Amsterdam

Sarah and I enjoyed a long weekend in Amsterdam last weekend. I didn't do a lot of photography, we spent most of our time in museums and walking the canals.

We got museum passes, which worked out really well. Museums in Amsterdam aren't cheap (most were roughly 10 euros).

We arrived the day after a freak windstorm swept northern Europe, in fact our high speed train wasn't so high speed because of the weather.

We enjoyed the food a lot, there seem to be numerous vegetarien options, it reminded us of some of the veggie places in Austin.

I've posted some photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/suzypics/Amsterdam

And here is a list of the places we visited:

• Anne Frank house
  
• Rijksmuseum - awesome Rembrant paintings
  
• Heineken brewery tour
  
• Canal boat ride
  
• Van Gogh museum
  
• Amsterdam history museum
  
• Hermitage museum
  
• Rembrandt's House
  
• Horticulture garden
  

I think I enjoyed the Van Gogh museum the most. Van Gogh only painted for 10 years, and the museum was able to cover those 10 years in amazing detail. It was interested to follow the different techniques he used as he befriended other artists, and also see how his painting style changed over time.

The tour of Rembrandt's house was cool because we got an in depth demonstration of his etching techniques. That really made the etching collection they have come alive. They were able to recreate his house very accurately because Rembrandt went bankrupt while he owned it, and thus everything he owned was cataloged and sold at auction.

The Hermitage was the biggest disappointment, they have just opened the Amsterdam "branch", I was hoping to see some of the biggies from St. Petersburg Hermitage, but they really didn't have much at all.