Day 16: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

After a wonderful night's sleep, we had our muffin, banana, tangerine, tea breakfast. It was really a great muffin. Were we missing the fabulous Viking breakfasts? Not really. (Well, I wasn't, but the others? Hmmm... Not sure.)

We boarded the tram and bought a 1-day tram/bus ticket (7.50 Euros) to go to the Rijksmuseum.

A half hour ride brought us right in front of the museum under overcast skies.

Since I wasn't sure if we'd see any tulips blooming at the Keukenhof Gardens, I took lots of photos of these floating tulip beds.

Cloudy skies muted their colors.

Tickets were 17.50 Euros for adults (no senior discounts in the Netherlands). We were amazed to learn that photography was allowed at the museum. That was awesome!

It's such a huge museum.

Incredibly, we walked throughout the museum from 9:00 until 3:30 and loved it!

This terracotta sculpture of the fisherman's wife really mesmerized me. She is so young and and already weary with her burdens.

I knew that the Dutch were one of the first foreigners to trade with Japan and there was a display of Japanese artifacts.

It was fun to see how dogs were featured in several paintings and sculpture. I guess it showed a depth of love and devotion.

We saw these flower vases and wondered what kind of flowers you could stick in them. When we went to lunch at the museum restaurant, we saw exactly how they could be displayed.

Lunch at the restaurant was not exorbitant, service was very friendly and the food was really quite good. Maybe we were just hungry from all the walking.

There was a HUGE crowd around Rembrandt's The Night Watch painting. This is the must-see painting at the Rijksmuseum.

This monkey using snuff was rather funny. It reminded me of Art trying to inhale that powder in Regensburg.

I thought this statue of Cupid was a rather evil looking angel when I saw it. It was pretty scary looking. When I looked it up online, I saw that it was actually called "Menacing Love." Creepy...

Then there was a firearms exhibit that was quite unique and even an airplane!


The airplane is a FK 23 Bantam designed in 1918 by Dutchman, Frits Koolhoven, a chief designer for an English aircraft factory. It was meant to be a fighter airplane in WW I.

Someone had told us that a canal ride was a must-do activity in Amsterdam so I looked it up on my cellphone and we went to the location only to learn that you had to buy tickets online.

Our ride was not for another hour so we grabbed a quick hot dog and did some people watching along the Amstel River.

Ummm... I didn't know that Amsterdam was named for the Amstel River.

While getting onboard the canal boat, we saw several other groups of people being turned away because they also didn't know you had to get tickets online. There was unlimited drinks, but we just had some pop. The others were definitely accepting as much alcoholic beverages as they could possibly imbibe during the one hour ride.

We learned that "Coffee Shops" in the Netherlands refer to pot shops.

In the Netherlands, coffeeshops are establishments where the sale of cannabis for personal consumption by the public is tolerated by the local authorities.
Under the drug policy of the Netherlands, the sale of cannabis products in small quantities is allowed by licensed coffeeshops.
                -- Wikipedia

We were told that this stretch of canal was the one spot that was straight enough so you could see five bridges at one time.

We then went to Rembrandtplein. Rembrandt owned a house nearby from 1639 to 1656.

In front of the Rembrandt statue are bronze castings from The Night Watch.

Dinner was... yup... McDonalds, Netherlands style. Well, actually, it was just like the American style.

Our plan was to go to the Van Gogh Museum on the following day.

But like so many good plans... it might not go as planned.