Greetings from Amsterdam!
It is 2021, COVID still isn’t over and yet, Jason and I are in Amsterdam. These are wild times – though both of us a vaccinated and masking up in any crowd or indoors situation. Much of the country is unmasked in general, even if the tourist situation is ridiculous. In the Grachtengordel, the 17th century canal neighborhood where the hotel is, people are out and about in the fresh air drinking at street cafes, watching the boat traffic, or zipping by on bicycles.
So I present 10 photos from the last two days, all outdoors. There is a ton of indoor photography to share from today’s trip to the Rijksmuseum, but with the limitations of photo count on Tumblr, I have to batch things out.
First, the canals, obviously. One thing I learned while reading up about them is that while they are concentric in nature, they weren’t built in concentric rings one after the other. Instead, they were built all at once fanning out from the IJ, like a windshield-wiper. And those are the modern canals. The originals in the city – like the Singel – have been here since the middle ages! The Singel once encircled Amsterdam like a moat, until 1585ish, when plans were drawn up to expand the city. It’s now the innermost canal, and you’re looking at it (and an offshoot) in the pictures here.
Second, the Rijksmuseum. Holy cow, I’m not that knowledgeable about Dutch history or architecture but this is clearly a standout place in the country. What I’d gathered from school is that the Dutch first made themselves rich by being merchants and traders, and later it was the Dutch East India / West India Companies that opened the world to exotic goods and impressive textiles, wares and resources. But what I learned here is the nitty gritty stuff. Like, in Japan, the Dutch East India company was the only merchant allowed to conduct trade of Japanese goods with the rest of the world. They were permitted a little settlement on a man-made island called Dajima, in Nagasaki harbor. Only one access bridge was built to the island, and it was closely guarded by the military of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Trader ships had one dock, and everything on them was counted by the Japanese.
Meanwhile, in the (now) U.S., the Dutch West India company gave us the first settlement on what is (now) Manhattan. Of course it was self-serving, meant to defend fur traders so they could export back to the motherland, but the result is that Dutch people created a Golden Age of sorts in Amsterdam, and that made an impossibly charming city.
I have a ton of photos of the Rijksmuseum’s contents and I will share those eventually, but the gardens behind it really felt worth sharing, too. European gardens have a unique quality of feeling new and ancient at the same time (in my opinion), and this was no different than others I’ve seen. I think it’s the architecture and structured setting mixed with new blooms and leafy growth; that juxtaposition could freshen up any old place!
I didn’t bring my wide-angle lens today, or you’d be able to see a better version of the whole landscape, but neatly trimmed boxwoods and beautiful marigolds, magenta cosmos and even nasturtium bordered lush lawns and compacted stone paths. The geometric organization pulled at my left-brain heartstrings. One little building serving as a coffee shop was tucked into a tall hedgerow, and there at the center of its pediment was a beautiful and unique sun dial telling the time.
I made a special effort to capture the pollinators. Bees were everywhere, coating their furry little torsos with pollen and, I hope, making some divine Dutch honey somewhere. Maybe that’s a souvenir I need to bring back with me?
