The 12th of April was Kris and my 15th wedding anniversary, so we wanted to do something exciting. One of our friends offered to look after the kids, so we decided to head to Amsterdam for the weekend. It was a little odd traveling by ourselves and being able to book an apartment for 2 instead of 5.
Our flight left Copenhagen at 7:40pm and arrived in Amsterdam at 9pm. We didnt get a chance to get much of a flavour of Amsterdam (except for the loud and drunk English and, sadly, Australian tourists on the train) because we needed to rush to our apartment to get the keys. We had traveled light, taking on carry-on, so we were out of the airport quickly and surprised that our passports didn't need to checked (as we were still traveling in the Schengen region).
We got to our apartment, which was on the Kostverlorenvaart canal. It was great and the owner had stayed up to make sure we got the keys and to point out some places of interest on the map.
We had a little sleep-in on Saturday and then headed out along the canals. Our first stop was the Noordermarkt (Northern Market), a farmers market just northeast of where we were staying.
So, first some basics about Amsterdam. Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands. It is part of the Holland region (which is why the country is sometimes referred to as Holland). It is not the government seat of Netherlands though, that honour goes to The Hauge.
The name comes from Amstreldamme, meaning dam on the River Amstel. It is believed that the city started as a fishing town in the last 1100s and then became a major port for the Dutch, and home of the Dutch East India Company
Amsterdam has been built around over 100km of canals (known as grachten in Dutch). The three main canals are Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal), Herengracht (Patrician/Lord's Canal) and Keizersgracht (Emperor's Canal). The canal area has been heritage listed. The canals are man-made and were primarily for residential purposes, transport and irrigation. The outer canal, Singelgracht, provides a defensive perimeter (as a moat) and water management.
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| Canals |
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| The canals on the west side of the city (Lijnbaansgracht - named after railway lines) |
Of course, another thing that Amsterdam is famous for is marijuana - it is legal and sold in most coffee houses and markets. In fact, it was a pretty common smell throughout the whole of the town, particularly around the afternoon and evening.
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| Hemp Shop |
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| Beer, and a bong gas mask |
The Noordermakt was pretty interesting - it wasn't huge, but it sold a wide variety of cheeses, seafood and multicoloured mushrooms (not the magic kind):
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| Noordermarkt |
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| Noordermarkt |
Just behind the market is the Noorderkerk (Northern Church). It is a Protestant church, built in 1620 to appear as a cross from above. Of course, we couldnt get any aerial shots, but if you look it up in googlemaps you can see:
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| From above (Googlemaps) |
From here, we continued along towards Central Station, aiming to find the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus. Along the way, we came across Posthoornkerk (Post Horn Church), built in 1860. It stop being used in 1963 and was to be demolished, before being granted National Monument status in 1972:
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| Posthoornkerk |
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and then the Koepelkerk (Dome Church) or the Ronde Lutherse Kerk (Round Lutheran Church). This one was built in 1671 and rebuilt in 1882 after a fire:
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| Koepelkerk |
We then arrived outside the Central Station. We got our tickets for the bus, but there was a massive queue. The tickets also included a hop-on/hop-off canal boat, that left from only a few meters away and had no queue, so we decided to start there.
The central station area was pretty amazing (and busy). The biggest sight was the Sint Nicholaaskerk (Basilica of St Nicholas). It is a Catholic church built in 1887:
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| Sint Nicholaaskerk |
The Central Station (Amsterdam Centraal) was designed by the same builder as the Rijksmuseum (Pierre Cuyper) in 1889. It has 11 platforms for 15 tracks and services about 162,000 passengers a day.
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| Amsterdam Centraal |
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| West side of the station |
Bikes are the most common transport in Amsterdam, and the station has an amazing bike parking area:
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| Bike parking |
After checking out the station and church, we boarded the 'Blue Line' canal boat. The first stop was "Amsterdam North", which was the site of the A'DAM (Amsterdam) lookout tower and the EYE film-museum.
Amsterdam is built on the Ij (pronounced 'Eye') Lake - hence the name of the museum.
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| A'DAM Tower |
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| A swing ride out over the edge of tower |
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| I amsterdam sign |
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| The EYE Film Institute |
We then continued past the IJ Dok, a thin strip of land that houses the interesting Paleis Van Justitie (Palace of Justice - Justice Courts) and the Ij Dock Housing Block:
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| Ij Dok |
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| Paleis Van Justitie |
We followed the canal cruise until we came to the Leidseplein stop - where we headed down to the Albert Cuyp market.
Along the way we learnt an interesting fact about the houses in Amsterdam - because it is often too difficult to get furniture up the stairs, the buildings all have a hook mounted to a beam in the room that is used to hoist items to the upper floors. The buildings are also designed to lean out slightly at the top to make sure that hoisted items don't hit the building on the way up. There's a few examples in the pictures below.
Another interesting thing was the use of houseboats. Many people choose to live on houseboats on the canals. They are pretty much a permanent site, with sewer and utility connections, but they have to be able to move if needed. Also there are only a limited number of berthing locations for the boats and they have all been taken, so it can be expensive and difficult to find a houseboat for sale, or a location available for a new one.
Here's some of the photos from the cruise:
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| Hoist hook on a house |
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| Houseboat |
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| Canal |
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| A good example of the forward lean of the buildings |
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| Rooftop garden |
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| A Facade on Prinsengracht |
The facade above shows the Coat of Arms of The Netherlands in the middle - with the french motto of "Je Maintiendrai" - "I Shall Maintain". The text on the sides says: "Under Your reign, auspicious Willem, this institution has been rebuilt and devoted to law and authority. 1829"
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| The Seven Province Houses on Prinsengracht |
The Province houses are the first buildings built on the reclaimed land and are given
names the names of the provinces of The Netherlands (Holland,
Gelderland, Zeeland, Vriesland, Groeningen, Utrecht and Overijssel). The central and most ornate is Gelderland, as the builder was a noble from there.
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| Province Houses |
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| House names |
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| Children's bacchanal facade |
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| Magere Brug (Skinny Bridge) - Used in James Bond - Diamond's Are Forever |
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| The sluice gates to prevent flooding and control water levels |
After we got off the boat we headed down towards the market and came across the Westerkerk (Western Church). This church was built in 1620 as a Dutch Protestant church. It has a tower with a spire, called Westertoren (Western Tower) that is the highest church tower in Amsterdam (87m), and it topped with the Imperial Crown of Austria of Maximilian I.
The famous painter, Rembrandt Van Rijn is buried in the church and it was also the site of the royal wedding between Princess Beatrix and Prince Claus von Amsberg (1966). The church is located near the Anne Frank house, and Anne mentions hearing its bells while hiding in the secret annex. In World War II, when the Germans occupied The Netherlands, they pulled down the bells to recycle the metal into ammunition and weapons (there were 51 bells). It is said that someone managed to convince the Germans that the tower was the burial place of a famous admiral, who the German leader admired, so the bells were returned and not destroyed.
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| Westertoren was clearly visible over the canals |
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| Westerkerk |
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| Westertoren |
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| Westertoren |
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| View of Westerkerk from Anne Frank house |
We also passed one of the most famous sights of Amsterdam - the Heineken Brewery. This was the original site, which is now no longer in use - the brewery has moved to another, larger site. The brewery now offers tours as the Heineken Experience:
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| Brewery from the canal |
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| Brewery from the bridge |
We finally made it to our first major destination - the Albert Cuyp market. The market is a street market that began in the 1800s and was formalized in 1905 after the area became too chaotic with shoppers and venders. It is also the home of the famous Dutch Stroopwafel (Syrup Waffle) - two layers of baked waffle dough with a caramel syrup filling.
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| Albert Cuyp Market |
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| Fresh (and in some cases still moving) seafood |
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| Sardines |
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| Stroopwafel |
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| A terrible picture of me enjoying a Stroopwafel. |
After finishing up at the market, we took a walk to the next market, and checked out a few sights along the way:
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| The impressive Amsterdam City Archives |
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| Front of the archives |
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| Munttoren (Mint Tower) |
The Munttoren sits next to our next goal - Bloemen Markt the Flower Market. It was originally part of the city walls and was built in 1480. It was damaged in a fire and rebuilt in 1620. It was originally attached to a guard house that was used to mint coins when England and France both declared war on the Dutch (1672 - the Rampjaar "Disastrous Year"). The wars made transporting the precious metals too risky, so the coins were minted in the guard house.
The Bloemen (Flower Market) next to the tower is the worlds only floating flower market. It started in 1862 and has a large number of flower shops and souvenirs:
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| Flowers- particularly the famous Dutch tulip |
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| Calla lily bulb |
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| Nothing more Dutch that cows and clogs - except maybe cows in clogs? |
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| Tins containing bulbs - the flower could be grown in the tin |
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| A stall at the market |
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| Of course, being Amsterdam, flowers weren't the only plants on sale |
Our next stop was at a famous yarn store from a friend from work. The store, called Stephen and Penelope, sells a large range of brightly coloured yarns and is very popular in the yarn-crafts world..
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| Stephen and Penelope |
We continued our walk and came across yet another church, this one was built by the same architect as the Noorderkerk and Westerkerk. The Zuiderkerk (Southern Church) is a Protestant church built in the 17th century:
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| Zuiderkerk |
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| Zuiderkerk tower |
Next stop was Rembrandt's House. The best part was that Kristine liked the look of the building and was taking photos before I'd even pointed out that it was Rembrandt's house:
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| Rembrandt's House |
We then hopped onto the canal cruise again, to travel around and see some more of the sights.
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| The Amsterdam Hermitage museum |
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| The Rejksmuseum (National Museum) - designed by Pierre Cuypers who designed the Central Station |
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| The front of the Mozes and Aäronkerk |
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| Rear of the church |
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| Architrave Inscription (1842) |
The Mozes and Aäronkerk (Moses and Aaron Church) is a Roman Catholic Church built in 1841. The writing above the door says "What was under the sign of Moses and Aaron for centuries, has been renewed for the great glory of the Savior." The highlighted letters spell out a mathematic equation for the year of the inscription, 1842. (Using Roman Numberals, with U and Y substituting as V):
(from Wikipedia):
Q
UAE F
UIT A SAE
CLIS S
UB S
IGNO
MO
YS
IS ET AARON STAT SA
LVATOR
I RENO
VATA
ILLUSTR
IOR AE
DES.
5 + 6 + 151 + 6 + 1006 + 56 + 6 + 50 + 56 + 500 = 1842
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| The famous Amstel Hotel - ranked 90th in the Worlds Best Hotels (2007) |
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| Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk - Church of Our Lady, built 1854 |
By now we had walked about 20km and it was starting to get late. We stopped to pick up some supplies and dinner and then rested up before our 8pm appointment to visit the Anne Frank house.
Most people know who Anne Frank is, but here's some quick details. Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929 and her family fled to Amsterdam when the Nazi's seized power and removed the citizenship of Jewish families. When the Germans occupied the Netherlands, Anne, her father Otto, mother Edith and sister Margot were trapped and unable to leave.
In 1942 they went into hiding to avoid persecution - making use of concealed rooms (known as the hidden annex) in the rear of the factory where her father worked. The door was hidden behind a bookcase and the Frank's shared the space with the van Pels family (Hermann, Auguste and son Peter (16)) and then Fritz Pfeffer a dentist and family friend. They were assisted by the small group of factory workers who knew of their existence, but hidden from the others.
During their time hidden, Anne kept a diary and wrote several short stories. On August 4th, 1944, the German police stormed the hidden room (how they found out about it is unknown) and arrested the family. They were taken to Westerbork transit camp, where they were forced to work, and then separated and sent to concentration camps. Since they were found to be hiding, they were treated as criminals and hence scheduled for hard labour.
The family was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. Otto was separated with the other males and sent to labour. Any children under 15 were killed in the gas chambers, but Anne had just turned 15 three months earlier and sent to Bergen-Belsen along with Margot and Auguste van Pels. Edith remained at Auschwitz and died of starvation. Margot and Anne died during a typhoid epedemic in the camp sometime around Feburary 1945. The camp was liberated in April.
From the group, Otto was the only one to survive the war. When he returned home, he was given the papers from Anne's diary that had been found by one of the helpers. The furniture from the secret annex was removed by the Germans and given to German families who had been relocated or bombed.
The tour we took, walked through a series of displays before heading up past the bookshelf into the hidden annex. My first thought was that the area was larger than I expected, three storeys with several rooms. Then, when I recalled that 8 people were living in there in close quarters and unable to leave, it was easy to see how it would become claustrophobic very quickly. We weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum, but there are pictures online if you search for Anne Frank house. Here's the few shots we have:
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| Memorial Statue to Anne Frank in the Westermarkt |
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| Looking across the canal at the factory/Anne Frank House - the one to the right of the red shuttered buidling |
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| Anne Frank house |
Entry to the museum is through the side, in the shadow of the Westerkerk Tower, with the bells that Anne could hear as they hid in their secret rooms:
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| Entry |
By the time we finished the tour of the house we were exhausted, so we headed back to the apartment and caught up on some sleep.
The next day, we checked out of the apartment, grabbed our bags and headed back out. This time we caught the hop-on/hop-off bus to check out a few of the sights we had missed the previous day.
Here's a few of our random pics from the bus trip:
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| Kris waiting on the bus outside Central Station |
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| She even left her normal ride behind... |
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| The Sea Palace restaurant |
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| The NEMO Science Museum |
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| A reconstruction of the VOC Ship Amsterdam (part of the naval museum) |
The VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie - Duch East-India Company) ship Amsterdam was an 18th century cargo ship that was wrecked in 1749, 18 days after starting its maiden voyage. It was discovered in 1974 off the coast of England. The Naval Museum has a replica that was constructed in 1990.
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| Het Scheepvaartmuseum - The Naval Museum |
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| Canal |
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| Weeping Willow |
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| Amstelring Sint Jacob - The Amstelring company location in Saint Jacob |
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| Sphinxes at Wertheim Park |
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| Oosterkerk - 1669. |
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| Canal south of Central Station - looking towards Tony's Chocolonely Superstore |
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| Row of houses showing the forward lean |
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| Another leaning house |
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| Us at the canal |
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| Amrath Hotel |
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| Side door of the Amrath |
We also drove past De Gooyer, the only Dutch windmill remaining in Amsterdam. It was constructed in 1814 and is named after the birthplace of the owners (Gooiland)
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| The first view of De Gooyer on the horizon |
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| De Gooyer |
We then past through the North Gate (Muiderpoort) (located in Alexanderplein, named after Prince Alexander (1851-1884), youngest son of King William III). It was built in 1770 to form part of the city walls and gated entry into the city. It was also planned to be a victory arch, but the only time it was used for this was when Napoleon rode in with his carriage pulled by eight white horses in 1811.
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| Muiderpoort |
We ended up getting off the bus at Gassan diamonds. We hadn't really planned on stopping for the free tour, but so many people got on the bus it was getting painfully crowded, so we fled. It was actually worth it - it was interesting to learn about the different diamond cuts and types as well as the classification of diamonds.
The company was founded in 1945 who imported diamonds and cut them. The main factory was moved to a bigger site in 1960, and the remaining factory was used as a tourist site and sales location. It was interesting, but also obviously set up to sell diamonds to tourists.
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| The diamond grading scheme they use |
The price and quality of the diamonds were determined by where they were on the 4 C's - Carat, Colour, Clarity and Cut. 1 Carat is equal to 0.2grams, so a 2 carat diamond would weight 0.4grams. For weights under 1 carat a point system is used, where 100pts = 1 carat - so a 50pt diamond is 0.5 carats or 0.1gram.
The colour is rated from Exceptional White+, down to tinted colours. While some of the colours may look more impressive, the pure white ones are rarer and hence more expensive. The clarity is based on imperfections in the diamond. The best is Loupe Clean - which means no imperfections can be seen in the diamond using a loupe (a jewelers eyeglass). The VVS meaning very very small inclusion (visible only with the loupe), down to SI1 - small inclusions and then Pique 1 - which has visible imperfections such as clouds, small cracks, pin spots, wisping or feathers. Finally the cut determines the overall price.
I was surprise to see how much of the diamond is lost in the cutting process. The diamond dust is collected and used for industrial tools, but still, a 3.24 carat diamond will end up about 0.97carats after it is cut! Also, in order to find 1 carat of raw diamonds it is predicted that 1 ton of soil needs to be mined. Of course, the biggest factor in pricing diamonds is the artificial market control by the mining companies but that wasn't discussed.
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| Gassan Diamonds |
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| Diamond shaping tools |
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| Grinder |
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| Replicas of famous diamonds |
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| Replica of the famous Cullinan Diamond |
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| Example of the cutting and shaping process |
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| Example diamond cuts |
We then hoped on the canal boat that was about to leave from the back of the factory and then got off a stop later and walked back in the general direction of Central Station.
On the way we passed Montelbaanstoren, the clock tower built in 1516 as part of the Amsterdam walls:
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| Montelbaanstoren |
Our next stop was Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square), home to a small art market and the Night Watch sculpture, based on his famous painting.
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| Rembrandt's The Night Watch |
The painting was actually called Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Bannick Cocq. It was given the name Night Watch because it was coated in a dark varnish that made it look like a night scene.
The statues in the square were made to recreate the painting as part of the celebration of Rembrandt's 400th birthday in 2006. They surround a statue of Rembrandt, built in 1852 by Louis Royer.
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| Rembrandt |
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| The Night Watch |
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| The left-most group |
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| Central group - Captain Cocq |
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| The girl |
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| Right-hand group |
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| Close up of the left group |
We were starting to get close to the time we needed to head to the airport, so we continued walking back to Central Station and checking out a few final sights on the way:
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| St Franciscus Xaverius Kerk - Also known as De Krijtberg Kerk. Built 1883. |
We finally managed to come across something we'd missed in every tour we'd taken so far - the Royal Palace and the National Monument:
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| The Royal Palace |
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| National Monument |
and then finally we walked through Amsterdam's famous Red Light district. Since it was day, we missed a lot of the usual 'attractions', but there were still some interesting shops...
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| Looking down one of the roads |
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| Kris's arty shot from ground level |
Finally we passed the Oude Kerk (old Church), built in 1213 - Amstedam's oldest remaining building.
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| Oude Kerk tower |
then it was back to Central to take our train to the airport. It was a great trip, we walked a lot but also managed to see a lot. I'll finish up with a few last miscellaneous photos from the trip:
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| Canal (Prinsengracht) by Anne Frank's house at night |
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| Westerkerk at night - looking down Prinsengracht |
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| Souvenir wall of magnets |
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| Summing up Amsterdam - hotel, hotel, restaurant, shoe shop, sex shop.. Although there were more cheese shops and dope stores.. |
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| Happy 15th Anniversary Kristine! |
