Trip Review (Again) - Final Installment

I think that I have been dragging this out long enough, but spending two weeks on vacation; there is a lot to write about. Of course I never have been accused of writing too little.

For the last segment of our trip, we spent seven lovely days in Amsterdam (Venice of the North) that is best known for their cannabis/coffee shops, red light district, and canals.


Just set the record set, we did not partake in the first two. Even though we did not go into a coffee shop, the effects were noticed all over the city. Constantly we would be walking around I could smell when a coffee shop was near. Let me say there are a lot of coffee shops in Amsterdam.

For the second of list, we decided to walk through this infamous area. There was not much to note, there were a few novelties shops with some graphic window displays. Later we found out that we just walked through the edge of the Red Light District and never really got into the heart of the area. Oh well, this was not an item on list of things to do before I die.

The one item from the list that we did partake was the canals. We bought a two day pass for the canal bus and used it quiet a bit. This form of travel is very inefficient. You could walk to and from your destination in the time it takes use the canal bus. But it was nice to slow down and enjoy the city.

Other notable sites that we enjoyed seeing were:

Anne Frank House – Was an interesting place to see, but depressing at the same time.

Rembrandt House – Largest collection of his etchings, which was my favorite museum in Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum – There is a large amount of paintings with 200 paintings by Van Gogh’s, the largest collection of his work. The claim 200, but didn’t seem to be that many. Maybe the numerous self portraits just blend together. The most well know painting was Sunflower. This painting I never really liked, but it was better when seen up close. In addition, for some reason I thought The Starry Night was located here, but come to find out after our trip it is located permanently in New York.

Rijksmuseum – Currently under major renovation and only a very small portion of the collection was available to view, which was incredible.

Well that completes the summaries of our trip