Amsterdam-Day 2- Did You Know Rembrandt Was His First Name?!

So, apparently Europeans aren’t quite as up and at ‘em on a gray, chilly Saturday morning as tourists are—who would’ve thought?  We got out early this morning, planning to grab some breakfast and be at the Rijkmuseum before it opened at 9 to avoid any potential lines since apparently these can be brutal (they don’t take reservations).  It was very quiet on the streets which was really lovely; we wandered up toward the museum stopping at Village Bagels for what was a semi-decent bagel actually outside of NY.

Arriving at the Rijk, we realized the nightmare lines really must not be applicable at opening, or that we did this trip perfectly since it’s far from high tourist season. Either way we walked right in, scanned our museumkaarts and started moving through the big museum.  It’s in a beautiful building and I have to say I was impressed by the flow and setup of many of the exhibits in addition to being awed by the historic building.  Some of the highlights included the library, the hall of honor where they showcase some of the most famous Dutch works, Rembrandt’s NightWatch, the ship models room, and the famous Van Gogh self portrait.

Continuing our cultural streak, we walked through museumplein and grabbed a quick bite at the café at the Concertgebouw (their major concert hall).  Great space; did some people watching and ate a light lunch and were back out to conquer more art.

We had reservations at the Van Gogh museum, so that coupled with the MuseumKaarts enabled us to jump a huge line and walk right in (in case I haven’t made this clear, the ease at which these two things let you do museums here is unbelievable). The Van Gogh museum was good, if more crowded than some of the other sites we’ve spent time in.  The first floor took you through his self-portraits and timeline, the second floor dealt a lot with inspiration and his circle, the third floor was more about him developing his technique, the fourth was the latter part of his life and  correspondence/personal life.  A good retrospective and we were surprised by some of the works that we had never seen before—particularly liked his orchard series and didn’t realize he had done a grouping of Japanese inspired paintings either! It is funny though when you got a museum about an artist and you know there are so many major works that are held at other museums in the world, make sense but definitely gives you pause I think!

Leaving museumplein, we walked through the Albert Cuyp Market. It’s your typical touristy market, but there were definitely some highlights and when you got about a block off the actual market, there were really cool bread shops, clothing stores, etc.  One of the things we had learned in our research was that there is a strong Indonesian population and heritage in Amsterdam—in the spirit of that, I came across a terrific international store (Tjin’s) that was right off the market so decided to stop by. While we couldn’t take home their homemade sambal since it was not in a strong container (bummer!), we did find one that sounded interesting that was from a Dutch producer so brought that home as one of our foodie souvenirs.

Continuing the walk down the Market street, we stopped for 2 quick snacks—mini pancakes called porffiges (like Swedish ebelskivvers but not filled) and a hot stroopwaffel.  Delicious and the perfect pick-me-up in the midst of the light drizzle we had all day.

We walked along the Amstel River a bit until we reached the last stop of the day, the Hermitage. Yes, your confusion is warranted, we are not in Russia, but they have a branch here which was doing an exhibit we were excited for- dining with the tsars.  A light retrospective on the social side of the Tsars based around the collections of china on display. Fun to read about etiquette and just see some of the splendor in person!  The other half of the Hermitage has a portrait gallery display, which focuses on the power players in Amsterdam’s history and really just tries to provide some groundwork of the history.

Crossing back over the Amstel, we saw the famous Magere Brug (bridge) and made it back to our hotel in time to rest up prior to dinner. After a day full of being on our feet, we were pretty excited about our dinner in the Waldorf at Librije Zusje. This was our big dinner of the trip and it was absolutely worth it—a fairly small dining room with an absolutely delicious menu, we actually decided to order a la carte instead of the set tasting so we could try more. I won’t bore you with too many foodie details, but we started off with several small bites that were phenomenal then had an incredible meal including grilled langoustines, venison, deconstructed apple pie, etc—you get the picture but I can’t express how delighted our taste buds were!