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January 25, 2005

Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam

RijksmuseumIn my excitement to share my photographs and travel tales I have left Amsterdam without talking about some of the wonderful things that we saw so let's go back there for a little while.

The DH and I decided to go to Amsterdam for different but complementary reasons. He wanted to search out Dutch pottery, especially Makkum examples, while I, having seen the movie 'Girl with the Pearl Earring', had fallen in love with Vermeer so I was going to see Dutch paintings. At the Rijksmuseum we found them both.

When we walked up to the museum we saw a sign outside that said that it was closed for refurbishment until 2008. My heart sank! All this way to be turned away at the door, but then the rest of the sign said that there was one wing open. The curators of this museum very cleverly used some of the most wonderful artworks to document the Goldern Age of Dutch history. We had an art lesson and a history lesson in the same afternoon.

Despite having come here to see the paintings, my favourite item in the whole display was the Delft violin, shown in the slide show here. I would love to be able to take it home to look at it every day. In place of the real thing, I have a little bookmark with a picture of the violin on it so that every time I open the page of my book I can see it.

Posted by robynls at January 25, 2005 9:25 AM

Comments

Robyn, After seeing The Girl with the Pearl Earring, I also fell in love with Vermeer. I got the CD of the soundtrack to the movie and it's incredibly beautiful and haunting. I play it all the time. Thank you for the travelogue, it's been wonderful "seeing" Europe this way thru your eyes. Bex

Posted by: Bex at January 25, 2005 1:19 PM

Another Vemeer fan here though when I went to Amsterdam we never made it to the Rikjsmuseum having limited time too - and my main aim was to visit the Van Gogh museum - which we did. As for Paris, yes, brilliant city. It's been at least 5 years since we last went and want to return this year - whether we do or not though depends in part on whether we decide to visit one of the other European cities that we still haven't seen and are on our list of 'must-go' places. Your photos are lovely, thank you for sharing and so glad that you enjoyed your trip... Linda. (UK)

Posted by: Linda at January 25, 2005 6:50 PM

This is just so well done. I am absolutely jealous of your adventure. Thanks for sharing!

Posted by: Bill Weiss at January 26, 2005 9:25 AM

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