The canals, another thing that creates addiction in Amsterdam
Vermeer. When I am in front of one of the paintings in the delft painter my endorphins are activated. And how. Said in simple Spanish, it makes me adopt the role of a voyeur looking at the milkmaid from afar. And even more to The girl of the pearl (this painting is in the Mauritshuis of Hague ), even beyond thinking about Scarlett Johansson in that almost expendable film. Those women of Vermeer they are the northern version of the brunettes of Julio Romero Torres ; an unspeakable desire for the concierge of your building. The Rijksmuseum has been upside down for a decade, with its masterpieces in the Phillips wing, but it is scheduled to reopen for next April 13.
Van Gogh. Something similar happens to me the redhead , although I have to admit that the passion for his paintings is somewhat less due to the work and grace of marketing and the desire to walk through the auction rooms with the intention of breaking records in pichichi style , with each box reaching a higher price than the previous one. It is true that once before The bedroom in Arles or the Wheat field with crows he forgets that his paintings have become key rings, t-shirts or pseudo-pop-rock-dance-rancher groups, things that don't stimulate the libido too much. Until the end of April, the paintings from the Van Gogh museum are on display at the Hermitage Amsterdam.
You will find 'The Milkmaid' by Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum
The channels. A quarter of the city's urban area is aquatic , but tourists insist on walking the same two blocks around the three main canals: Keizersgracht (of the emperor), Prinsengracht (of the prince) and Herengracht (of the knights). If you get out of there, it's relatively easy to grow fond of the canals. to the bourgeois Golden age They did not tell him about the health problems that he would have living in the best houses on the canals and although until less than a decade ago the boats anchored in the canals still evacuated over them, the flow is renewed with water from the ijsselmeer , the sea turned into a lake to prevent the Dutch from taking the float too often. The houses on the canals are highly valued and houses on ships even more so. Are object of desire of artists, celebrities and young people with possible . This year they meet four centuries of the construction of the canals.
Eat well. Amsterdam with good food and good drink has never been an easy relationship. But it turns out there is life beyond the Phoebus machines and ribs to bursting. The offer is not very wide, but the level of the kitchen increases proportionally to the distance from which we separate from leidseplein . It is now possible to eat in an ecological restaurant on the top floor of a library, enter a fish market-like gastrobar to choose the lobster yourself or alternate lunch and dinner in a place that, changing the paper tablecloth for a cloth one, goes from serving affordable menus to signature cuisine . Also, how good it feels to come home and say: I ate well in Amsterdam.
The renovated atrium of the Rijksmuseum
Maritime Museum. If you don't have children and your travels end up going from the sofa to the fridge, you will probably be bored by the Scheepvaart museum. The epic, the appeal and the power of the Dutch East India Company , is exhibited in every corner of the museum rooms. Also outside, with a replica of one of the ships that made the VOC famous. The figurehead It seems that it is painted with colored plastic temperas, but inside the museum there is an interesting collection of masks with much more natural tones. If there is an addictive place where you would love to commit a robbery, it is in the rooms where sextants and globes are exhibited.
If none of that catches your attention, take a look around the backyard (it's free) and see the glass dome that they incorporated in the last remodeling. It is the work of laurent ney and represents the compass Rose that appeared on the old navigation charts.
The globes of the Scheepvaart museum
** Eye .** The most enviable thing about this museum-cultural space dedicated to the seventh art is not its film library , with several rooms decorated in a different way where they show films and thematic cycles or by author, always in the original version. Neither it is your restaurant with exceptional views of the city. They are not temporary exhibitions — one of the last ones was dedicated to Kubrick and it was a resounding success —. Not even the interactive part on the ground floor, where they let you touch everything. What is admirable is that, far from being an exclusive museum for cinephiles, it is a space where families take their children from a very young age. In case anyone wants to take note.
The spectacular building of the Eye Theater
By Pijp . The neighborhood is currently The laboratory that every city needs. It has relieved the Jordaan in those functions. The process is known as the cupcake metamorphosis . They are called cupcakes and triples the price of rentals. The Albert Cuypmarkt has that touch of british market that we like so much, where the cheesemaker and the florist are your neighborhood psychoanalysts. Esthetes with fixed gear bike and the local artist They meet at the time of the haring. if you don't go raw herring , do not worry, you are in the UN of gastronomy. With so many exotic restaurants, there will come a time when you no longer distinguish between the aroma of pad thai , of guacamole or of Gazpacho.
Albert Cuypmarkt, the most British market in Amsterdam
Foam . It's one of the photography museums most interesting in Europe. His exhibitions are temporary and mix with admirable ease Diane Bush with the evolution of Russian color photography. They have an interesting library available to visitors. The museum has a wide range of workshops and they say that in the cafe on the ground floor they organize the best photography gatherings on the continent . In addition, Foam is a publisher of whims that publishes interesting author books and a magazine.
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The Café del Foam, center of photographic gatherings
** Stedelijk **. If you start with the paintings in the temporal limit of those exposed in the Rijksmuseum , you will have entered with good foot. little, but there is some Impressionism and of Expressionism. Blessed Ernst Luwdig Kirchner . But once you advance, the first thing you have to do, of course without anyone noticing, is to try to differentiate between what they are artworks and what is part of the museum's inventory. The emergency exit, the fire extinguisher and the security personnel correspond to the second group. From there, you dress like a Mondrian painting , you put on the appropriate glasses and dialogue with the works in different shades of white that are hanging on the wall or lying on the floor. If you want to have fluid dialogue, search the Wikipedia and learn by heart everything you find in terms of art from the avant-garde onwards. In short, almost everything that ends in ism.
Exterior of the Stedelijk Museum
pied a terre . Can't open one travel bookstore without being a good person. Only in this way is it understood that you can enter to spend the afternoon in Pied à terre, one of the most important in Europe on the subject, take a few books, a map and sit in the small cafe that there is at the end of the premises to dream of remote trips. If you go out without buying they will dedicate you a smile to wish you a good trip. The collection of titles is huge, in different languages, with special attention to great picture books . By the way, another thing that is not always easy in Amsterdam is taking a decent latte. Here is excellent. The bookstore is at 135-137 Overtoom Street.
*** You may also be interested in...**
- Amsterdam Guide
The Pied à terre bookstore, the traveler's paradise