Going Dutch - 20 december, 2014

When I heard David say he needed to go to The Netherlands on business, I decided to join him. That is the best part of being retired and having a low maintenance lifestyle; I lock our apartment door and off I go. We flew from Milan to Schipol Airport where Dave caught a train to his business location and I headed into Amsterdam for the day. Even thought the metropolitan area has a population of 1.5 million people, the central city is compact and easy to get around. There are over 100 kilometers of canals, three of which are in concentric rings around the heart of the city. Even on a winter day, it was a beautiful city to explore.

The canals and streets are lined with tall, narrow brick houses, many with traditional gables. Most are only between 18 and 24 feet wide and often have been divided by floor into apartments. The majority of structures in the central city have some protections as historical buildings so the neighborhoods look much like they must have 300 years ago. There is efficient and readily available public transportation including buses, a metro, trams and canal boats but the majority of people get around on their bicycles. The iamsterdam website said that 57% of Amsterdammers use their bike on a daily basis which is estimated at 881,000! There are separate bike lanes but it is the pedestrian that is most at risk in this city as many of the cyclists are fast and aggressive. I was amazed by the multi-level bicycle parking structures near the train stations and the swarms of bikes moving through the streets.

4 story parking garage for bicycles

creative parking style

Panoramic canal view

On Saturday, Dave joined me and we took the train to The Hague which is less than an hour south of Amsterdam. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, but Amsterdam is the official capital. Our destination was the Mauritshuis which is a small, elegant art museum with many paintings by the Dutch masters. It was my dream to see Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring and I was enchanted when I got to see her up close. We returned to Amsterdam and the rest of the weekend was a cultural mash-up of more art exploration (the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum), meals in ethnic restaurants and a walk through the red-light district of legalized prostitution. There are some very interesting contrasts as every day life in the city seems efficient and organized yet naked women are sitting behind windows soliciting customers and marijauna smoke wafts out of some coffee shops.

Rembrandt's Night Watch at Rijksmuseum

Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

Red Light District

We had one very important stop to make. I had promised my younger self long ago that someday I would visit the Anne Frank house. We joined other visitors from around the world to climb up the narrow staircases to the annex above and behind the canal house where the Frank family hid for two years during World War 2. It was a very moving experience, sad but affirming that this young woman's legacy continues to live on with current generations.

Anne Frank

I had one more day on my own to explore. I found the flower market in barges along a canal where one could imagine it was a spring day.  I watched children learning to ice skate in a city park and I took a canal boat ride where I had a front row seat to admire the architecture. I got out of the way when moms rode by on their bikes with one child in a seat on the front handlebars and another child in a seat on the back. I could definitely picture living in this city and now I understand their tourist slogan...."i amsterdam".