First Visitors

Photo of the week!   Segway lessons in Prinsengracht!!!

 Montelbaans Toren (Tower)

You will have noticed there’s been a break since the last blog. That’s because we have had a number of visitors in town. First a visit from my sister and brother-in-law, in fact our first visitors. This was great, because you have to save some nice things to enjoy together, otherwise you can get bored covering the same places of interest with all your visitors. It just happens that an amazing Exhibition at the Van Gogh museum has recently opened. This was top of the list as far as my sister was concerned and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Apparently, it has taken 14 years to put the Exhibition of van Gogh’s letters together with his works of art giving you a fantastic autobiography of the man and his life. He wrote something like 400 letters to his brother Theo, hundreds to his Doctor, Dr Gachet (famous portraits) as well as many of the great Impressionist Painters of his time. Most of the letters include sketches of the paintings he was working on at the time, with little notes on the colours he had used etc. The Exhibition is nothing short of brilliant finishing up with the 6 Volumes of photographs of his work and his letters. As we had a few days together, we also visited the Masterpieces in the Rijksmuseum which is currently under renovation, so the best pieces have been put together in a small collection.  If you are into Art then a great opportunity to see Vermeer, Rembrandt and Avercamp,  to name but a few,  in a smaller gallery.    Anne Franks house is possibly still the main attraction in Amsterdam and if you don’t mind queuing for an hour or so to get in, it is quite something to see what happened just down the road from where we live now. There are some great Museums in Amsterdam and when you are not visiting those, just wandering about the streets discovering the little nooks and crannies of the town is great fun. No visit is complete without a trip around the canals on a boat so we did that too. There is an amazing flea market on Waterlooplein which I want to browse more thoroughly when I’ve got the time. This leads round the corner to Rembrandts house built in the 1600s. We stopped for coffee opposite in the St Antoine Sluis house leaning at such an angle I’m sure it will fall into the canal one day. From my office window I can see the spire of Zuider Kerk. Brilliant at night when it’s alluminated. K and I visited the outside one Sunday assuming that it was still a Church, locked up after Sunday Service. On my sisters visit we discovered that it is no longer a church but the fantastic interior has been opened up and now exhibits all Amsterdam’s current and future planning, ie, roads, bridges, parks, waterways etc. All very hands on stuff with huge flat screen TVs with virtual tours around the various places. I think I should write an “Amsterdam for Free” book similar to the Harden’s London for Free, this is a great place to while away the time.
Making our way around a circular route via Nieuw Markt and China Town, we strolled into the Red Light District, but of course, no photos allowed. It’s amazing how many girls there are advertising their wares – young, old, black, white all shapes and sizes.

We had a wine tasting at home this week. I wasn’t officially part of the invitees but as I live here I suppose they couldn’t ask me to leave. I just played the role of waitress and handed out cheese and biscuits and water to clear the palate. There’s been a Communications Conference in Town, ECOMM Europe, so a number of people who know each other were able to enjoy this little diversion. It was organized by a friend from London attending the conference and staying with us. His brother being a wine expert in the UK talked to us on a laptop screen explaining about the various wines as we were tasting. It’s amazing where technology is going, we will all be chatting to each other across the world from our enormous TV screens in the not too distant future. Once again, having friends staying this weekend gave us a further opportunity to show off our “new” town to them and enjoy lots of eating out. It’s all rather quiet now everyone has gone...