting in that long, dark room literally watching the procession go by from one end to the other.  Kentridge had a few other animated films showing as part of this exhibit, but this one was the most powerful and visually stimulating by far.

A small museum on the history of film resides in the basement of Eye.  There was a mutoscope, patented in 1894 by Herman Casler, that acts like a flip book or a rolodex, showing individual black and white photographic pictures one at a time.  The one in this museum was showing images from Charlie Chaplin’s movie “The Waiter”.  We saw an example of a zoetrope, a wheel with a sequence of drawings, giving the illusion of motion by showing progressive phases of movement when you spin it. An old reel projector was showing Orson Well’s Citizen Kane on the wall.

On the ground floor, leading up to the cinemas was a long row of old movie posters.  English titles included West Side Story and An Anatomy of Murder but most of the posters were of foreign movies like Les Amants, or were Dutch translations of English movies.  Currently screening at Eye were documentaries like Citizenfour, foreign films like Tokyo Story, and special versions of classic movies like The Blade Runner – The Final Cut.  The gift shop contained movie memorabilia including books, posters, DVDs, but my favourite was the rack of cardboard masks of iconic TV and movie characters.  Don’t you think I make a good Heisenburg from Breaking Bad? This turned out to be a great excursion.  The ferry ride and cafe stop would have already made it worth the trip, but the excellent exhibits took it over the top.

When sightseeing, there’s nothing I like more than spotting whimsical sculptures.  So imagine my excitement when I saw the advertisement for the ARTZUID International Sculpture Exhibition that was happening while we were in Amsterdam.  After some investigation, we found out that ARTZUID is a free outdoors art show held every other summer in the Berlage district in the southern part of Amsterdam (zuid meaning south).  It is situated on long strips of parkland that run on for blocks, forming a “T” along the streets Apollolaan and Minervalaan.  Artists from around the world are invited to participate in this prestigious exhibition and the art is chosen in order to mesh with its intended surroundings.  According to the curator, former Stedelijk Museum director Rudi Fuchs, he wanted to “select ones that create a dialogue while being proportionate in both size and scale to the surrounding architecture and landscape”.  The works selected are mostly large monumental sculptures, epic in character and vertical in orientation to blend in with the beautiful tall trees of the parks. 

The giant Mickey Mouse sculptures by American graffiti artist KAWS seem to be the featured attraction, as they are situated in prime spots on the sculpture route, two positioned right near the ARTZUID pavilion with an extra sculpture placed dramatically in the fountain of the Rijks Museum.  The choice makes sense, since the Mickey sculptures are fun, easily recognizable and accessible to all ages, while some of the other sculptures needed some expert interpretation.  We learned that “Better Knowing”, the seated Mickey sculpture looking morosely down at what looks like Pinocchio’s nose, was spray painted with graffiti the day before the exhibition’s opening day.  Staff spent all night madly working to clean off the tags.  While this must have been heartbreaking for those who worked so hard to put this show together, it is just a bit ironic that a graffiti artist’s work was targeted for graffiti.  Although the sculptures look like they are made of bronze or hard plastic, they are actually made out of painted wood over a steel frame.  If you look closely, you can see the grooves of the wood and if you knock on the works, they are hollow inside.

We decided that in order to get the most out of the sculpture route, we should take a fee-based guided tour led by an art historian.  We were lucky enough to get ARTZUID director Cintha van Heeswijck-Veeger to show us around and her insights paid off immediately.  A work by Israel artist Tal R which I had quickly walked by earlier and dismissed as an unintelligible blob suddenly came to life as we were told to look closely to see how random, found or recycled objects are incorporated.  Magically, we began to see an old shoe, a bottle, a hat, a child’s toy, pine cones, sticks and more.  Tal uses wire and glue to hold the objects together and then covers the work with lacquered bronze. In another of his pieces, we thought we saw dentures–at least we hope they were dentures and there wasn’t a dead body in there!

Dutch sculptor Georg Herold’s vibrant, female figures with elongated cubic edges are made of wood covered with canvas, cast in bronze, then spray painted.  They are posed like lanky, exaggerated versions of pinup models or ballet dancers.  Looking at British sculptor Tony Cragg’s bronze sculpture “Runner” from the side, you can see the figure and actually feel like it is moving.  But looking at it straight on and from afar, it rather looks like a Japanese topiary.  When I spotted the vertically stretched and compressed head of a girl, I immediately thought of South-African born Canadian Evan Penny who created similarly shaped works.  However this turned out to be the sculpture “Duna” by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, whose female head’s eyes are closed in a relaxed and meditative state.  Like Tony Cragg’s Runner, Duna changes in appearance as you walk around her, and as the light reflects off of each surface.

Continuing with our tour, we saw American John Chamberlain’s sculptures made of molded steel wrapped with a shimmering aluminum covering to produce a sparkling effect in the sun.  He first made miniature models out of aluminum foil which he twisted by hand.  Fellow American Michael Craig-Martin combines the 1960s styles of Pop Art and Conceptual Art to create the outlines of common household utensils out of thin strips of steel painted in bright Pop Art colours.  Depending on what angle you view the works, they look either 2 or 3 dimensional.  By contrast, Dutch artist Klaas Gubbels also creates outlines of his preferred objects, teapots and coffee pots, but fills them in to give them volume.  German artist Thomas Schutte is known for his “Grosse Geister” (Big Spirits) sculpture series which features 2-5 meter tall, larger than life sized grotesque figures usually in pairs.  His “Public Enemies” shows a pair of grimacing ghouls, bound together with ropes while straining to get apart.  The sculpture seems to personify the saying “Can’t Live With Them; Can’t Live Without Them”.  Another German artist, the controversial Georg Baselitz (who said in an interview that women can’t paint and are not marketable), created a politically charged sculpture called BDM Gruppe, which reflects his childhood memory of his sister and her friends dancing while they were part of the BDM, the girls’ branch of the Nazi youth movement.  The figures are made out of sawn wood, painted black and covered with bronze, with the deep wood cuts still prominently visible, possibly representing ongoing emotional scars from that time.

In addition to the excellent sculpture tour, it was interesting to visit a new neighbourhood.  The Berlage district of southern Amsterdam was a planned community designed by Hendrick Petrus Berlage in the early 1900s.  Called “Plan Zuid”, it resulted in long, wide streets with planned areas for public art.  Unlike the narrow houses closer to the center of the city, some of the houses here are massive mansions.  The area is bordered by Vondelpark in the northwest, the Westlandgracht canal in the west, the Amstel river in the east and the Kalfijeslaan in the south.  Looking at the boats on these canals, it is obvious that this is where the locals enjoy the waterways.  Unlike the Central canal rings, there was not a single tourist site-seeing boat anywhere in the vicinity.

It is nice to stay in a peaceful residential area that is not overrun with tourists or crowds, but is still easily accessible to the downtown core.  Our home swap neighbourhood, just north of Vondelpark, fits this criteria perfectly and is quite interesting to explore in its own right.  There are some very beautiful buildings and homes in the area. The Atlas Hotel and its unidentified next door neighbour, are both gorgeously adorned in the Art Nouveau style.  The Dutch Riding School (Hollandse Manage) is an active horse riding school and museum, housed in a lovely early 19th Century neoclassical building modelled after the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.  The front entrance of the riding school has on display what looks like a horse Hall of Fame, or perhaps is a lineup of the current horses available for lessons?  Nearby, there is the late 19th century former school for girls that has now been turned into a youth hostel.  It is built in “chalet-style” with wooden balconies and overhanging roofs with decorative trimmings.  We spotted some enormous mansions overlooking Vondelpark that must have amazing views from their upper balconies and windows.

Staying so close to Vondelpark gave us many opportunities to traverse the grounds, either for the express purpose of exploring it, or when using it as the access path to get us to the heart of the city.  Spanning 120 acres, Vondelpark is a picturesquely designed and landscaped public park with expansive walking, hiking and biking paths, green space for picnics and gatherings, ponds, flower gardens, sports fields, children’s play areas, open-air theatre, several outdoor cafés, restaurants, and more.  It is named after 17th-century author Joost van den Vondel.  Herons, ducks and other birds can often be seen around the park, especially by the ponds and marshes.

After weeks of dodging the innumerable cyclists in Amsterdam, we decided we wanted to get in on the action.  Riding around in Vondelpark seemed like the perfect plan since it had been too big for us to cover by foot, and its wide bike paths would give us more room to navigate without getting in the way of the more experienced local cyclists.  The bicycles that we rented from OttoBikes were some of the most comfortable and easy riding rental bikes that we have ever ridden.  The wide, soft seat seemed to mould to my rear end and the upright handle bars and smooth gears made for an easy ride.  I’ve decided that I need to get a new bicycle seat once I return home.   After watching several other cycling groups do the same, Rich wanted to attempt the “bicycle selfie”. It was hilarious watching him try and I was weaving from side to side to try to get into the shots.  You can see the results … Rich must have liked them since he seems quite pleased with himself in one of them.

Riding around, we were able to cover much more ground and saw parts of the park that we did not get to previously.  We spotted many cool sculptures including a wood carving of a man (Atlas?) holding up a tree trunk that had naturally toppled over.  Someone had wrapped a jaunty scarf around the neck of a female nude sculpture, and we finally found the sculpture that we were actually looking for–the giant Fish by Pablo Picasso.

We found a tennis club with a thatched-roof clubhouse and multiple clay courts nestled in behind tall hedges at one end of the park.  We rode by the Blue Tearoom, a white and blue 1930s Modernist structure, shaped like The Great Gazoo’s flying saucer from the Jetsons cartoon.  The day we went for our bike ride, Vondelpark was hosting some sort of festival that featured food, drinks, a flea market and live music.  It was too crowded for us to stay by the bandstand with our bikes, so we found a bench across the pond and listened for a while. 

While we quite enjoy doing all the typical touristy activities in a new city, we also like trying to live like the locals and find out what they might do in their spare time.  I think we succeeded quite well on this trip and had a great time doing it.

Amsterdam 2015: Touring the City

Whenever we visit a new city, we like to take a guided tour to get a general overview of its history and points of interest.  In the past, we’ve gone on guided walking tours as well as commentated hop-on/hop-off bus tours.  But in the city of canals, what would be more natural than to take a canal boat tour?  Riding the canal boat gave us a unique viewpoint from which to admire the waterways and canal houses and took us to locations beyond the streets that we had planned to visit on our own.

During our tour, we passed by attractions such as the Hermitage, Botanical Gardens, Zoo, Heinekin Brewery, Bimhuis Concert Hall, and the beautiful Central Station.  As we approached the Maritime Museum, we saw a replica of the 18th Century Dutch East India Company merchant ship “The Amsterdam”, which sank in a storm in the English Channel in 1749 and was rediscovered in 1969.  The replica was built using 18th Century tools and it took 6 years to reproduce a ship that took 6 months to build originally … now that’s progress!  We also saw the Nemo Science Centre which is shaped like the hull of a large freighter ship, and the Lea Palace Floating Chinese Restaurant whose exterior is lit by over 1000 lights.   Had we realized earlier that this was a hop-on, hop-off boat cruise, we would have started earlier in the day and could have gotten off to visit some of these sights.  But we got started late in the day and only managed to catch the last loop of the route.

Since the canal tour only covered what could be seen from the water,  we also booked ourselves on a guided walking tour.  Tired of joining large tour groups where you might not be able to hear the guide or get close enough to see the feature that he is discussing, we decided that where possible, we would pay a bit more for a smaller group. We found this with OMY Amsterdam Tours, which led groups of no more than 4 people for a cost of 35 Euros per person.  The experience of a more personal tour turned out to be a much pleasanter experience and a strategy we intend to repeat in the future. Our guide David spun a good tale and regaled us with tidbits and trivia about Amsterdam’s history and culture, although we suspected him of embellishing a bit for our amusement.  We heard that you can be arrested for insulting the King of Netherlands (which we would never do) and could be ticketed for sleeping in public places (guilty, although it was more cat-napping than sleeping).   We learned about the Miracle of Amsterdam involving a dying man and a vomited last-rite wafer which would not burn in a fire. The tour started at Rembrandtplein, a square honouring arguably Amsterdam’s most famous painter.   The square featured a cast-iron sculpture of Rembrandt created in 1852, and a giant bronze recreation of his famous Night Watch painting, that was created in 2006 to celebrate his 400th birthday.

We visited the gardens and residences of Beginjhof, created in the 1300s as an enclosed community for Catholic Beguines, who were unmarried, religious women that wanted to serve God without taking vows to become nuns.  Today, the residences are still reserved for single women over age 30 and the gates are locked at 5pm each evening.  A large Protestant Reform church sits in the courtyard, while a clandestine Catholic chapel with a hidden side entrance sits across from it, secretly built to provide the sisters a place to worship. We stood in front of the flower-covered plot of sister Cornelia Arens who died in 1654, but refused to be buried in the Protestant cemetery and declared that she would “rather be buried in the gutter”.  As per her wishes, she was buried on the edge of the courtyard and a plaque marks the spot.

On Heiligweg Street, we stood in front of the gate of the former Rasphuis men’s prison, established in 1596 to reform and rehabilitate young male criminals rather than just punishing them with flogging or hanging.  The prisoners were set to work shaving brazilwood trees and using a rasp to turn the wood chips into powder to be used to make paints and dyes.  There is a myth of a dungeon used to motivate lazy inmates, which would fill with water, forcing them to pump quickly and vigorously to prevent from drowning.  Although there is no remaining proof of this, it certainly makes a good story.  The gate is topped by sculptures of two shackled prisoners on either side of Lady Justice, who is holding what I thought was a red football(?!?).  It was explained that the red shield with the 3 X’s formed a part of Amsterdam’s coat of arms, and once I knew this fact, I began to see this image everywhere.

We were also told to be on the lookout for gable stone carvings hanging above building doorways.  These stones were used to identify a house before there were street names or numbers, and the carvings often depicted the profession of the owner.  Our guide David also pointed out what he called metal “pee-guards” installed in the back of buildings usually in alleyways.  These were to dissuade drunks from peeing against the wall of your establishment, since the pee would deflect off the guard and splash back on your shoes and pants.  He also pointed out the ridges at intersections that were used to inform the visually impaired of oncoming traffic.

Armed with a great overview about Amsterdam, we were ready to explore the city on our own.  We visited two canal house museums, the Van Loon House on Keizersgracht and the Willet-Holthuysen House on Herengracht, to see how the wealthy lived in the 19th Century.  Both houses were built in the late 1600s with the last residents living there from the late 1800s through early 1900s.  The Van Loon House is the more modest of the two, both in terms of the furnishings and the elaborateness of the garden, but it did have a few unique items on display.  There was a beautifully carved and painted sled whose seat had a trap door into which heated coals could be placed to warm the riders.  We also saw a gigantic linen press and several rooms that had hidden doors which were decorated to blend into the walls.

When Louisa Holthuysen married Abraham Willet in 1861, they redecorated her inherited family home in the fashionable French styles of the times, based on decor favoured by King Louis XIV.  Accordingly, the ornamentations and furnishings in the Willet-Holthuysen House are more regal than the Van Loon House.  The pair were also avid collectors of Dutch and French paintings and prints, silver, porcelain and Venetian glass.  Abraham had a room of “Antiquities” where he kept cabinets full of weapons, rare art history books, sculptures, photographs and more.

When we think of palaces, we have in mind the majestic, ostentatious ones like Versailles in France or Buckingham Palace in England. We had to downgrade our expectations for the 17th Century Royal Amsterdam Palace (DAM) which, despite its name, was not built to be the majestic home of Dutch royalty but rather as the town hall for the city of Amsterdam.  Taken in this context, this was a very beautiful and elegant government office building and a magnificent space for politicians, judicial and administrative staff to work in.  The Grand Hall is the most impressive with the statue of Atlas holding up the world, while the administrative meeting rooms contain some furnishings and décor reflecting the brief period when Napoleon's brother Louis took possession and converted it into his palace. In the basement is the Tribunal Hall which was originally used for the trial, verdict and sentencing of prisoners, as reflected in the solemn scenes depicted by the sculptures.  Among the scenes are the stories of “An Eye for an Eye” and King Solomon claiming he would saw a child in half as a way of revealing the true mother.

Just like the “Palace”, both the 13th Century Old Church (Oude Kerk) and the 15th Century New Church (Nieuwe Kerk) look relatively modest compared to elaborate cathedrals like Notre Dame or Westminster.  Other than being the oldest building and oldest Parish Church in Amsterdam, the most interesting things about the Old Church are its proximity to the Red Light District, and the sculptures in the surrounding Oudekerksplein square that reflect this fact.  There is the bronze statue of a prostitute named Belle with the inscription "Respect sex workers all over the world", and the bronze relief in the cobblestone of a hand covering a naked breast.

 The New Church (which can only be considered new relative to the Old Church!) is no longer an active church.  Instead, it is used for organ recitals as well as providing an exhibition space for art shows.  During our visit, the church was hosting an exhibit celebrating 60 years of World Press Photo, an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam that sponsors one of the largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest.  Along with a large display reminiscing past winners, the nominees and winners in various categories for 2015 were presented.  Amongst the past winners was the iconic Pulitzer prize winning photo by Nick Ut of terrified children racing away from a Napalm bombing in Viet Nam and in particular, one nine-year-old girl running naked because her clothes had burned off of her.

The photojournalism stories chosen for recognition in 2015 reinforce the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words”.  One photographer used a drone to capture a series of aerial photos of groups of people praying, exercising, or attending weddings and funerals.  His point was to highlight the types of gatherings that have been accidentally hit by American drone strikes.  Another display compiled images of family photos of few of the 276 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, along with some of their belongings including a school notebook and a pair of shoes.  It was jarring to see the girls in relatively modern clothes as opposed to the hooded robes that they were shown wearing in the news.  Then there was the shocking photo of the boat jam-packed with Libyan refugees, prior to being rescued by an Italian frigate.  Although we had read about all of these news stories in the past, seeing these photos brought an added dimension to, understanding of, and empathy for each of them.

The most fascinating and impressive place of worship in Amsterdam was actually a secret church hidden in the top three floors of a wealthy merchant’s home.  Built in the 1660s, it filled the need for Catholics who were forbidden by law from practicing their religion or worshiping in public.  The exterior and bottom floors gave the impression of a normal 17th Century canal house.  But each Sunday, over 200 people filed up a secret staircase to access the pews in what is now known as “Our Lord in the Attic” (Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder).  The anti-Catholic laws were repealed in the 1800s so secret churches were no longer needed.  In 1888, the house was turned into a museum.

One space that we visited as much to see the beautiful building as the exhibits inside was De Bazel, the former headquarters of a Dutch Trading Company and now the housing the Amsterdam City Archives as well as some exhibition galleries and conference rooms.  The building, stretching from Keizersgracht to Herengracht, is an example of the style “Brick Expressionism” which uses bricks or tiles as the main source of exterior decoration.  Built from 1919-26 by Dutch designer Karel de Bazel, the building may have been influenced by Louis Sullivan’s similar looking Prudential Guaranty Building, built in 1896 in Buffalo, New York.  The exhibit inside dealt with Provo, a Dutch counterculture movement in the mid-1960s which tried to provoke (thus the name Provo) police through non-violent actions with the hopes of promoting social change.  Their white bicycle campaign was aimed at improving traffic issues by closing central roads to motorized traffic and adopting a bicycle share system to provide free access to bicycles for all.

Again, mostly motivated by the desire to see the interior of the gorgeous Theatre Tuschinski, we decided we were going to watch a movie.  We didn’t even really care which movie we ended up seeing.  The primary criteria was to be in the main auditorium, which is the original movie theatre and live performance space, decorated in early 20th century styles including Art Deco and Art Nouveau.  We splurged and got reserved VIP seats in the balcony (15.5 Euros instead of 8), since we were told that this is where you would get the best view of the theatre.  Based on the stunning front lobby, ticket booth and concession stand, we knew we were going to be in for a treat.

We didn’t realize just how great an experience this was going to be.  The theatre was as gorgeous as expected.  With its two rings of balcony overhanging the floor, royal red seats, large stage and curtain, it was designed and decorated in the same vein as grand old theatres like the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto or the Old Vic in London.  We were surprised to learn that our VIP seats included a free drink and snack (popcorn, chips or chocolate) and that there was a little table between each seat for us to rest our food on.  The seats were comfortable and roomy plush arm chairs with so much leg room that even Rich could stretch out.  This is definitely the way to watch a movie.  Unfortunately, we didn’t like the movie that happened to be playing in the theatre, which was the George Clooney sci-fi/fantasy film Tomorrowland (renamed Project X in Europe due to copyright issues).  I was hoping to see Pitch Perfect 2 and Rich would have liked Mad Max or even Age of Ultron, but we were stuck with the movie that was playing in the theatre that we wanted to sit in… oh well.  It was still a hoot to watch a movie in such an elegant and beautiful venue.

It was fun just wandering around various shopping districts such as the quirky Jordaan/9 Streets and the high-end Pieter Cornelisz Hoofstraat, poking our noses into shops with interesting items for sale.  I enjoyed stepping into the large wooden Dutch shoes that seemed to be good touristy advertisement for the shops all over Amsterdam.  I loved the cow sculpture and rubber duck stores and would have seriously considered buying one of the tulip purses that we saw in the Bags museum, if it had not been really expensive and totally impractical functionally.  It was nice to rest our feet while trying out the standalone hammocks in the hammock store, and we enjoyed our chocolate cherry truffles from Tasty Chocolates so much that we went back to get more the next day.  Of course, Rich never passed by the opportunity to check out every luxury or vintage watch store that he came across.

It’s amazing how walkable the central canal rings of Amsterdam are, as all the attractions are relatively close to each other.  There is very little motorized traffic so you just need to worry about dodging the bicycles.   Being in Amsterdam for 12 days, we also had the opportunity to explore further afield, but I will leave that for the next blog.

Amsterdam 2015: Art Museums - Rijks, Van Gogh, Stedelijk

To the guy on Trip Advisor who gave the excellent tip on the best way to navigate the Rijksmuseum and specifically Rembrandt's masterpiece, The Night Watch, without being overrun by other tourists, a big "Thank You!".  His advice was to avoid the weekends, show up as soon as the museum opens on a weekday, and rush immediately up to the 2nd floor to view the works by Rembrandt and Vermeer.  This guidance was bang on, and for a few blissful minutes, it was just Rich and I and a few other stragglers, alone with the masterpieces.  Within 20 minutes, the area was overrun with people stacked 4-5 rows deep.  But by then, we were ready to move on leisurely to visit the rest of the museum, which was significantly less crowded.

The Night Watch has an interesting history that includes being trimmed on all 4 sides in the 1700s in order to make it fit in the desired hanging space between two columns.  At that time, it was just another painting and not yet considered a masterpiece.  A copy of the work, made by Rembrandt’s contemporary, gives an idea of what the original piece would have looked like.  By the Second World War, its magnificence and importance had been realized and great lengths were taken to conceal this jewel from the clutches of the Nazis.

 The day before, we had visited Rembrandt’s house which he lost when he failed to pay his mortgage.  The actual house and its remaining furnishings were underwhelming, but the final video shown at the end was excellent.  It was the BBC documentary “Rembrandt: Masterpieces of the Late Years” narrated by Simon Schama and gave important insight into how to appreciate Rembrandt’s final paintings.  As a result, I was quite interested in seeing some of Rembrandt’s other works which were hanging in the same 17th Century gallery as The Night Watch. 

I spent some time with “Conspiracy of the Batavians Under Claudius Civilis”, because of its compelling backstory.  Rembrandt was commissioned to create a grand, heroic, traditional painting for the town hall, meant to inspire Dutch pride.  Instead he painted a rough, sketch-like rendering of the plotting for a rebellion against the Romans in 69AD, led by a barbaric, deformed leader with an ugly scar where his eye should be, surrounded by a group of drunken ruffians.  Rather than the usual fine brush strokes with intricate details, the paint is “stabbed and slashed and caked on, like the makeup of the warriors”.  The patrons were horrified at what they considered to be an unfinished work and refused to pay for it.  What they did not realize was that Rembrandt was introducing one of the first examples of the Impressionist style, more than 200 years before its time.  After its rejection, Rembrandt had to cut it down in size in order to find a new buyer.

Another masterpiece discussed in the video which was on display at the Rijks was The Syndics of the Drapery Guild depicting quality control inspectors sitting around a table.  Usually a boring topic, Rembrandt brings energy to it with motion, as one man is about to rise and all the men are facing and looking directly out of the painting.  Are they looking at us?  At Rembrandt the painter?  Appropriately, a sketch of the painting was found on a piece of account paper of the ledger book – the same type used for by these men.

Vermeer’s famous Kitchen Maid painting was also a highlight from this gallery, since we had taken art history courses discussing his excellent use of lighting and colour.  The painting is significantly smaller with a more personal feel than the Rembrandt works.

By first visiting the gallery with all the iconic paintings, you would think that the Rijksmuseum was mostly an art gallery.  But wandering around the rest of the wings quickly proved that it was indeed a museum with all types of eclectic collections from the 15th through the 20th Centuries.  We were fascinated by the 17th Century doll houses that were more hobbies of passionate collectors than toys.  One in particular had its contents custom-made to scale, employing the best furniture makers, glassblowers, silversmiths, potters, craftsmen in porcelain and china, and even artists to create tiny paintings for the walls.  Rich was drawn to the many cabinets with exquisite carvings and marquetry.  We saw some early pocket watches with dials that lifted up to reveal images on the back–perhaps the precursor for the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watch?  I was amused by the 1960s necklace made out of 4 pieces of stove pipe, but the most brilliant fashion trend was the wearing of pajamas as evening-wear.  I am definitely all for this idea!

The top floor of the museum contained pieces from the 19th-20th Centuries.  There was a chess set that glorified the Nazi conquests during World War II, with chess pieces shaped like soldiers, guns and aircraft.  Multiple examples of beautifully crafted chairs seemed to be designed more for esthetics than comfort.  I liked the series of wacky swim-cap sketches but was perplexed by the 1968 piece titled “Wombtomb”, although I guess the name does say it all with its tomb-like shape and womb opening that you can actually climb into.  The description said that the artist wanted a “playful and liberating environment that led to happenings, performances and interactions”.  One can only imagine …

The truly memorable museums are works of art in their own right, and the Rijks is no exception.  The stately building is a stunning combination of Gothic and Renaissance styles, while the expansive grounds leading up to the museum feature a large shimmering pool and the prominent IAMSTERDAM sign.  During our visit, the pool was also occupied by a giant sculpture by the American artist KAWS, who is known for his subversion of the Mickey Mouse image by putting X’s on the eyes and hands.  The presence of this sculpture was part of a larger Art Sculpture tour that we were lucky enough to go on (more about that in another blog).  Also on the grounds were a series of bunny sculptures called “The Miffy Art Parade” marking the 60th anniversary of the children’s book about Miffy the bunny.  Each rabbit was designed by a different Dutch artist.

As busy as we thought the RijksMuseum would be, the lineups to get into the Van Gogh Museum were much worse–more like the ones encountered at the Anne Frank House.  Luckily, our trusty Museumkaart got us into another queue that let us in almost immediately.  Photography was not allowed in the Van Gogh Museum except at designated locations, which seems pointless to me since images of all the works can be found on the Internet.  Many of the more famous works, such as the Bedroom in Arles, the Sunflowers, and several self-portraits, were familiar to us since we had seen versions in other museums.  A couple of works that were totally unfamiliar were Van Gogh’s attempts at painting in a Japanese style.

The curator did a really good job not only in presenting Van Gogh’s art, but also in detailing his relationships with family, friends, and other artists, describing both his influences and who he in turn influenced.  It is common knowledge that Van Gogh was close to his brother Theo, especially in his final years and the museum displayed many letters that they wrote to each other.  What I did not realize was that Van Gogh also had a second brother and three sisters. There were also excellent interactive video displays that delved into some of Van Gogh’s more famous works such as the Bedroom In Arles, deconstructing it through animation to show the various paint colour layers and brush strokes.

My favourite part of the museum was a looped video displayed on top of the entrance doors, which compared Van Gogh’s iconic images to spoof versions.  This was done for Starry Night, the Sunflowers, Bedroom in Arles (where Roy Litchenstein created a version), and The Potato Eaters.  One of Van Gogh’s many self-portraits was made the subject of the most hilarious parodies, comparing it to similarly profiled images of The Simpson’s Groundkeeper Willie, Leonardo Dicaprio, a Lego character, Mr. Spock from Star Trek, and some cat in a suit that I could not place.

Finally, the Stedelijk Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was the least popular and easiest to get into, which made it even more surprising that this museum was the only one that wanted a 5Euro entry surcharge with the Museumkaart.  I found it ironic that a museum for modern art is housed at least partially in such a beautiful old building, but the new addition seemed sufficiently contemporary.  We were amused by how enthusiastic the ticket lady was about their new “state of the art” escalator that had been written up in Lonely Planet… um, it was an escalator … I guess if you only have one, then it seems really exciting?  I did like the comfy, bright red lounge chairs where we could rest after a long day of wandering the museum.

Compared to other museums with the same mandate, the Stedelijk’s collection of modern art seemed rather meager.  There were a few instantly identifiable names in the small collection, including Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Litchenstein, but for the most part, there were artists that I did not recognize.  One Expressionist piece called “Blank” consisted of two walls covered with linen that had been painted black and the description indicated that the viewer should feel the walls “compressing the space between them”.  I was already feeling skeptical about the artistic merit of this piece, when we walked into the next space where there were only bare white walls.  I was just about to complain about minimalism being taken too far when I realized that this was actually supposed to be a video display and the projector had broken down.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of Dutch liberation, a temporary exhibit described how the Stedelijk Museum was affected by the Nazi occupation and acted to protect not only its own prized works, but also works owned by Jews who were fleeing the country.  They used a colour-coding system to prioritize the pieces to determine which ones absolutely had to be saved (red dot) as opposed to the ones of lesser importance (blue and white dots).  The Stedelijk collection, along with collections from the Royal Family, the Van Gogh family and other Jewish collectors and artists, were transported to and hidden in a bunker in the dunes near Castricum (North-West of Amsterdam) for the duration of the war.  Masterpieces including Rembrandt's The Night Watch and Van Gogh's Sunflowers were stored here.

Once the war was over, the museum was instrumental in helping to recuperate and return stolen art to their original owners.   The paintings displayed in this exhibit each had a fascinating story related to the war.  In one case, a Jewish businessman fled to Toronto in 1939 just before the war started, leaving his entire collection in the care of the Stedelijk.  When his works were returned after the war, he gifted a painting “Mother and Child” by Oskar Kokoschka to the museum in appreciation.

The most popular attraction at the Stedelijk was the huge temporary exhibit “The Oasis of Matisse”, highlighting in particular Henri Matisse’s work in colourful paper collages.  He created an entire book called Jazz featuring these cut-outs along with personal writings and observations.  Another section of the exhibit compared Matisse’s works to other artists who were influenced by him.  Matisse’s series of odalisque (concubine in a harem) paintings led Picasso to create his own version as a tribute shortly after Matisse’s death.