Amsterdam - a Dutch delight
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Perhaps the epitome of this high culture is the superb Rijksmuseum. The actual museum was founded in Den Haag in 1800, and moved to Amsterdam in 1808. This move meant that paintings that belonged to the city of Amsterdam were added to the collection, including the famous "The Night Watch", painted in 1642 by Rembrandt. The current building opened in 1885, and the stunning building in Gothic – Renaissance Revival style is worth visiting for its architecture alone. The same architect Pierre Cuypers, also designed the main railway station. The similarities are remarkable. The Amsterdam Centraal railway station is on the northern edge of the old city (although today the city has expanded across the river Ij) and the Rijksmuseum was on the southern edge of the city. Old photos of it being built show it in the middle of fields. It would be the first building that you would see as you approached Amsterdam from the east, and what an impression it would make!
The Rijksmuseum is full of centuries of art and antiques. It has one million items in its collection, of which 8,000 are on display at any one time, so the displays are constantly renewed. Paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer and so many Dutch artists bring visitors from all over the world. Its original style became lost as internal floors were added to be able to display more things, but the 375 million Euro, ten year renovation that was completed in 2013 has once again opened up the building by removing these inhibiting layers, and natural daylight once again floods down inside. It is said that if you fly over the museum all you see is a sea of glass – now it is cleaned and sparkling so that the whole museum is light and airy.
A road cuts through the middle of the building, and a tunnel now connects the two halves, while tall arched windows let you see the constant to and fro of cyclists passing through. As the Netherlands grew in importance and wealth, mainly through trading and colonising, the rich merchants encouraged artists, and many portraits adorn the walls, as well as still life representations of plants and fruit from exotic places. There are constant crowds around Rembrandt’s huge work "The Night Watch", and Vermeer’s thought provoking and deeply complicated "The Milk Maid". This shows a working class lady in a kitchen pouring milk from a brown earthenware jug into a bowl, and naturally looking down to see what she is doing. Walking around on a guided tour was good for me as I am not artistic, and the guide explained the significance of objects in paintings, and backgrounds to their stories, which were fascinating.
The milkmaid was seen again in real life – at the National Tulip Day display in Dam Square. Saturday January 16th was this special day. Dam Square, easy walking distance from Centraal station, (750 metres) has the Royal Palace (it was the town hall from 1655 to 1808 when it was converted to the palace) dominating one side. There is a road running through the square, with frequent trams in both directions. Between the trams and the palace the cobbled square was fenced off and over 200,000 growing tulips in trays were spread out in patterns spelling out the year. At 1 pm the barriers are opened and the public can help themselves to as many tulips as they can carry. Of course, in January these bulbs have been grown in glasshouses, but are beautiful and very much in demand – they will always flower again next year! To bring culture and glamour to the scene, a lady dressed just as Vermeer’s milkmaid, who even had a similar face, posed amongst the flowers making a beautiful scene. There was also Miss Tulip 2016 – and one of the photos shows me and Miss Tulip embracing in the display of blossoms – which I did purely for your sake so that you would see her, you understand. It was freezing cold; the lassie must have been on her way to hypothermia, but was enjoying herself.
Tulips are so well known as the emblem of the Netherlands – but they are not at all a native species! Tulips were originally discovered in Kazakhstan. The Dutch explorers brought them back and developed a whole industry. At its height, rare tulip bulbs sold for the price of a house! Of course this was followed by a crash and today tulips are still a major industry, but at sensible prices. The exploring Dutch brought many plants back to the Netherlands, and in 1638 established the Hortus Botanicus.
This botanical garden was in the centre of Amsterdam but was outgrowing the available site. To the edge of the city as it then was, there was a swampy area. When the plague killed thousands of people, the bodies were brought here and buried. This site then became the area for the Hortus to relocate. See www.dehortus.nl In the many houses of Hortus unique specimens of plants and trees are very carefully looked after. There is one tree, the Eastern Cape Giant Cycad, which is an endangered species. The Hortus bought it from the collection of their King William ll in 1850. This tree is around 400 years old. They were around when the dinosaurs were here. The big knobbly cone type fruits are on the top and were eaten by the dinosaurs, who subsequently deposited the seeds, ready fertilised, some distance away, and so the trees spread. With the demise of the dinosaurs, reproduction became more difficult! There is also a coffee plant – one was brought back from the East Indies, propagated here and it then started the entire coffee industry in Central and South America!
For anyone interested in plants and trees, in their original state, Hortus is a must. There is also one of the hot houses with an incredible collection of butterflies flitting around, including the "glass wing" butterfly that has totally transparent wings – quite a challenge to photograph! I took loads of photos to obtain the one or two good ones – one of which is here in this article. There is also an excellent café in an old orangerie. The food is excellent, organic, bio, tasty and good value.
Talking of food, a good restaurant to discover is Brasserie Harkema – not far from Dam Square. It is in an old warehouse. This does not do justice to the building. In the old days, with land being so scarce, houses were narrow, with warehouses also narrow or even part of the house. The only feature that gives away the origins of the building is the zig-zag north light roof, which lets natural light into the restaurant. Good food selection, freshly cooked in the open kitchen so that you can see the chefs at work (always a good thing) at good prices.
To explore cities I usually take the ubiquitous open top buses. In Amsterdam it is the tourist boats that take their place, and they are a great way to see the city. Try the "100 highlights cruise". The boats cluster around the basin in front of Centraal station. The one-hour cruise costs 16 Euros per adult, with online discounts, child fares and combination tickets, which include other attractions at a discount. Boats depart every half an hour throughout the day. It is fascinating to cruise past the variety of houses along the canals, from narrow to grand, all with special architectural embellishments, and the girder sticking out from the top of the roofs to allow heavy goods to be raised into the warehouses, and are still used today to bring furniture up and down, as the internal staircases are usually narrow to save space. It is also surprising to see that Amsterdam has so many trees. The Elm is also the symbol of Amsterdam and no less than 75,000 elms, and other trees as well, line the 400-year-old canals.
There are, of course, so many hotels in Amsterdam to choose from, but one of the best is the Movenpick. This very modern hotel is part of the Swiss hotel chain, and is situated 10 minutes walk (or 8 minutes by taxi!) from Centraal station, along the waterfront. It has 4 stars, 408 rooms, is super quiet, and being built on the water you get great views of the barges, cargo boats, zooming and darting ferries (which are free to use – good to see other bits of the city) and at times the mighty cruise ships that tie up here. The hotel has its own minibus to shuttle guests to and from Centraal station, running every half an hour – but it is not far by foot anyway! Their restaurant is top quality, with an open kitchen and can seat 220 people. However, it is so well laid out that it is quiet and discreet. There are so many extras to this hotel, the staff are excellent too, nothing is a bother and they always acknowledge you and are cheery – which really helps so much to make the hotel welcoming. One extra special thing is free chocolate in reception 4 days a week! A lady lays out fancy chocolates (one, for example, was a chess set made of chocolate pieces) and you help yourself – free!
For us, Amsterdam is surely one of the easiest places to get to. There are several flights daily from both Aberdeen and Inverness. On arrival at Schipol airport, the railway station is underneath, and trains run to Centraal station every 10 minutes or so, taking from 15 to 20 minutes depending if they have stops on the way, and costs 4.20 Euros. If you don’t like flying, go by ferry from Newcastle, or Hull, or by train. Eurostar services from London St. Pancras (next door to Kings Cross where day trains from Inverness and Aberdeen terminate, and just 6 minutes walk from Euston where the overnight trains from Aberdeen and Inverness terminate) go to Brussels with onward connections to Amsterdam.
There are many more attractions to Amsterdam than I have covered here, there must be something for everyone.
