Well, I’m all museumed out. 😀 I have two days left here and two more museums on my list, but I’m ready to let them go. I have work to do tomorrow and Wednesday, I want to give the house a good polish as I’ll be leaving early on Thursday.
I definitely won’t be getting to Haarlem to visit the Ten Boom house because… I had a bad fall today and I’m not as ambulatory as I’d like. 🙁 I slipped on a slick surface while trying to avoid some of the billion out of control brats at the Museum of Maritime History and went down really hard. If it had been my bad knee, I know it would have dislocated. I just know that if I had let my health insurance lapse, it would have been worse, because that’s how things tend to go. As it is, I don’t think I need X-rays or medical treatment, but I may reassess in the morning. I’m RICEing (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) tonight. It was only about 4KM to get home from the museums and I ended up getting on a tram, which was a good move. I really banged it hard. 🙁
At any rate, off to the Het Scheepvaartmuseum! I can’t believe I almost skipped this one!
To get there, I decided to cut through the park near my flat, but did so on a different path and found an information placard about it. As it turns out, it is Vondelpark and basically Amsterdam’s answer to Central Park! It was created in 1834 as a place for riding and strolling. It is in an English landscape garden style meant to mimic natural landscape. The Vondelpark was designated a national monument in 1996.
I went down the street with the posh shops and noticed this shop name Stone Island that sells cold weather gear. LOL
I found myself at the front of the Rijksmuseum.
There was a magnificent house across the canal. I want to live in a house with a tower! 🙂
Here’s another interesting house I passed on my walk. I was going to do the museum of architecture, but, really, I’m museumed out. 🙂
So Anne Frank does have her own street!
I got to the Maritime History Museum with only a few wrong turns and barely any extra mileage, much better than when I was using Google Maps to navigate. It helps that Amsterdam does technically have a grid pattern and that street names are continuous rather than changing every few blocks.
I liked the tile and brick on this one.
I really looked forward to visiting the replica of an old ship!
The Maritime History Museum appears to be floating. The main entrance is around the side to the right, facing the picture. It is built over hundreds of Norwegian piles.
There’s the NEMO Science Centre nearby. I knew its shape was impressive, but not that impressive! More on NEMO later.
You enter the Maritime History Museum into a magnificent courtyard that is covered with a glass roof. There’s a desk for folks with a Museumkaart to sign in and get an admission bracelet, map, and instructions. Bit of a queue today, but better than at the ticket desk!
I went into the basement to stow my things in a locker. Loved the contrast of the teal with the red brick.
The basement was a bit of a maze.
The barcode on the bracelet is scanned at the entrance of the locker room and you are assigned a locker, which is locked and unlocked electronically.
To my surprise, I was really hungry by this point, so I checked out the café prices. They were better than at most museums I’d been to, so I scrapped my plans to have a late lunch after my tour and ordered food. My coffee came with a meringue that I will confess I ate. My problem is really more with the yolk of the egg than the white. To the left of the coffee is “coffee milk,” which is beige. I’ve since learned that it is evaporated milk, which is not sweet the way condensed milk is. I was grateful to see it as all the coffee drinks with milk were significantly marked up, but I got charged for a black coffee, and the portion was about four times as generous as expected. I went with the cheapest thing on the menu, a grilled cheese with ham, that had this really good melty white cheese and a side of ketchup. It was a lovely lunch in a beautiful café on a gorgeous day.:D
This museum has an audio tour, which I didn’t find as polished as at other museums. For one thing, the player never stopped nattering and would just repeat itself ad nauseum. The stops were also not well marked and it was rather a treasure hunt to find them. But I would never have gotten as much out of the museum as I did without it.
From the courtyard, you can go to the east, north, or west, with south being the exit. I started in the east, which has the actual exhibits.
I was inordinately amused that emergency in Dutch looks like calamity.
There was a big window on the first floor landing with a great view.
I started with the yacht models as I was still looking for stop number one of the audio tours.
Still looking for stop one, I moved to the next room, in which I spent the most time of my entire visit: the atlas room. It was pretty much my idea of heaven. Here is one of the nine volumes of the Atlas Mayor, which started in 1662, and was available in Dutch, French, German, Spanish, and Latin. Here, it is open to a city map of Amsterdam, dated 1649.
Someone told me the first stop for the audio tour was all the way back downstairs at the entrance to the East Wing, so down I went and then I had be directed to a rather well hidden audio point….
As it turned out, the atlases were the first room I was meant to visit. I learned that the Atlas Mayor is the pinnacle of Dutch cartography of the Golden Age and the result of two centuries of map-making and compiling atlases.
Some of the atlases on display are ancient. This map dates back to 1482. What was most fascinating was seeing the maps become more and more accurate, and especially seeing North America take shape.
The atlas above was scanned and I could flip through it. Entirely coincidental that I photographed a scan of the map above!
Just like with the iBooks app, you can literally flip pages. I spent a lot of time on this display. You could even email yourself your favourite maps.
England and Scotland, as understood in the late 1400s.
All the exhibits are dim and you have to press this little lightbulb to get enough light to read the text.
More volumes of the Atlas Mayor.
I then went back to the exhibit of yacht models. Notice that this one is on skates, for sailing on ice.
This is considered one of the finest in the collection for its craftsmanship and mahogany. I find it rather looks like a violin.
There is a third room that is not part of the official tour. It has a table set with china and the walls are lined with rows of cupboards. Curious, I opened one of the cupboards.
Ooh! Each cubby had a silver item.
I headed up to the second floor, admiring the construction of the building.
Next up was a maritime art gallery. To be honest, it started off as a lot of the same to me and I wasn’t really that keen to learn about the various battles, like the Battle of Gibraltar depicted in the scene below. I really was museumed out. 🙂
This one was stylistically interesting to me. Notice the sea monster?
Now, this was interesting because I’d never seen a pen painting before. It’s all done in pen and ink with perhaps a few brush strokes for sky and shadows.
Here’s another one, with a closeup on a whale:
Seascapes like these were in demand around 1650, when the Netherlands became a maritime superpower.
Notice how shiny this one is. That’s achieved with linseed oil. 🙂
I loved the design of the gallery. The paintings appeared to be floating over empty space, but it was just black mirrored flooring.
This was the first exhibit I’ve been to that explicitly talked about how the grey climate here contributed to the dark and subdued colours of classical Dutch painting. Let me tell you, two weeks in Amsterdam in winter and Rembrandt makes a lot more sense to me!
This one rather reminded me of my favourite Monet, with that little burst of light in the centre.
A very calm day with no wind. Can you find at least two clues that tell us that?
Hint:
We then got to more modern paintings and my interest was piqued as there was more colour.
Next stop, navigational instruments, another spectacular room.
I learned all about astrolabes. I had no idea that they are so rare, that most were melted down, and that the ones still in existence were usually found in shipwrecks.
I learned that depth finders had a bit of wax at the end of them to collect sediment from the ocean floor to give further navigational information.
Next up, the naval decorations.
All the figureheads pointed towards this display, which was of rushing water, complete with sound. Standing in front of the display case, I really felt like I was on the prow of a ship cutting through the ocean.
I loved the variety of figureheads and their expressions.
Gritted teeth and scared eyes.
And just… LOL!
Like downstairs, there was a room off the official tour, this one with squashy armchairs and photo albums. I picked a chair at random and found that my photo album was about the Arctic in Norway.
The third floor is not on the floor plan, but there was nothing telling me not to go up, so I did. 🙂
I got a good view of the roof from above.
Now, it was time to head out to the ship!
This ship was overrun by disorderly brats who were shrieking. Mexican, Balkan, and Spanish children are so well behaved and orderly that this was a shock. I explored as best I could, but it really wasn’t as much fun as it should have been.
This is the orlop deck, which accommodated 200 sailors and soldiers crammed in around personal effects.
I headed up to the first level of the exterior deck and the captain’s quarters.
Guest quarters were a tad cramped.
Compared to the captain’s quarters. I could not stand up in this part of the ship, however.
I went down into the hold, where the shrieking of the demon spawn was echoing, so I hurried back up.
This ship dates back to 1900 and was an icebreaker.
I was able to view the Royal Barge in its own boathouse. It was built for King William I of the Netherlands between 1816 and 1818. He didn’t use it, but his successors did. It was last used at the silver wedding anniversary of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard in 1962.
Coming out of this exhibit is when I fell. 🙁
I went back in to visit the West Wing.
Even if I hadn’t been sore, my brain was about to explode, so I went very quickly through an exhibit about the Golden Age of the Netherlands and one about whaling.
We were able to go into this giant whale.
The final exhibit was a game that looked like a lot of fun and had a grown-up version, but it was overrun with kiddos, so I didn’t even try. I went all the way back to the basement to fetch my coat. Green dots are free lockers, red dots are occupied, flashing green dots have been opened by the scanner at the entrance. Neat system.
I was really sore, but still wanted to go check out NEMO.
I made it most of the way up this staircase, but took the elevator back down.
Amsterdam looked like a painting…
The lineup into the science centre was absurd. I’d done my research and knew that I would not spend much time there, so I decided to see if I could jump the queue with my Museumkaart. Yes!
The NEMO Science Centre is a giant interactive playground meant to teach kids about science. If you plan to visit Amsterdam with children, put this one on your list!
I didn’t bother going near any of the interactive stuff since it was all too busy, but I did catch a few interesting static exhibits. These wooden figures were meant to illustrate the structure of different crystals.
These are primitive batteries, but work more like capacitors.
There was a neat display of old technology, like this 1980s model of CD player.
There was a very graphic multi part sex exhibit. I love how Europeans are not prudes.
I liked the models demonstrating creative sexual positions.
And this exhibit where young and old could practice French kissing.
In an exhibit on more futuristic tech, I found this hat with solar panels woven into it. Can you imagine something like this in Mexico? I’d never have to worry about charging my phone!
There was an exhibit about how solar cars are becoming the norm in the Netherlands and there is an increasing number of charging stations.
I only stayed about 40minutes, longer than I expected I would! I was ready to get off my leg by this point, but I still took the time to capture a few more images of the building’s incredible exterior.
I walked along the water a bit towards Centraal Station, where I could get a tram straight home. I knew I wasn’t up to walking 4KM on that knee. 🙁
This friendly guy (gal?) came to say hello.
How did it get up there?! And why is it not strapped down better?!
I found a whole neighourhood of folks living on the water. By the way, I learned that some canal dwellings are houses on piles while others are boats. The boats are more expensive to live in because they have to be periodically hauled out of the water and their hauls scraped and repainted.
People have real addresses with post boxes.
I bet this person doesn’t come home drunk…
Interesting floating pagoda.
This is a hotel right near Centraal Station.
Back at Amsterdam Centraal.
I got in and got my knee on ice. I researched places nearby to go have dinner, but ultimately decided to just pick up a frozen pizza at the supermarket as well as a few other sundries. I’m glad I didn’t try to go any further than that. I was annoyed that they don’t accept credit cards and I had to give all my remaining cash, which was supposed to get me through to Thursday. So now, I have to make another withdrawal, which will cost me 5CAD. Should have gone out for dinner after all. *wry grin*
Accident notwithstanding, this was another great day of Amsterdam museums! I ended up viewing 257.04CAD worth of museums for just 87CAD. So I think I got my money’s worth out of the Museumkaart! 🙂 I do wish I had gone out of Amsterdam one day, but it just didn’t make sense to do so when I had so much here to keep me occupied. The Museumkaart really was a smart purchase as I’m not sure what I would have done with myself otherwise since work was so slow and I’m on a tight budget. I’m also glad I didn’t get a transportation card and so was motivated to walk as much as I did. I got to know my part of Amsterdam very well and saw things I wouldn’t have noticed from a tram. I have two days left and if my knee cooperates, I want to go explore a bit more of West Amsterdam, where I’m living, since it shouldn’t be too cold…
