If you are planning a trip to Amsterdam make sure you book some of your visits well in advance. The Anne Frank House needs the most attention, as the bookings start two months out, and fill up quickly. The Van Gogh Museum comes up next, but you likely only need to book this out a week or two before arrival. The Rijksmuseum seems to be the easiest to get into, but I’d still book it a week out just to be on the safe side, and to lock in your desired time slot.
Our first stop was the Van Gogh Museum, which has the largest collection of Van Gogh’s in the world. There are 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters by the artist.
One of the first paintings you run across is one of his famous “Sunflowers”. He produced five of these paintings, and this is one of two he gifted to his artist friend Paul Gaugin, painted in January 1889.
There were people taking photos of EVERY painting in the museum. Multiple photos. I took five. Below is one of those. These three paintings represent a “triptych”, which means that three works are combined to create one harmonious whole. Van Gogh was familiar with this style due to Japanese prints he admired. These three works, from left to right, are “The Pink Orchard”, “The Pink Peach Tree”, and “The White Orchard”. All of these were painted in Arles, France in April-May 1888.
The below is “Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat”, painted in September-October 1887. Van Gogh did a lot of self-portraits, not because he was obsessed with himself like a Kardashian, but because he couldn’t afford to pay a model to paint. Every self-portrait he produced was for experimentation with technique, colors and style. It’s interesting that Van Gogh was never famous during his life…admired by fellow painters and a few collectors, but fame didn’t come until well after his death.
The next painting is Irises, painted in May 1890. He painted this in the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy, where he was admitted after cutting off his own ear while in a manic state. I just can’t imagine cutting my own ear off…that takes some doing! For Van Gogh, this painting was mainly a study in color. After the ear incident I’m surprised he didn’t work with more reds!
This last one was new to me. I’m actually shocked to have not seen it before, as it was my favorite in the entire museum! This is Landscape at Twilight, painted in June 1890. I see a puzzle in my future!
The next day we visited the Anne Frank House (also known as The Annex), where the Frank family hid from the Nazi’s from July 1942 until their discovery on August 4th, 1944. Below is a night shot of the front entrance to the museum. We had reservations early in the morning hoping to avoid the crowds, but The Annex is so small that it’s always going to be crowded inside.
You can get an extra educational experience with a half hour history lesson about WWII, The Annex, and how the Frank Family came to be there. The below was the only photo I was allowed to take inside. I’ll post a couple of online photos that show what it looks like within The Annex.
The below image shows the entrance to The Annex, located behind the hinged bookcase. The bookcase you can see inside is the original, covered in plexiglass to avoid damage from some idiot scrawling their name on it.
The below shows the main dining area as it was while the Franks were hiding here.
Here is what it looks like on the tour. The only sign that it was the kitchen/dining area is the original counter and sink.
This is Anne Frank’s room as it looked during 1942-1944.
Here it is on the tour. Yeah, just a tad crowded.
The first movie to chronicle their time in hiding was The Diary of Anne Frank, released in 1959. Shelley Winters won an Oscar for her portrayal Mrs. Van Daan, Anne’s fictionalized name for Auguste Van Pels. The Van Pels shared the hiding space with the Franks. Shelley was nice enough to donate her Oscar to the museum.
This is the entrance to the house. We walked back by after dinner the next night since it was so crowded during the daytime.
A full view of the house’s exterior.
The beautiful view right across the street.
Our last day in Amsterdam we visited the Rijksmuseum, housed in a gorgeous building.
The painting to see here is Rembrandt’s Night Watch. It’s completely enclosed in it’s own specially designed glass chamber while the painting undergoes research to determine how vibrations effect the canvas, and so that the museum can determine the best way to remove the old protective varnish from the surface without damaging the paint. The painting is huge, more than 12′ by 14′ in size.
There is yet another Van Gogh self-portrait here. He painted this one shortly after all his teeth were removed. Man, this dude had a rough life!
This was the coolest thing I saw in the entire museum, a contraption called the “Table Orrery” that could show the relative positions of the sun, earth, moon and planets…that dates from 1802!!
Our attempt at a selfie outside the museum.
We did do a canal tour, but there was really no “tour”, just an hour of telling jokes and drinking crappy wine and cheese. Our hotel offered a private tour, and we should have taken them up on it. You get what you pay for!
One last shot of Amsterdam to leave on a high note.
Up next we head to the little city of Delft, known for their blue ceramics. Also known for their excellent location between The Hague and Rotterdam.