The weather which has been pretty mediocre since we arrived took a turn for the worst last night. The temperature fell a bit more into the low 40’s and it began to rain. We had seen the forecast so had set today aside to visit a couple of the prominent museums in Amsterdam.
Our first planned stop for the day was the Van Gogh Museum. At about 11am the rain had let up, so we headed over to the metro stop. Once again, the extremely efficient Amsterdam transit system had us at the museum in under an hour. When we got to the museum we noticed a long line waiting to get into the museum. I looked for the ticket office, but could not find it, but I noticed most people were using their phones to get in the museum. I went on line to check on tickets and saw that the museum was sold out everyday for the next two weeks!
Because we do all of our travel in the shoulder seasons, we rarely think to make reservations, and this is one of the few times it bit us. A little disappointed, I was also worried that the other museum we had planned on visiting might be booked so I quickly looked at the web site for the Rijksmuseum to see if they were sold out also. The website showed that there were no tickets available to purchase today and tomorrow on line. Now we were really stymied as our whole plan for the day was to visit these two museums.
Since the two museums are adjacent to each other we decided to walk over and get a couple of pictures of the outside. As we got closer we saw the entrance to the museum store. Ton suggested we go take a look at the store and as I walked up I saw what looked like a ticket office dispensing tickets. I told Ton to go in the store while I checked the ticket office to see if we could get in the Rijksmuseum. When I got to the front of the line and asked for two tickets, the lady said of course and gave me two tickets allowing entrance in 20 minutes.
It turns out that it was a good thing we did not get into the Van Gogh Museum, as we ended up spending over 4 hours in the Rijksmuseum. And after 4 hours we did not see everything in the museum.
The Netherlands was one of the major centers of the art world for over 300 years, and this museum is full of examples of the development of Dutch art over that period. It is one of the most extensive art museums we have ever seen.
Because the weather was poor, and it was easter weekend, a normally busy museum was exceptionally busy. But unlike the Louvre it was not overwhelming. The only place that reminded us of the Louvre was in front of Rembrandts The Night Watch. There was a pretty good crowd like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The difference is the Night Watch is 20×20 feet, and the Mona Lisa is 20X20 inches, so it was still possible to take in the Night Watch over the crowd.
Surprisingly we later found a small room off a main corridor that was full of Rembrandts that was relatively quiet. We were able to spend quite a bit of time taking in some of Rembrandts other art without being pushed around by a crowd.
There were several portraits in the Rembrandt room that both Ton and I recognized, as well as art by artists that influenced Rembrandt, or he was influenced by. It was the highlight of a very nice visit for me.
They also had a fantastic library you could go in and view. There was one person inside reading, while 3 floors up about 50 people looked down on her and took pictures. I’m not sure I could learn in that environment.
Several people had told us we had to visit the two museums. While we missed the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum was fantastic, and they even had a few Van Gogh’s including the self portrait I used above and the wheat field below.
After about 4 hours we were getting hungry as we had missed lunch. We sat down and looked at a couple of food options, but when we went out it was raining again so our motivation dropped off and we decided to head back to François for a home cooked dinner.
Once again the Amsterdam transit system deposited us quickly and comfortably back to our campground at the end of the line. When we got to François he was quite cold, so after we ate our meal, I cranked the heater up and warmed us up to a comfortable 70 degrees for an hour or so until the heat starts to escape from our poorly insulated RV. By then we will under cover and will stay warm for the night.
