3 days in Amsterdam

I will try and keep this to few words and many pictures.

The afternoon after our arrival was spent wandering close to the apartment of the friends we were staying with. First impressions are often strong and accurate, before familiarity and acclimatization set in. There are many cliches about Amsterdam but the most wonderful is the bicycles.

The way that humans glide  without effort, as in dreams of flight, making only slight adjustments to interweave their paths. 

And bicycles can be stored so compactly

The next cliche is the canals (with bicycles)

We had been out eating and were caught in a heavy shower coming home, but were rewarded with this spectacular rainbow over the city from the apartment

Another view from this apartment just before dawn (damn you, jet lag). While the trees and mist create a rural feeling and depth, this is from the middle of the city looking towards the Rijksmuseum.  Amsterdam, you are so damn beautiful to wake up to.

The Rjijksmuseum is arguably the number one tourist attraction (? maybe Van Gogh).

To see images that adorn familiar walls in Dubbo and chocolate boxes in their originals form is often astonishing. The originals are much more vibrant in color (and also smaller) than the prints.

Another striking thing about Amsterdam is that pretty much every one is slim, even more so than in New York. Overweight people are rarer than bicycles helmets. No idea whether this applies outside the city. There were more plump people in this 1643 painting of a local militia, than in a suburb of Amsterdam. 

I did not know that in 1623 people like van Honthorst painted such play-full tender pictures

Nor had I seen anything quite as visceral as this 2013 work by Anis Kapoor, (exhibited among the Dutch Masters); its three dimensional silicone and is like endless mutilated bodies, well perhaps not mutilated as we are all a bit like this inside, but it was prescient given we are off to the Somme.

And now a word about windmills. I have it on reliable authority (Alain de Botton) that in the 1800s windmills were seen as ugly and not depicted in the paintings denoting the rural idyll. This concentrated on cows, sheep, farm buildings, fields etc (and not the first phases on industrialization) – as shown left. At some point, the Hague School changed this and windmills were romanticized and became common elements.

So who will be the radical Australian painter (Geoffrey Smart is dead) who will paint wind turbines around Canberra in a way to make them beautiful?

This is perhaps the last windmill within the city of Amsterdam. It was used to saw wood, but now the surrounding 4-5 storey buildings prevent it getting enough breeze to even function for our amusement. Some want it restored to a windswept coastal heritage park, at present those wanting to preserve some local heritage are wining.

I could blog-on about other excellent things we did or saw; the Eye theater complex, the fantastic Public Library, cycling in Vondelpark, the tulips everywhere in the streets, (OK because you like pictures i will put some in) why the old houses were designed to lean forward into the street, the public transport, rustic bread –

The EYE,  a quick free ride by boat from Central Station, great place for coffee as the lunch area looks out over Amsterdam

In the great public library near the Central Station, one floor kids, 5 for adults and a great place for coffee on top

Vondelpark in the middle of the city is such a great place to sit in the sun and relax

but ……time to move on to our next place.