Getting there at the opening and pre-purchasing tickets was the way to go - we were inside in no time. The building itself is impressive. It was built by the same person who did the Amsterdam Centraal Station. It has also been recently renovated, so it is very modern inside, despite the old exterior. We got to the gallery of honor early so we didn't have to share it with too many people. We went straight to the Night Watch. I won't take the time to describe it here, you can read about it if you wish. His mastery of light and movement is incredible though. It's as if some of the people in the painting were reaching out of the canvas. The main hall is also home to several other famous painting and we all found our own favorites. The realism from the 1600s is quite stunning. The museum is also very well interpreted, everything had in depth and informative English descriptions and specific pieces had information cards that explained different aspects of the work. Josh found these to be interesting, which was nice! We spent about an hour in the main floor of the museum then walked through a few other areas before deciding we didn't want museum burnout with another one to go visit!
Luckily, the Van Goch museum was just a walk (and a waffel stop) across the plaza. The plaza is a large area with a reflecting pool and a collection of statues of Nijntje (or Miffy), a popular cartoon character. It's like the Cow Parade in the US - different artists decorate a statue to their own taste and they are all displayed together.
Anyway, I digress... The Van Gogh museum has a fantastic collection of both his works and his letters. He wrote over 800 letters (most to his brother, Theo) and the museum houses over 500 of them! They really gave insight into his work and examples were sprinkled throughout the museum. Although not as well interpreted as the Rijksmuseum, there was still ample information. I really like a series of paintings he did of an orchard, I had never seen them before. Josh actually knew a lot of information because they had read about Van Gogh in his art class. He even looked for a few works he knew about! It was funny though, they mentioned one of his most famous works several times, but "The Potato Eaters" was on loan to a museum in Oslo, so we couldn't see it. With phase one of touring complete, we headed back to the apartment for lunch.
Emboldened by our lack of walking we decided to follow a Rick Steve's walking tour from the central station through many of the main tourist areas. This taught me a couple of things. A) it made me appreciate the quiet neighborhood and canal we are staying near and B) Made me realize how much I don't enjoy doing the tourist areas. Sites along the way were pretty and the canals are always nice, but it's all the same stores, souvenir shops, and chain restaurants that you see everywhere. Not to mention hordes of people. However, we did pick up a few requisite souvenirs, so I guess all was not a waste. By the time we got to the Bloemenmarkt (flower market), we were fairly done. The market itself was not how I pictured it - maybe earlier in the day or at other times of the year there are more fresh flowers, but the stalls had mostly seeds and bulbs. I am assuming that the real flower market must be somewhere else. We fueled up with some Poffertjes (butter and sugar and well as chocolate) and kept on truckin....
At some point, rebellion was in the air - mostly Jeff's feet refusing to move forward anymore, so we decided to head down the Prinsengracht and back to our district. We ended up at the same Italian place we got take out pizza from on the first night and rewarded ourselves for being crazy tourists with ice cream! We were back in the apartment and in PJs by 7pm.
Oh, and the official day of not walking? Just shy of 9 miles and 20 flights of stairs climbed. Oh well, there's always tomorrow...
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