Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

First, about the museum itself...
At Stadhouderskade 42 is the largest museum of art and history in all of Amsterdam. In all of The Netherlands, for that matter. Dutch Masters showcased here include Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Vermeer and Frans Hals. The famous Nightwatch is on display here. Also an absolutely prime collection of trompe l'oeil paintings that, although done in graytones, reproduce the feeling of reality and depth. Amazing.

Of perhaps even more interest, because we do not see reproductions of these, are the incredible dollhouses for the grown ladies of wealthy merchant families... also their silverware, their furniture, prints and drawings of themselves and their possessions (are you, perhaps, seeing a trend here...) that were donated to the museum after their demise. There is also some interesting weaponry of the times
and some pretty neat ship models.

A huge stained glass window draws you into a huge gifts store with catalogues, CDs, books and magazines... some in English . Lest you get lost, there is an information desk in the Front Hall and on the Top Floor. Or even better, an audio tour is available in English and French and German, as well as Dutch. Live guides are sometimes available for English-only speaking visitors. Hours are usually 10am to 5pm daily,
admission about 5 US dollars.

In addition, there is, via a separate entrance at
Jan Luijkenstraat 1a, a library with nearly a quarter of a million art history books and periodicals. This is open usually only Tuesday through Saturday for about six hours a day.

Getting to and from the Rijksmuseum

For us, it was easy, since we were staying on Stadhouderskade We could see the towers of the Rijksmuseum from the window in our room at Park Hotel. From Leidsestraat, just walk a few blocks west until you see the building that is very much bigger than all the rest. Walk through the courtyard, up the steps, and you're there.

The houses above are representative of the very nice homes you see along the way. The gilt figures of the one house are both normal and just a bit unusual. That is, this sort of thing is very acceptable in Dutch architcture, but you don't see it on every house.

One of the reasons I don't have all the photos I'd like of this area is because we were much too excited about finding a certain something along the way. It may not sound exciting to you. A herring stand.

Yep, a herring stand. I'd heard about these before we got to the Netherlands, and wondered about them. We like fish... if you don't, just skip ahead down the page to the next photo. On the Big Island of Hawaii where we live, there is a favorite dish called poki, which is cubes of raw ahi (tuna) or au (swordfish) or even a'ama (blue crab), mixed with ogo (seaweed) and or onions and or a'lea (seasalt and red dirt) and or macadamia nuts and or sesame oil and or... anyway, you get the idea.

We had seen one tiny herring stand around the Leidseplein, but were heading somewhere else that day. Today, we had time and opportunity and a Herring Stand right in front of us as we approached the museum. They had lots of newspaper clippings hung around touting this stand as the 'Best Place To Eat in the Whole World, Ever' and things like that. Right. This little place, where you stood up and ate at a little shelf, or at a single table with a couple of tall chairs. Not a lot of ambience. But you never know until you try.

It was at least as good as the newspaper clippings said.

It was a very small place. One person owned and operated the stand, and sliced and served the fish, and did everything else that was needed, all while standing behind a single glass-case counter about 15 feet wide.

In the very very cold deli-style case were several styles of herring, plus other things like salmon and caviar. Also some very exotic denizens of the sea, and some very bland things like potato salad. Such a mix of strong and mild tastes. The Herring Stand had something for everyone. We naturally got too many items in our child-like excitement, and ate them, and wished we had room to try others beckoning from the chilly case in front of us. But we needed to move on. Slowly.

On our way back

After working off our herring stand meal touring the museum, we decided to go toward the Leidseplein, working our way through the streets on a diagonal through the city. We got a little lost, which isn't bad when it's the sort of city Amsterdam is. You find interesting things. But the organization of the streets and canals in the Centrum give you boundaries, and it's pretty easy to end up where you want to go.

We crossed the bridge in the top picture, and meandered our way past the door in the bottom picture. Please notice the knocker. It is an arm and hand extending about two feet from the door itself.
At least I think it's a knocker.
Although tempted, we did not try it, since it is a private door.

Hanged by the tallest yardarm

Notice the yardarms at the tops of these buildings. You'll them many places in Amsterdam, especially by the canals. It took a combination of factors to make them almost a necessity. The city grew up as a trading center, and many of today's houses and shops were storehouses, or a combination of residence and storerooms. There was constant transfer of cargo from these building to ships bound for the Dutch East Indies and all over the world.

The buildings are relatively very narrow, although they have great depth and height. The reason for that is the same reason that French buildings have a slant-sided top floor. Long ago in France, taxes were based on the number of stories a building had, not including 'attics' contained within the slant of a roof. Build the top floor as an 'attic', pay less taxes. At roughly the same time, Amsterdam taxed buildings by the frontage foot. The narrower your building, the less taxes you paid.

The narrowness necessitated very steep stairs, which made it hard to carry things up several floors. Much easier to just hoist up your cargo... or a heavy couch... directly from the boat in the canal right outside your door. The yardarms are still very much in use today, to provide support for a rope and pulley to hoist heavy objects to the upper floors. I have no evidence that they have ever been used to hang anything else.

The bottom photo is of me by some bikes by a canal by some very narrow buildings with a houseboat to the right, moored along the bank. The housboat has a white cabin with dark windows, and is painted beautifully with flowers. Throughout Amsterdam, countless houseboats are permanently moored along most if not all the canals. In most if not all cases, this is illegal. But rents are incredible in some if not all parts of the city. Like several things in Amsterdam, there must be some power at work regulating this, because there is no trouble caused by it. But that power is invisible to the average tourist. The illusion must be maintained, so we can have a hassle-free vacation in Amsterdam. Which we did. We want to go again, soon.

If you would like to go to Amsterdam, please check out the Eurail Selectpass before you go.
It should save you considerable money.

If you can manage to go to Europe now, please don't wait. The individual countries are changing rapidly, and some of the fun is changing with it. The world is getting to be all the same. My feeling is that I want to experience the cultural differences that are still there, before it goes away. Colleen and I are hoping to go back to Europe again soon, so we can live and experience the exciting differences once more.
I hope you enjoy your trip tremendously. Pat.