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Month: April 2019

by nicolahansby

Amsterdam

Amsterdam apartments/homes

Vondel Park
Vondel Park is at the center of Amsterdam. We walked through everyday on our route to the central city and museums. Despite the weather the whole of Amsterdam was out enjoying this park. Lovely to see. Vondel Park is green and grassy, with ponds and stands of leafless trees. This park is shabbily chic, not hyper manicured. We enjoyed watching crows, funny looking birds and other urban wildlife in the patches of wild and semi-wild areas. 
Navigating the park, you walk along a central path, but all the time there are people cycling through and ringing their bells for you to get out of the way. We loved it, my favourite sight was seeing mothers biking with their children in the bucket on the front.
Child bucket
Rijks Museum
Rijks Museum
Tulips at the entrance to the Museum

Mitch and I visited the Rijks Museum. The museum itself is stunning and has a huge variety of works spanning from the 1700’s to the 2000’s showing a mind boggling display of art in all mediums and styles.

Stairs to the Rijks Great Hall

 

Rembrandt’s painting ‘Night Watch’

It was a last minute decision to visit ‘Alle Rembrandts’ (All The Rembrandts). I’m not a huge Rembrandt fan however I loved seeing his small scale etchings/drawings of beggars, family, domestic scenes. The work below was sketched from life with haste. I delighted in Rembrandt’s drawings and his ability to notice and pay close attention to things.

Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal canal by Rembrandt

 

Music in front of the rijks

Musical ensemble Busting out a collection of classical hits from Bach to Vivaldi. Very clever.

 

 stedelijk museum
Art work by Philip Guston titled ‘Painting, Smoking, Eating’

‘Painting, Smoking, Eating’ by artist Philip Guston is an autobiographical work, depicting the artist lying in bed, smoking, with a plate of French fries balanced on his chest. I have admired Guston’s work for decades so It was a real treat to come across this work at the Stedelijk Museum.

 

Stedelijk escalator
Layout of contemporary art at the Stedelijk
Mitch enjoying art at the Stedelijk

 

Van gogh museum

 

No pictures allowed at Van Gogh Museum, sadly. This Museum was incredible. Loved the special exhibition of works by David Hockney along side Van Gogh.

 

Second hand/thrift stores amsterdam

Amsterdam has a  great selection of vintage clothing stores. Mitch and I went clothes shopping yesterday at Everything Vintage.  Mitch found a sweet shirt with a small pansy print all over. I left the store dressed in a whole new outfit: new shoes, vintage jeans and a cute high necked top. Everything is laid out so beautifully in these stores, ie the silk shirts grouped into colour blocks.