Amsterdam May 29 to June 1

Thursday May 29

Our train trip from Dresden to Amsterdam was uneventful, the change over in Hanover no problem.

We are staying at the Piet Hein where we have stayed before.  But this time our room is tiny. The bed is against the wall on one side and there is 18 inch clearance on the other, maybe 2 feet at the end.   There is not room in the closet to open the luggage rack. No wonderful the price is cheap (for Amsterdam).  We will be here another night as we have prepaid.

Srikandi Indonesian restaurant:  ok sate, excellent crispy duck, good mixed appetizer.

Friday May 30

 We spent the day at the Rijksmuseum.  We found the collection somewhat disappointing. There certainly are fabulous pieces, but much of the collection consists of genre painting and there are, in our view, better examples elsewhere..

Rembrandt's Night Watch:

One of the rooms was posted with the following text.

Maybe this is obvious, but we had not thought of it, but it explains why there is so much art seemingly alike that is competent but not great.  There was so much of it that a lot of not so great art survived.

Mostly we post pictures of things that caught our fancy.

An interesting Mondrian.  He is still using green.

An interesting Jesse tree:

Always a favorite -- pietre dure:

We extend our stay at this hotel at significantly greater expense. But we are here only one more night and it is not worth moving.

Dinner at Trattoria Toto:  gnocchi al forno; entrecôte and pasta with porcini.


Saturday May 31


We visited the Van Gogh museum. We decided that the picture we would like to bring home is Garden at St. Paul's Hospital

There was also an exhibit of Felix Valloton.

We enjoyed the canal trip.

Very indulgent seafood lunch/  Indian dinner