We took trains to Amsterdam, via Ghent, Antwerp, & Rotterdam

rotterdam station

I didn’t take many pictures here😩. The two main things we saw were the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House. Even though it was cold, rainy weather, both were packed and had long waits to get into. After consulting with the lady at our hotel (called Hotel Espresso, loved it), we decided to get Van Gogh Museum tickets for first thing in the morning (9am), and then just stand in line to go inside when the doors opened. This worked out fairly well, and after maybe 30 minutes of standing in line, we went inside (no problem because we had umbrellas).

van gogh museum

the sower

wheatfield under thunderclouds

leafing through the paintings

happy that we aren’t in the line, in the HAIL but are inside already:)

sunshine + iamsterdam

It’s a good museum, worth a visit if you are a fan of art at all. And since he was the original selfie-lover, it’s topical too😆*. I liked Almond Blossom the best, but it didn’t look great in pictures, so I decided not to take any of it! Unfortunately, The Bedroom paintings are all traveling, so we didn’t get to see those (although, I’m fairly certain I’ve seen one before somewhere else in the wide world of art museums but can’t remember where). However, a docent told us that all three of Van Gogh’s Bedrooms paintings are together for the first time ever, in The Art Institute of Chicago, until May 10th. If you’re in Chicago soon, that would be a cool exhibit to check out! This museum does a nice job of laying out Van Gogh’s life in a very basic and succinct way. I didn’t feel like I was pressed to read everything, and I still left learning a lot about him.

*credit to: Seester (her joke)

Anne Frank House is very popular. We stood in line for around an hour and a half – all outside (re: Cold). We decided to go at night, and it was a much shorter wait than during the day (half). I would attribute some of the long lines to the fact that we were in Amsterdam right before King’s Day, which is one of the biggest holidays / celebrations they have, so I think there were more tourists because of that. The Anne Frank House was very moving, and it made me think about what a terrible, wide-spread, and long-lasting impact the Holocaust had on all of Europe and beyond.

anne frank house

And other things…

turkish durum in amsterdam:)

bakery…..

every day for breakfast, i would be happy

After giving me some of her clothes to borrow (omg, new-to-you clothes!) and taking some stuff I needed to send home, seester left:/ Leaving me alone, again, to wander aimlessly around Europe in search of  ???

King’s Day wasn’t of huge interest to me, although I checked out one of the big flea markets, so I went to Keukenhof Gardens on my last day in The Netherlands. Even though it was freezing, it was the perfect time for TULIPS and other precious flowers.

The garden had this magical music machine…

Next up: North Africa: MOROCCO!