Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

What, still no Extras? Plus our Amsterdam visit
[UPDATED 16 & 17 OCTOBER]

You must wonder if you're ever going to get those Extras to Reading in Bed @ 70. But here's a couple of photos which will find themselves there eventually. Honest.
Don't forget to click to see them bigger, will you?

Yes, it's the usual excuse - we've been really very, very busy indeed. We made that trip to Amsterdam (see just a few of the 100+ photos below) followed by a visit from a good friend from way back in Alice's school and university days, during which we went to Jupiter Artland once again, taking more photos still to edit, of course.

Then we had 10 miserable days when Alice was laid low with a nasty cold-sinus-cough thingy, which was followed hard upon (get the classical quote?) by a flying visit from a different good pal who seems to spend his time shuttling between England and Scotland. It's been all go here, you know.

And soon we'll be off again, "Down South" as Alice erroneously calls it (there's no Down about it!) for the wedding of another univesity friend, and a visit to the revamped Tate Modern for Georgia O'Keefe. I expect she'll take even more photos then too. What is she like!

Now Alice is complaining that I'm asking for too many underlinings: she says it makes her text look untidy. Sigh.

Amsterdam  Day One
Alice's son had suggested the trip, to make up for only being available briefly for a blether when we babysit, and he arranged the flights and hotel. Only away for barely three days, we took minimal luggage, so avoided having to put anything into the hold. Alice had specially got herself a lovely new rucksack in a Sale at North Face.

Our first stop after checking in to the spiffing Hotel Roemer was in this popular park, just around the corner. We'd had to dodge the ubiquitous bikes in their assigned cycle lanes, but learnt fast which way to look out for them.

The wheelbarrow-bike in the photo is really for transporting one's children!

We'd booked in advance to go to the gigantic Van Gogh Musem - a must when in this city. Ba wasn't so keen on "Doing Art" again, but she had enjoyed the park. And she was delighted to discover that the famous artist was into Nature too!

He'd had an awful lot of mental health problems, we learnt, and killed himself (it's believed) shortly after becoming an uncle to a little Vincent. Very sad.

The tour took a long time, and Alice's feet were pretty sore after we'd looked at most of it.

Here are our favourite paintings:

Alice had to jiggle them all into one long image, to make them fit together across the page, so they may look pretty tiny. But, as we keep saying, click on them to see a bigger size - or best of all, right click to open in a separate page or tab.

Ba couldn't decide between Butterflies and Poppies and Sprig of flowering almond in a glass, so we let her have two favourites. Alice and I liked both Courtesan: after Eisen as it was unusual and Japanese-looking, and Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette, as it was so unexpected and made us laugh.

But we all agreed there was something special about Almond Blossom, which Van Gogh created for his brother Theo and sister-in-law, Jo, on the birth of their son, also called Vincent, in June 1890.

We had a link about the relationship between the brothers, but it wasn't working. We emailed the museum about it, and they said they'd look into it, so keep your fingers or paws crossed and try again. [P.S. I think it is fixed now. Hurrah!]

Amsterdam Day Two

Breakfast was cornflakes and yummy fry-up. We were usually the last ones, but the hotel staff didn't seem to mind, and were all very nice and helpful.

On our second day Alice began her marathon run of photographing canals, boats, trees, houses, flowers and even the quaint Narnia-like lamp-posts. We'll just give you a few samples, but do click on them.

We decided to explore the Nine Streets area. Of course, there was a super bike shop to visit, with zillions of different bells! The grandchildren were bought bright ones with a nice zinging ring.

Bikes, trees and flowers.

Houses, boats and lamp-post.  

See: we told you so. Enjoy!

I do have to admit that mostly they are very good shots, which give you a taste of how beautiful the place is. Alice is grinning at my compliment. You can see even more sights of the city on Smugmug.

We found a gaming and knicknack shop, where we bought quite a few souvenirs. Take a virtual tour on their website.

There were lots of cafes everywhere to choose from, and it was warm enough to eat outside, too. Lovely.

We drank Peroni while waiting for our lunch. The Dutch waitresses called it "beer", but actually it's a lager. Alice liked it so much, she's just bought some more to have at home. In fact, she's taking a break right now to have some, with fresh salad and a favourite nibble of Sainsbury's mini pork and pickle pies. So there.

We happened upon the Cheese Museum by chance. Actually it's a shop on the ground floor: the museum (which we didn't pay to see) was below.

You could taste samples of dozens of diffferent cheeses - mostly delicious. Hard to choose!

We couldn't wait to get stuck in. The cranberry chutney was especially good.

Then we wandered some more, admiring the typical Amsterdam views. 

Eventually it got dark and we headed back to the hotel.

It had been a really good day.

Amsterdam Day Three

We got quite practised with using the tram system during our three days. But check out the photo on the right, by clicking on it to see the larger view. Here Alice said, "We've told them that already!" and almost refused to type it yet again. But I don't want you to miss out on anything, that's all.

Yes, it's a Pokemon (a Poliwag to be precise if you're that way inclined) caught by Alice's son on his mobile.

She got a bit fed up when he kept stopping to hunt. That's what took him so long in the Vondelpark. But in the end she conceded it was fair enough, if he didn't complain when she set up mini photo-shoots with myself and Ba. Humans! Families! I don't know.

Self Portrait from Wikimedia

Our main visit on the last day was to Rembrandt's House Museum. It's in the actual house where he lived from 1639 to 1660. They've done it up to look somewhat as it would have done then, not with the originals but period stuff comparable to those Rembrandt might have had. Alice is pretty much into that era, with Shakespeare and all, so she loved it.

She took oodles of photos, but as you couldn't use flash, and the light was rather dim, most of them aren't up to her own exacting standards. We'll just give you a few of the best. And save time blogging, too. Anyway, the  museum has a very informative website, with lots of photos, including some at 360 ° so you can have your own virtual tour.

Alice is proud of the one on the left, looking through an internal window on the stairs to the room below.

And she liked all the different objects in this corner of the  "Large Studio" where he did most of his painting.

This is my favourite, in the man's very own box bed.

Well, to be honest, how I would have liked to try it out. But we didn't dare, in case we were thrown out!

Instead this is a mock-up Alice concocted with a digital overlay. Clever, though, isn't it?

The "Cabinet" was our favourite room.

It's where Rembrandt kept simply loads of rare and valuable items from all over the world, as models for his own work and examples for his pupils. I was most impressed by this magnificent horned skull, though I'm not sure which beast it exactly it belonged to. Impala?

Alice was drawn to the display of a "cabinet of coins" (as listed in Rembrandt's inventory of this room) a bright feathered fan, turtle shells and giant sea shells.

She's sure she'd have all sorts of odds and ends to put in the cabinet, though not much in the way of coins.

Ba doesn't generally like musuems or art galleries, as you've probably gathered by now, but she found something to please her and went for the butterflies, as I might have predicted.

We were glad of the lift back down, as the stairs were very steep and dark indeed.

After this, we had another good lunch outside another canalside cafe, and did a bit more wandering around this northern area of the city.

Lastly we saw the impressive Montelbaanstoren Tower. But only from afar, as we were getting weary by then, and had to head back to collect our bags from the hotel and get the return flight to Scotland.

This ancient fortification was built in 1512. For more information see A View on Cities. Alice took one of her trade-mark "foreground interest" photos, which involve a lot of time-consuming repositioning of herself and camera, relative to the view. You must click on this one to fully appreciate her artistry.

While Googling online for information, Alice also found a painting of it, created around 1880 by Abraham Storck (1644-1708) with the title of Embarkation of Soldiers near the Montelbaanstoren.

 We'll leave you with some images of our souvenirs and gifts for friends and family.



Ba insisted on getting the tasteless tuplips, and Alice very kindly gave in to her pleas, and coughed up.

I especially liked the witty Freud soap, and Alice added her book about the man to the photo. The wrapper appears twice to read it all without cricking your neck when you click.

What a long blog about the super short holiday we all had. I'm afraid an account of revisiting Jupiter Artland must wait now, as we need to prepare for our next trip "down" to England.