We left for Amsterdam on Friday for a long weekend with Jeff (who works with Nick) and Nicola. We arrived about 7pm and made our way to the hotel near Leidesplein (very nice) and then headed out to dinner at an Indonesian place that someone had recommended to Jeff. Amsterdam has loads of Indonesian restaurants and are well known for rijsttafel - literally 'rice table' - which is basically Indonesian food done in small courses, like tapas or yum cha. Delicious.
After some breakfast on Saturday at Spui Square -
- we went to Waterlooplein Market (where I took the clog picture above) and found yet more rocking horses! We have now moved into bear territory, thus I have created the second official spin-off site - The Rocking Horse Blog. Click here to check it out. In the afternoon, we took a canal tour (it was freezing but most of the boat was enclosed in glass and heated, in case you were wondering if we were nuts.) Nicola, Jeff and Nick on the tour -
After a late lunch, Nicola and I went to the Van Gogh Museum. A great exhibit, but a huge crowd.
Random photo on one of the canals -
On Sunday, I woke up early and went to the Rijksmuseum (famous for many works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, among others), then met Nick for a late breakfast. We walked around central Amsterdam looking for two markets (both of which weren't on - probably a summer thing) - and then I went off to another gallery which specialises in artists from the CoBrA group.
For dinner Nicola suggested a restaurant called d'Vijff Vlighen. Apparently quite well-known for its 'new Dutch cuisine' - and very good too. We had oysters from Zealand for starters - the old, original Zealand, not the 'new' one we are more familiar with. Makes sense, but still sounds funny.
On Monday Nick and I went back to Waterlooplein Market, and then to Stedeljik Museum, the modern art museum. It took us ages to find (it has temporarily relocated near Centraal Station while its usual home is renovated) and only a tiny portion of the whole collection was being shown, but all was redeemed with a fantastic photo exhibit by Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra. After some lunch, it was back to London.
