A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: Day 3 - Amsterdam

After a really nice and huge breakfast we headed out to see the sights. We had bought a Holland Pass ahead of time, picked it up from the airport after arriving. That included among other things a voucher for 48 hour tram tickets. We changed the voucher at the hotel and headed out to see the sights. We found the tram to the Rijksmuseum and after a short ride we were there. The museum is old and huge and had just recently undergone renovations. We saw pretty much all of the museum, which took several hours. The most famous paintings there are Rembrandt's and they had several of them.

Rijksmuseum

Delft plates

Library

Model of an old ship

Rembrandt's Nightwatchman

Rembrandt's self-portrait sketches

Vermeer's Milkmaid

Rembrandt's self-portrait

Van Gogh self-portrait

Folding harpsicord

Outside Rijksmuseum

After leaving the museum we took a tram again and ended at the Flower Market. It is very touristy and sells lots of trinkets and tulip bulbs. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't have too many flowering plants there, but I guess the season for that is over. We had a quick snack of their world famous french fries, but neither one of us were too hungry for lunch yet.

Jeff at the Flower Market

Another Cheese Shop

Back view of the Flower Market

French Fries

House detail

Cute Street view

One of the many houseboats

Canal bridge

Canal view on the way to the
Rembrandt House

Flea Market

Flower Market

From there we headed towards the Rembrandt House Museum . I think that was one of my highlights of this trip so far. It was really interesting to see how they had renovated the house to look like it might have looked when Rembrandt lived there. They even have things that they've found from the cess pit that dates from the time he was living there. His studio was also renovated like it might have been back then. They had canvases stretched the way they did then and paint supplies. The lady there said that they only mixed enough paints to last one day. She also explained about making some of the paints. I will not eat red M&M's anymore after she explained that they use the same things for that color as Rembrandt used for his translucent red color. That red color comes from female lice that emit a substance and once they die they use it for that color red. Rembrandt was not only a painter but also an art dealer and printer/etcher. He sold other artists paintings from his home.

Rembrandt's prop storage room

Rembrandt's palette

Rembrandt's studio

Rembrandt's living room and his bed

Rembrandt's kitchen

Rembrandt' House

After the Rembrandt House we headed towards the train station and one of the canal cruises. We did the 100 Highlights Cruise and we covered a lot of both old and new Amsterdam.

Canal House

Seven Bridges

Westerkerk

Anne Frank House

One of the many locks

A parking garage for bikes

Nemo Science Center

Replica of the Amsterdam

Going through a lock

Detail of a building

Insurance companies pay for iron railings to prevent
cars from falling in.

After all that walking we needed a little rest and headed back to the hotel. We decided to have our dinner in the Utrechtstraat area since it is known for dining and someone Jeff works with recommended it also. We took the tram there and walked around and ended up in this L'Express Restaurant. It is a French restaurant and is sort of decorated like an old train car. The food was excellent and both the owner and the waitress were really nice. We highly recommend it.