Drie Dagen in Amsterdam (Three Days in Amsterdam)

There are still a few popular travel destinations that I have yet to visit in Europe and one of them was Amsterdam. The city is easily accessible via high speed train from Paris, but the main reason that I hadn't visited Amsterdam until now was that I was trying to attend both a Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performance and an AFC Ajax match on the same weekend. It turns out that having the two perform in the same city on the same weekend only happens two or three times a year. Maybe I should write them both and convince them of the need to coordinate their scheduling. (I'm kidding, but I did see someone wearing an Ajax jersey at the Concertgebouw, so I'm not the only one who looks to attend both events.)

I planned this trip to occur over three days (effectively two days with train scheduling), which worked out well given the long lineups at major sites during the weekend.

Day 1

I took a Saturday morning train from Paris, so I arrived around in Amsterdam around noon and started wandering around the city center. Even for mid-March, the city center felt very crowded with tourist traffic. Travel season is already starting in Europe. Heading south from the train station took me past the Oude Kerk (which I did not enter) and the Royal Palace.

Behind the Oude Kerk (on the left) is a canal running along Oudezijds Voorburgwal. In the distance is St. Nicholas Church.

On one side of Dam Square is the National Monument, built in 1956 as a World War II monument. The Royal Palace faces the opposite direction on the other side.

The Burgerzaal (Citizen's Hall) in the Royal Palace. Around this hall are various salons and courtrooms that are well-designed but modestly decorated compared to their counterparts in Madrid, Versailles or Stockholm (but also more practical).

On the way to my hotel, I passed through the Rembrandtplein and then by a canal every one or two blocks. With the abundance of canals, I could see why Amsterdam is often referred to as the "Venice of the North" (although several other cities also have this label).

In Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square). The tall statue is a monument to Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn while the sculptures in front are a 3D representation of the figures from one of his famous paintings, the Night Watch (sculpted by Mikhail Dronov and Alexander Taratynov).

By late afternoon, most of the museums were closing, so I went to the Heineken Brewery to take the tour. However, the lineup to buy tickets stretched around the building and was an estimated one hour wait. Doh! I should have bought tickets in advance. Fortunately, the brewery was open late, so I was able to walk over to Vondelpark and look around before looping back to the brewery before it closed.

Vondelpark is a very large park containing a rose garden, two dog parks, an open air theater and various ponds (or perhaps the ponds were all part of one continuous canal). The eastern side is busy with both local and tourist traffic from the nearby Museumplein area, but the park is much more tranquil as you head further west.

Hey, look at me, I'm brewing! The Heineken Experience offers a tour of the brewery (with samples at the end) as well as various fun/game activities, including a photo booth where you can make your own digital postcard. I'm superimposed in a mash tun where the water and barley are mixed.

I spent the evening looking around the red light district. It was too dark to take any photos but the area looks just like what you'd see from a Google image search. Like during the day, there was a lot of tourist traffic in the area for sightseeing. In fact, there were several walking tour groups operating (and causing a few pedestrian traffic jams). What surprised me was that while the atmosphere of the neighbourhood and the prostitutes behind the glass doors seemed casual, it was actually a lot of the tourists who gave off an unseemly vibe (the same vibe I get in Mexico when I'm surrounded by younger Canadian/American tourists who just want to get drunk and lay on the beach everyday). There were even a few tourists (mostly English and Irish) who would taunt or hassle the prostitutes for fun. Well, at least now I know where the low-brow tourists go in Europe.

Day 2

My plan was to start the day by visiting the Anne Frank House. The museum opens at 9am, so I arrived there at 9am, only to find a lineup winding all the way around the block with an estimated 90 minute wait. Doh! I should have bought tickets in advance or arrived earlier. Since I was in the area, I decided to look around the Jordaan neighbourhood before heading to the Museumplein area where the Concertgebouw Orchestra would be performing in the afternoon.

The Prinsengracht in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam. It would be even more scenic during the warmer months when the trees are in bloom.

The Museumplein is surrounded by three museums as well as the Concertgebouw (Concert Hall). I figured the Rijksmuseum was too large to visit before the concert, so I went to the Van Gogh Museum instead, only to find another long lineup with an estimated one hour wait. What the...?! Did everyone decide to visit Amsterdam this weekend and see the exact same sites that I was visiting? I settled on visiting the Stedelijk Museum, which wasn't even on my to-do list, but it was just next door and small enough to fit within my timetable.

The Stedelijk Museum is a municipal museum for contemporary art. In addition to paintings and sculptures, it contains various exhibits on graphic design, industrial design and photography. Pictured is Painting with Houses, by Wassily Kandinsky.

If you remember from my blog post regarding Vienna, there are three symphony orchestras that stand out among the best in the world, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is one of them. In trying to see them on the same weekend as Ajax, I was limited in the concert I could see. Fortunately, this concert featured a great violin concerto by Bach (BWV 1041) as well as Brahms' Symphony No. 3. Unfortunately, the performance was a family concert, so it included dancers who would lead the children in the audience on how to dance to each composition. Nevertheless, the orchestra put on a great performance.

The interior of the Royal Concertgebouw after a performance by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Photography and video recording was not allowed during the concert, but it turns out that someone uploaded an official video of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from three years ago performing the same violin concerto with the same lead violinist that I saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp8WtfCsKSE. The main difference is that the concert that I watched also had a conductor, as well as children dancing among the audience. You'll need good speakers to hear the full sound of the orchestra, particularly the lower register of the cellos and the higher register of the harpsichord.

After the concert, I walked east towards the nearest subway station so that I could get to the football stadium. I passed through Sarphatipark, a small city park which was greener and more serene than Vondelpark.

A shot of the pond in Sarphatipark.

The football contest featured a Dutch Eredivisie match between AFC Ajax and NEC (Nijmegen Eendracht Combinatie). The home crowd for Ajax had a relatively small group of active supporters, so while there was non-stop chanting during the match, it wasn't as loud as in other major venues.

The interior of Amsterdam ArenA during a match between AFC Ajax and NEC. In the opposite corner is the visitor's section which was sparsely filled by NEC fans.

Ajax held possession for most of the match and for the first 80 minutes (2-1 for Ajax) it was one of the cleanest matches I had ever seen (very few fouls, no diving, no fake injuries, no complaining to the ref). However, at 82 minutes, NEC scored a tying goal and suddenly the game turned sour, with overly aggressive play, a few dives and a lot of arguing with the ref. Ajax is one of the perennial leaders in the Eredivisie, so both the players and the fans were frustrated by the 2-2 draw, but possession doesn't count for anything unless it's converted into goals.

Day 3

I learned my lesson from yesterday and arrived at the Anne Frank House at 8am. This got me fourth in line with a long line quickly forming behind me by 8:15. The house itself is modest by design: Anne Frank's father insisted that the furniture that had been removed should not be replaced. However, it was still informative to see the rooms where the Frank family hid for over two years. Adjacent to the house is a museum which also provides interesting background information and which displays the original diary in which Anne wrote her entries.

In the Anne Frank House, pictured is a reconstruction of the movable bookshelf used to hide the entrance to the secret apartment where the Frank family hid from July 1942 to August 1944.

Next to the Anne Frank House is the Westerkerk. Like most Protestant churches, the interior is modestly decorated compared to Catholic churches. .



I had reserved the third day (a Monday) to visit the Rijksmuseum, expecting that it could take me all day to see the exhibits, but it took less time than expected. The Rijksmuseum contains both Dutch art and historical items, and I usually work through the history exhibits at a faster pace.

At the Museumplein, the Rijksmuseum is housed in an impressive building constructed in the 1880's. Between the pond and the building are ten foot high letters spelling "I AMsterdam", with tourists climbing on them every which way to have their photos taken.

The Rijksmuseum is a very large museum containing a wide variety of Dutch artwork and historical items. The Gallery of Honour contains several masterpieces by the Netherlands' most famous artists, including Rembrandt and Vermeer. Pictured is The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer.

Since the Van Gogh Museum is right next door to the Rijksmuseum, I figured I'd at least check to see if I could make a quick visit before my train left. It turned out that there was no lineup at all. The weekend tourist crowd had disappeared on Monday, so I was able to get in right away.

The Van Gogh Museum is a somewhat small museum and I was surprised that a large part of its collection is comprised of artwork that either influenced the painter or that he owned after exchanging his own artwork with his contemporaries. The art collection is presented in a sequence that tells the story of his life and his progression as an artist. Pictured is Self-Portrait as a Painter (1887-1888) by Vincent van Gogh. Photos were not allowed in most of the museum so I couldn't get a shot of his more famous works.

So that was Amsterdam in two days spread over three. I felt I could have squeezed more in if I had planned for the long lineups at the major sites, but I still managed to see all of the items at the top of my to-do list. If I had another day, I would have tried to visit the Rembrandt Museum and the Amstel Brewery, but I think I got my fill of Dutch art and beer on this trip.

The city felt a bit like Barcelona in that it had both the younger tourists that were there for the night life and the trendy sites (red light district, Heineken Experience) and the older tourists that were there for the arts/culture sites (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank House). At some point during the three days, I also walked through the Bloemenmarkt, a market where tulips, bulbs and other related items are sold, but I couldn't figure out good products from bad.

One tip... if you plan to visit Amsterdam during the weekend, then buy your tickets in advance!

I'm behind on my posts as I've already visited another French town since Amsterdam, so I'll try to post some details later this week.