Rijksmuseum, and some knitting

 The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is a great place to visit. We'd been before, but we decided to get tickets anyway. As with all the great national collections like the Prado, the National Gallery, the Louvre, it's worth repeating. 

Housed in a great red-brick 19th century turreted bulding, with what used to be a road running through it, it was teeming with tourists before opening time. Last time we went there, in 2018, we got open tickets; to use whenever we wanted, but now you book a time slot on a specific day. That being said, we just joined the queue and they let us in. Spring is high season in Amsterdam because of the tulips, and there were tourists everywhere. For me, the ones who were a bit of a nuisance were those in groups with tour-guides, standing in a tight group near significant artworks and explaining the importance of ...Rembrandt, Van Gough, Goya or whoever and making it difficult for the lone viewers to see the paintings.

The jewel in the crown is, of course, The Night Watch by Amsterdam's own Rembrandt. At the moment it's under restoration treatment. Every night they wheel it into the workshop and do more to it, then wheel it back into its glass case for the public to see in the morning. If you can get near the glass case! 

People these days take photos of everything. I didn't bother, except for a few things.

Some flowers at the bottom of one of the medieval paintings

An enormous walnut tree

Flowers in a painting

I noticed a few knitting features:

Girl knitting in the dunes, by Bernard Blommers 1845-1914

One of the big 17th century paintings is Company of Captain Cornelis Witsen and Lieutenant Johan Oetgens van Waveren celebrating the Treaty of Münster, 1648. (the Civic Guards Meal)

As it's not by Rembrandt you can see it closer. I was so impressed with the stockings I took photos of them!

Lovely pattern, knitted silk stockings!

Snazzy footwear!

 

Amsterdam

 My prevailing impression of Amsterdam is crazy traffic. Buses, trams, cars, lorries, motorbikes...and bicycles. Crossing the road is an adventure. 

They really are very good at bikes there. Families use them, either with a kind of wheelbarrow attachment for the children, or on the back/crossbar/handlebars. Cross in front of a bike at your peril. They don't usually stop for you, even on a crossing. 

And the way they park on the canalside terrified me!

But I suppose you get used to it!

Tulips in Amsterdam

 I retired last year, and we wanted to do a trip to celebrate. However, what I really wanted to do was to go and see the tulip fields in Holland. Since the season is so short: from late March to mid May, we had to wait almost a year. It was worth it though!

We booked in advance: flights, hotel, tickets for Keukenhof Gardens (transport included) and for good measure, tickets for the Rijksmuseum. 

What we couldn't book was the weather. Amsterdam has its fair share of rain, and the day of the gardens it rained. Not all the time, but we didn't get dazzled by the sun either. The flowers themselves did the dazzling. 

There were a lot of people there; probably thousands. It really is an amazing place!

At the entrance

It's got a windmill and lots of tourists

I could post more photos of tulips.

Tulip fields

These won't show up so well, but surrounding the gardens are the fields; blocks of colour.

They let the tulips bloom then cut the flowers off son the strength goes into the bulb, which multiplies and grows bigger. We saw them from the plane on the way in but too far away to show much on a photo.

The best place to photograph the tulip fields is from the platform of the windmill, but there was a queue to go up when we came off the boat trip so we didn't bother; after 40 minutes on the canal we were a bit chilly and headed off to one of the pavilions to get coffee and Dutch apple pie (delicious)

More and more flowers!

And so on. More and more flowers, more and more tourists taking photos of flowers and/or self with flowers. It reminded me of Stonehenge; conpletely unique, completely overrun with tourists. I'm not complaining about the tourists, they are part of the show really. An amazing experience all round.