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Archive for the ‘Amsterdam’ Category

Waterlooplein (Stadhuis) – Amsterdam’s largest and most beautiful flea market

By Traveller On June 25, 2008 No Comments

Even if you don’t want to buy any batik clothes, leather goods or silver jewelry, on no account should you miss Amsterdam’s largest and most beautiful flea market, located in Waterlooplein (Waterloo Square).

Every day, stall-holders and shopkeepers try to sell their colorful and chaotic mixture of useful items, bric-a-brac and second-hand clothes around the modern Stadhuis (Town Hall), with its eye-catching red and white façade. The Normaal-Amsterdam-Peil, a calibration post, is placed here at ground level. This is the zero point from which heights are calculated in virtually every country in Europe. Immediately beside it you can see the current sea level in three glass columns, and you will see that without its protective dykes, at normal sea level Amsterdam would be flooded.


Vondelpark – ideal recreational area

By Traveller On June 25, 2008 No Comments

Located close to the museum district, Vondelpark, with its 110 acres, offers an ideal recreational area for all those who need a break from art and culture.

Here, in what was once the heart of the European hippie movement, you can lie down on the grass, unwrap your picnic food, jog, cycle or even ride a horse. Music festivals, concerts and theater performances are organized here in the summer months, and the many entertainers and artists in the small cafés make time go by in a flash. If you are looking for a bit of peace and quiet, you can stroll along idyllic pathways past pools, pavilions and rose beds while listening to the birds singing in the woods.


Van Gogh Museum

By Traveller On June 25, 2008 No Comments

In 1973, the world’s greatest collection of works by the famous Dutch impressionist found a home in a white building of curving walls, designed by Gerrit Rietveld.

In addition to some 200 paintings, 600 drawings, and watercolors by the master, the exchange of letters between the artist and his brother Theo is also on display here. Long lines form in front of the paintings all year round, but anybody who stands in front of the early ‘Potato Eaters’ or the world-famous ‘Sunflowers’ will regard the time as well-spent. Space has also been made for other painters contemporary with Van Gogh, so the visitor can also admire works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin and Adolphe Monticelli.


Rijksmuseum

By Traveller On June 25, 2008 No Comments

Year after year, Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’, behind its protective screen of reinforced glass, attracts more than a million art lovers from all over the world into the neo-classical brick building in the center of the museum district.

Founded by Louis Bonaparte in 1808, the Rijksmuseum now contains not only the world’s largest and most important collection of 17th-century Dutch paintings, but also sculptures and valuable craftwork exhibits. Until around 2008, the museum galleries will be undergoing gradual renovation. Many of the world-famous works have therefore been moved into the Philips wing or to other museums. For up-to-date information on the progress of the renovation work, see the museum website.


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