[Amsterdam, NL, May 26, 2024]

I left my hotel at 8:15 am – bright and early by European standards. The street outside my hotel was basically deserted…. of people, that is. It was, however, filled with evidence of Saturday nights’ debauchery and cleaning crews were busy picking up trash and washing the streets.

I had a 9 am reservation for the Rijksmuseum. I followed roughly the same path as yesterday and did it on my own without looking at the map on my phone. It was so nice to have my bearings already! I even checked out a few restaurants on the way. A friend was coming up from the Hague later to have lunch with me, and I wanted to find a place by the canals.

In no time, I was at the Rijksmuseum. Even with the reserved ticket, there was a small line go get in. I downloaded the museum app and followed the highlights tour, but also stopped at anything else I wanted to know more about.

The first stop on the highlights tour was the Great Hall. Architect Pierre Cuypers, who also designed the outside and the central station, designed this hall. The stained glass windows depict the development of the arts and feature all major Dutch artists. The painted panels on the walls depict glorious moments from Dutch history. Even the mosaic floor contributes to the hall.

The Great Hall leads to the Gallery of Honor, which features Dutch masters such as Rembrandt and Vermeer.

The Gallery of Honor leads to Vermeer’s masterpiece, The Night Watch, which anchors this exhibit.

By 11 am I was starving and even though I had lunch plans, I took a break at the cafe to eat breakfast. The croissant was incredibly buttery and flaky, and the big piece of bread with cheese on top was great also.

With my energy renewed, I decided to check out the Frank Hals exhibit. It was almost the same as in London but there were a couple of new pieces.

All of this took about 3 hours. When I left, I was ready to eat again 🙂 I met my friend Nev (she is my godmother’s sister) at a small canal-side cafe called Eggs Benaddicted. I arrived a bit early and waited for one of the few tables outside to become available. I had a delicious second breakfast by the canal!

Nev and I then went to Grachtenmuseum, a 17-th century canal house on the bougie Herengracht. I was expecting the rooms to be the way they were at the time, but aside from the ground floor, the museum actually tells the story of the building of the canals.

The exhibits were very well done with light displays! One room was set up as the city council’s table, and maps of the city were projected over the tabletop while the narrator explained the planning process over the audio guide.

Another room showed how the Dutch built the canals. Stepping into the room, the floor was covered with sand. A replica of a house in the process of being built showed the wooden pylons that were driven in the dried up canals. A single house could be sitting to close to a hundred of these! Then sand was added on top, and then the foundation. The water was then re-released, dredged and carefully controlled so the pylons would never be dry, otherwise they would rot. Although these pilons were driven deep into the ground, the still shift a little, and you can see it in some of the houses, which are tilting this way or that.

In another room, there was a doll -house-sized replica of the house, with the rooms beautifully decorated.

Along the sides, there were stencils of other canal homes and some of them had holes in them, through which you could peek in to see what it looked like in that room. I peeked into several, and I also couldn’t help but peek into the Anne Frank House, which I am visiting tomorrow.

I really loved the back garden – a rare sight in Amsterdam.

On our walk back to the train station so that Nev could catch her train to the Hague, we noticed this quintessentially Dutch bicycle.

We also walked by the Tony Chocolonely store. I had a feeling this was somewhat of a tourist trap, but my hotel room was literally around the corner. I could drop off whatever I bought and didn’t have to carry it with me the rest of the day. So I relented and bought a variety back to bring to Bulgaria and try with my parents, in lieu of a souvenir.

At the train station, I used the underpassage to get to the free ferry that crossed over to the north side of Amsterdam. The Eye museum that had caught my eye was there, and it happened to be right next to A’Dam Tower, which was my next stop.

Admission to its rooftop was included with my city card, but I wasn’t sure about the swing. Once I got to the roof and realized that the staff would take your photo while you’re on the swing, I decided to do it. It was a tad scary but I tried to not look down and just enjoy the unobstructed views.

The Eye Museum was also included with my IAmsterdam card, so I couldn’t resist checking it out.

The inside of the building was just as beautiful as the outside. The museum cafe looked over the IJ lake through gigantic floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

The museum included several cinemas, yellow booths where you could curl up to watch a movie, and an interactive exhibit called the Film Catcher. Movie scenes were on display on 3 giant walls. You could use the tablets in the room to look up a clip, or show a bunch of clips on a wall that shared a theme – for example, crowds, or landscapes, or water.

By the time I was done with all of this, it was early evening. I decided to return to the canals and find a place with a canal view to enjoy a drink and a snack. Dante Kitchen and Bar fit the bill, and I enjoyed an Aperol Spritz and bitterballen. Bitterballen is a Dutch snack made of meat stew that has been thickened enough to be deep fried in balls. It was a great way to relax at the end of a long day in Amsterdam!