With weather cold enough to freeze the canals this weekend we
knew we’d have to find something to do that involved being warm (which
immediately ruled out staying indoors) so we set off in the slush and snow for the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There are over
50 museums in Amsterdam and just like Haarlem’s 180 eateries, we feel obliged to try
them all. The Rijksmuseum is by far the biggest, and probably the most
well-known.
The wonders of buying a 50 euro annual museumkart is that with
entry usually 10 or 15 euro’s a time, we don’t feel guilty if we don’t see every
exhibit in one go - we can easily go back again for free. We soon realised this was just as well at the Rijksmuseum,
as we’d only allocated a morning, rather than a week to wonder through its vast corridors.
The building itself is pretty impressive, let alone what it’s
got inside. Most people come to the Rijks to see the Rembrandt’s and these
masterpieces are huge, displayed in a magnificent domed hall. We walked fleetingly
through rooms containing metalwork, ceramics, religious artefacts, furniture, and
model ships. We admired the library reminiscent of something out of Hogwarts, before taking refuge in the café. It was all too much. Definitely one to come back
to another day.
January has been nominated museum-month. We’ve got a busy few weeks coming up in February, then we’re hoping better weather
will encourage us to get outside more to explore, so with our appetite’s whetted, on Sunday we headed off to
the Teyler’s museum here in Haarlem. The Teyler’s is apparently the oldest
Museum in the Netherlands and it was like stepping into a time warp. It’s an
amazing place, and again for me the building was the star of the show. The Teyler's contains an eclectic mix of scientific
instruments, fossils, bones, precious stones, with a
few old paintings thrown in for good measure. It’s a boy’s own dream –
early batteries, telescopes, an 18th century centrifuge….Mr T had to be dragged kicking and screaming back out into the cold.
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