Rijksmuseum, Walking around Town, Picnic on the Canal

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 15, 2012 | 2 comments

This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day with no trace of yesterday’s rain. I made a nice breakfast of poached eggs, apples with Nutella, smoked salmon, toast, and orange juice so we could have lots of energy for the day to come. The last time we were here we pretty much saw all of the larger museums except for Rijksmuseum which was under construction at the time. I was hoping that now, two years later, they would be done but it turns out that they won’t be finished until 2013. Until then, the crème de la crème from the Golden Age – including paintings by Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer – were on display as part of a temporary exhibit called The Masterpieces. We also got to see the famous doll’s houses, Van Vianen brothers’ silver and a nice collection of Delftware pottery. Even though it was only a small sample of everything in the Rijksmuseum collection, it was still amazing to see. The beautiful Rembrandt paintings were definitely the highlight of the exhibit. The audio tour was also quite good.

After we finished at the museum, we walked around Museumplein and took some photos. We also had a quick lunch in the park which included a delicious waffle with cherries. It being a warm day and all, the yellow jackets were out in full force. We laughed when one of them thought he was going to make off with a piece of chicken from my sandwich that was bigger than he was. He dragged it all the way to edge of my cardboard food container, but faltered and dropped the chicken just as he tried to lift off. It was still an impressive try though. I didn’t realize that yellow jackets were into chicken.

After lunch we walked around some more and did a little shopping. By the time we got back to the apartment, we were a little tired so we rested up until dinner. Since we didn’t have any reservations tonight, we walked over to get some Indonesian takeout from a restaurant we visited last time and sat on the edge of the canal under a tree to eat. It started to get a little windy and soon enough it started to rain. Since the tree was keeping us dry, we sat there for about an hour enjoying the sound of thunder and the soft pattering of rain on the canals and streets. If you look closely at the photograph below of my feet you can see the rain in the water. Since we are so far North, it doesn’t get dark here until well after nine so we were able to stay out quite late. Now we are back in the apartment, but I think we might venture out again to get some beautiful night shots of the canals all lit up. I will post those pictures tomorrow if we get any.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

P.S. Despite the brief rain showers, the weather here is just perfect…warm and breezy with a hint of humidity. I hope it stays like this.