A Tourist in Amsterdam

We have been doing the classic tourist routine since we arrived here in Amsterdam. We decided that we would visit one “must see” tourist attraction each day. Day one we went to the Van Gogh Museum. Day two we went to FOAM, the FOtographic museum of AMsterdam. Day three we went to the Roots Music Festival. Day four we went and saw the Anne Frank House.

Without exception we have been somewhat dissapointed with what we found at each attraction. This harkens back to Alain de Botton's observations in The Art of Travel, where he notes that travellers are often dissapointed when the reality of a destination does not live up to the imagination of the traveller.

The Van Gogh Museum is a good example. Before leaving Victoria, Nancy and I went to the IMAX Van Gogh movie. It dealt with the life and art of Van Gogh in a very high tech and spectacular fashion, comparing actual scenes with his paintings of them, revealing clearly how he saw the world. The Museum, however, simply has the paintings hanging on the walls, with minimum descriptions of what was going on in Van Gogh's life when he did the painting. The museum was also full of kids getting their compulsory cultural development. It was hot, and and there was no place to sit down and relax in the shadow of a Van Gogh painting. The IMAX movie, one the other hand, was comfortable, very engaging and full of information and details on the artist and his life. The paintings shown in the movie were the same as the ones displayed at the museum. The Museum was 14.50 euros ($21) each, and the movie was $10.50 each. We could have saved the 29 euros.

Similarly, the Anne Frank House, another “must see” in Amsterdam, was also a let down. We queued for about an hour (despite arriving just after it opened in the morning) with dozens of young teenage girls swarming the place in school groups. The access is very carefully regulated because there is not much room inside. It seems that once they reach capacity (not very many people), they only let the same number in as come out. That is fine, but it does mean a long wait.

Inside the house it is quite dark to reflect what it was actually like during the stay of the Frank family. There is no furniture in the home because Otto Frank, the only survivor and Anne's father, didn't want any furniture in the house when it became a museum. There are small one paragraph descriptions of the Frank's life on the walls, and some pictures, but they are hard to see because they are not lit up. The entire experience is a one way trip along a route through the house and then into a neighbouring house with a small installation on the German concentration camps. A big chunk of the real estate is the coffee shop and the book store. The book store sold The Diary of Anne Frank in a zillion different languages and that was it. The cost to get in was 8.50 euros. You would be better served to read the book, watch the movie, and read about Anne Frank on the internet.

It is risky to criticize these landmark attractions and maintain any credibility at all. After all, they are supposedly “must see” attractions. I suppose my main criticism is not that they exist, or that they are universally thought to be the thing to do when in Amsterdam. It is that they are so expensive and so disappointing. Couldn't the Van Gogh Museum show some films about the artist and provide something other than passing glimpses of the paintings through a crowd? Couldn't they provide a bench to sit on and ponder the works of the master? Clearly the idea is to get as many people, in the minimum time, through these places as is possible. Sitting and thinking is not encouraged except in the cafeterias, and only then if you buy something. 

Anne Frank queue.

Roots Festival, Tuareg blues music.

Signs outside the Anne frank house.

 Art and history as business I suppose.

In between visiting the museums, we have been walking all over Amsterdam. The place is fascinating. It is concentric rings of canals and the associated roads with radials that run straight out out the city. The bicycle reigns supreme on the roads and the sidewalks. They seem to have priority over everything else. If you are crossing the street looking for cars, you may miss the bike screaming at you with their obligatory bell ding-a-linging to warn you of the impending collision. We find crossing roads very interesting because we have to deal with successive layers of bikes, scooters, cars and trams coming from each direction. It really is an interesting dance avoiding everything each time you need to cross a street. We have yet to figure out the lights. There are lights for the cars, the bikes, the street cars, and the pedestrians and they are all different. It seems the scooters are able to use the bike paths if they don't wear a helmet, and must use the road if they do wear a helmet. It really is good sense to check and check again when crossing the street.

Scoots on the bike paths.

Shoppers.

Mom on a pickup bike.

 

Bikes everywhere.

The action on the street is fabulous! There are young people dressed in odd costumes everywhere. They stand on boxes and you can have your picture taken with them for a euro or two. Dam square has many buskers doing all the usual stuff. Every corner seems to have someone playing the accordion. If you take pictures of any of them they want money.

A Canadian Houdini act.

Pictures?

 

Every cafe and every drinking establishment has tables and chairs on the sidewalks. There is a distinct difference between cafes and coffee shops. Cafes sell coffee, coffee shops sell weed. The smell is the big clue. If smoking dope in a coffee shop doesn't appeal to you, you can visit smart drug stores where they will sell you some to take home and smoke or some “space cake” so you don't have to smoke it at all.

Lunch time cafe view.

 The red light district is another must see. It was not disappointing. The streets are full of stoned/drunk men, generally speaking English, wandering around from bar to bar looking at the women. There are also many tourist couples (like us) wandering around looking at the women, who are looking at us, each wondering what the other is doing. Of course pictures are strictly verboten and the reaction to picture takers is nasty, brutish but maybe not short.

There are also hookers elsewhere other than the red light district. It seems to be tolerated just about anywhere.

Amsterdam is a vibrant fun place to visit. The museums are expensive and mediocre, but the walks to get to the museums are full of interesting things. Everything is within walking distance of downtown. The whole city is not that big; 750,000 people and 600,000 bikes, all in a couple square kilometers.

Beer bicycle. Everyone pedals an drinks except the guy steering.

Check it out sometime.