Beautiful weather in Amsterdam. Warm, a little breeze. One problem we have is that the hotel doesn't have a/c. They advertise that they have heat but the a/c is a fan. It does oscillate, though. The windows have been open since we got here and the room faces the street. Not the noisiest street but there's still some noise overnight.
We're about a 10 minute walk from the Rijksmuseum. The recommendation for when to go is early or late afternoon. We went around 10 and it wasn't too crowded. The museum has an app you can download with several self tours. We chose one that takes you to 20 masterpieces and stopped at other works that looked interesting. Rembrandt, Van Gogh, other famous Dutch artists, a great collection of Delft and doll houses that were made for rich women in the 1700s. The tour takes you around 3 floors so it's a clever way to introduce people to the Dutch masters. We didn't go to the exhibit of modern art, 1950 on. The building is beautiful and everything is nicely displayed.
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| Delft Cabinet |
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| Library in the Museum |
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| A dollhouse for moms who won't let their kids play with it |
After an outside lunch, we went on a canal boat. The recorded commentary was corny sometimes but the captain was nice and informative. We learned facts like 13,000 bikes are retrieved from the canals each year and a few cars. He said if you drive into the canal, you should just climb on the roof since the canals are just 3 meters deep. We saw people who looked like they were fishing with nets and the captain said it's a new environmental initiative that anyone can participate in--there are two boats that provide nets to people to help fish out the plastic in the canal. The boats are made of plastic that came from the canals. There are thousands of elm trees lining the banks because they help keep the ground from eroding. They use helicopters and drones to look for diseases trees so they can replace them. The captain said the Dutch call the disease American elm disease. Of course, the canals are a little crowded. We were on one of the bigger boats. The captain said it seems everyone now owns a boat and few of them know how to drive them.
I have always said the canals are dirty but the captain said the color is from the bottom of the canal. He said if you dip a cup into the canal it will come out looking like drinking water. They are constantly cleaning the canals so, as the captain pointed out, they don't stink like those in Venice.
We also walked to the Bloemenmarkt today. There weren't as many fresh flowers as I remember from the last time I was here nor as many people. Lots of wooden flowers and souvenirs but few real flowers. It must be becaause I was here during tulip season and it's over now.
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| Tulips at the Bloemenmarkt |
I know we complain about the weather every day, everywhere, but it's seriously hot here when there's no breeze or when sitting under glass in a canal boat. When we bought water, we asked the clerk if this weather is unusual and she said no. I think everyone knows she was lying.
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