Europe 2015: Amsterdam

Day One
A short flight from Copenhagen, the next stop of our trip is Amsterdam, and we begin our visit with a walking tour with our dear friend Rick Steves' Audio Europe.

We start our walking tour at the Central Station and make our way down the Damrak - a street that was once a riverbed where the Amstel River flowed. We stumble down the cobble stone street to Dam Square - the heart of historic Amsterdam. Dam Square is surrounded by some notable attractions: (1) The Royal Palace - actually the former town hall of Amsterdam, it was so called when Louis was pronounced King by his brother, Napoleon, when he conquered Amsterdam in 1806; (2) The New Church (Niwuwe Kerk), which feels like it's poorly named as it is actually over 600 years old and only 100 years younger than the city’s Old Church (Ode Kerk), which we visit later in the trip; (3) the National Monument - a white obelisk built in 1956 as a WWII memorial and (4) De Bijenkorf - an upscale department store established in 1870 and still operating.

Not far from Dam Square is the start of Kalverstraat - a 1km stretch of shops with pedestrian-only traffic. Kalverstraat has always been a traditional shopping strip, but today traditional shops have made way for more modern shops. Hidden amongst the hustle and bustle and the bright lights of brand name stores, is the De Papegaai Church.

Tucked away and unassuming, the church kept a low profile when it was established in the 1500s - a time when fighting between the Protestants and Catholics was at its peak and Catholics were forced to practice in hiding. The interior of the church itself is simple and nothing like the churches we have seen in Rome or those that we will see in Munich, Salzburg or Vienna later in our trip. As you enter the church, the sign “even kwartuer for God”, or “15 mins for God”, can be seen. Rick Steves explains that the church now stands as a symbol of how religion has played a small part in the highly commercial and secular city.

Further along the Kalverstraat is the Amsterdam Museum. The archway leading to the museum reminds visitors that the building previously housed an orphanage for boys. The museum tells much of modern Amsterdam’s history, digitally, using a series of QR codes which trigger audio and video stories.

Our next stop, still along Kalverstraat, is the Begijnhof. A quiet courtyard surrounded by houses and a church, which has sheltered women since 1346. In stark contrast to the decadence of the Roman Catholic church of its time, the Begijnhof was named after the pious and simple women, the Beguines, who lived in the area and dedicated their lived to God. Well loved by the community, the Beguines took to caring for the sick and poor in quiet seclusion. When it was first established, the area was completely surrounded by water and soon became known as the “women’s island”. The courtyard houses two churches - the Reformed Church and the Catholic Church. The Reformed Church was but in as early as 1420 to serve the Beguine community, but become an Anglican Church in 1607. The Catholic Church here is discreet, with blacked out windows on the second and third floors - again an indication of the persecution of the Catholic at the time. While the last Beguine passes away in 1971, the area still provides subsidised housing to about 100 needy single women (mostly catholic seniors) and so we choose not to take any photos so as not to encroach on their privacy.

We’ve been walking for a while so it’s time for a quick break. Along the Kalverstraat, is the Kalvertoren Complex - a regular shopping mall - with a simple cafe at the top. Although only four floors up, the cafe offers pretty great views of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam from above

After some Dutch comfort food of croquettes and tomato soup, we head back out and towards to the Bloememmarkt - or Flower Market. Florist after florist lines the Singel canal, each one selling an array of Dutch tulip bulbs (of course), some interesting plants such as the venus fly trap and even cannibis. Most also offer to ship bulbs overseas, if you so choose, but of course they can’t ship anything into Australia so our plan to get a special someone some tulip bulbs fails.

Yes - that is a venue fly trap

Our last adventure of the day is the Amsterdam Dungeon. The Amsterdam Dungeon, follows the formats of other dungeons in Europe (the London Dungeon, York Dungeon, Berlin Dungeon and Hamburg Dungeon). The Dungeon attempts demonstrate the dark times in a city's or country's history through a series of rooms. There aren't any photos are they weren't allowed but here is a list of the rooms that we experience/see:

The Torture Chamber - a demonstration of capital punishment
The Musico Bar - where you may accidentally sign away your life to working as a slave on board a ship.
On board the Batavia - poor living conditions for the slaves working on board the ship.
The Autopsy of Black John - a scene immortalised in a painting by Rembrandt, which we had actually seen at the Amsterdam Museum earlier in the day.
The Spanish Inquisition - where people in the group are put on trial for crimes.
The Witch Hunt - where someone in the group is burned at the stake.
Murder on the Deedijk - the final room of the experience and probably the best (and scariest). The story here is about two young daughters who fall in love with the a sailor named Wouter. Their rivalry results in one sister pushing the other down the stairs, where she leaves her for dead on the basement floor. The fall did not kill her so her sister beat her brains out with a mallet, proclaiming everything to be a terrible accident. When Wouter returns, the living sister comforts him and they eventually marry and have a child. On her death bed, she confesses her crime to Wouter, who is furious and curses the day she was born. Helena begs for his forgiveness but it's too late. She died a lonely death on June 24, 1753. Until today, she still has not found peace and her spirit wanders around on the Zeedijk. If you listen carefully you can still hear her moaning.

Day Two
The next day, we start with a hearty breakfast at the Le Mortier, just around the corner from our hotel. Then it’s a short walk to the Rijksmuseum (pronounced something like "Rice Museum"). The museum building is grand and impressive on the outside, towering over the canal in front of it, while inside is fresh and modern. We use the museum’s wifi to download their free audio guide and take a tour of the museum. Notable mentions from the museum, a big ship, a phenomenal library, elegant dollhouses worth as much as a real house, and Tim striking a silly pose.

Rijksmuseum from the outside. Love European Architecture.

"You have two eyes and but one mouth. Let this be a signal and take heed. Not to talk here but to read." Inscription on the wall at the Rijksmuseum Research Library; and a model ship with a complete set of anchors, sails pulleys and ropes, built to scale by actual ship builders.

[Pic 1] Dollhouse: exterior made of veneered with tortoise shell and pewter. The interior has marble floors, fabric wall coverings, wainscoting of oak and walnut. Bottles, plates, baskets, furniture are all made to measure from authentic materials. There is a flat iron in the attic is made from real iron, copper and wood. Even the plates were made from porcelain specially ordered by the Dutch EIC. The cost of the dollhouse was almost as much as an actual house on the Herengracht Canal in those days; [Pic 2] 600 year old Japanese sculpture - temple guardians that were used to keep evil away. The evil they are supposed to keep away is ignorance, combatted by symbolic weapons.

After existing the museum, we join our friend Rick once again. This time for a tour of the Red Light District - starting oddly at the Oude Kerk - or Old Church. As noted above, only 100 years older than the city’s Niwuwe Kerk, the Oude Kerk still has the tallest spire, the biggest organ and the most side alters of the churches in Amsterdam. At 290 feet high, it is possible to climb to the top of the tower, but on the cloudy, rainy day it was, we decided to pass. We pay the admission to enter the historic church, but there isn’t much to see inside. During the religious wars where Catholics were forced to worship in hiding, much of the church was vandalised and gutted. The church went from being a Catholic Church to the Dutch Reformed Church of today.

Oude Kerk - everything worth seeing is outside

Around the corner from the Oude Kerk is the Bulldog Coffeeshop. In Amsterdam, one has to remember that a coffeeshop, is definitely not the same as a cafe. The Bulldog Coffeeshops are a chain of marijuana coffeeshops and the one around the corner of the Oude Kerk is the first, established in 1975. Apparently, while it is legal to sell cannibis, it is illegal to advertise it. So if you entered a coffeeshop, you would have to specifically ask for a menu and the “bartender” will then show you what they have. While everything does seem free and easy, marijuana sales are very strictly regulated with a minimum age for purchase set at 18 and a limit of 5 grams sold to each person, each day.

We continue to wander around the red light district. As we only stroll around during the day, it seems fairly tame, with only one or two girls in a few of the windows. Even then, a number of the girls appear mostly disinterested - some just checking their mobile phones and barely looking up. As we wander, Rick Steves tells us more about prostitution in Amsterdam. Legalised in 1988, most women work for themselves, and not for a pimp, and there is a loose union for them called the Red Thread. The women rent a window space and a separate room from a particular establishment for a set time-frame. Each room is equipped with a panic button and the women undergo regular health checks. If they fail a health check, they lose their licence. While they are working, they look out for each other’s safety and each establishment also has bouncers in case anything go awry. Everywhere you look in the red light district, you also see cameras. So, while the area might appear rough, it is actually quite safe. The cameras, bouncers, and other women all help to protect each other. Of course, while there are a number of women who have entered into prostitution voluntarily, there are still a number of cases of human trafficking in Amsterdam, which led to Amsterdam's Stop the Traffik campaign.

Our next stop is the The Church of Our Lord in the Attic. Built in 1663, the attic of a simple canal house in Amsterdam is converted into a place of worship, at a time when Catholics were not allowed to worship in public. The church itself was opened as a museum to the public as early as 1888 and still continues to hold Sunday masses once a month.

Our final stop in Amsterdam is the Anne Frank Museum. At this point, it's raining fairly heavily, but it doesn't stop a large number of people from lining up down the street. Fortunately for us, we were able to pick up one of the limited number of tickets that were released for online pre-sales. We did not take a photo of the line but found one online. It wasn't nearly as long as this (given this was taken in summer and we visited in winter), but it would probably be something we would've given a miss had we not pre-purchased tickets.

We explore the museum, which is housed literally, in the house that Anne Frank and her family hid in during World War 2. Each room is fairly unremarkable as all the furniture has been removed, but we still get a feel for the place by reading the inscriptions on the walls of each room. One moving element of the museum is a video which shows the physical conditions of some of the people held in concentration camps.

Perhaps because we'd heard so much about the museum, we were expecting it to be more depressing than it actually turned out to be. While Anne's story is terrible, the museum didn't evoke anywhere near the kind of emotions that the killing fields in Cambodia did. Perhaps this is the result of comparisons with expectations, or perhaps it's because the tragedies in Cambodia were so much more recent.

After our time with Anne, it's time to head back to our hotel, collect our bags for our next adventure - the overnight train to Munich!

Pages