So…biking in Amsterdam’s not my thing. But museum hopping certainly is. We only made it to two on this vacation, but we have a long list of museums to go back for.
Amsterdam is full of museums covering topics as varied as the holocaust in the Anne Frank House to traditional dutch art in Rijksmuseum to fluorescent art in Electric Ladyland to a museum dedicated to works depicting cats. I kid you not: KattenKabinet.
And if you think we don’t have plans to go to all four of those someday, you’re dead wrong.
This trip, however, we made our way through the Van Gogh Museum and the Moco Museum.
Unfortunately, the Van Gogh Museum doesn’t allow photos, so I had to screenshot the following from their website. I went for Sunflowers, of course, but fell in love with some surprisingly varied paintings:
Irises (ok, not surprising, still flowers!)
And oddest but most fascinating of all: Red Cabbages and Onions
We also learned some fascinating facts about van Gogh: After chopping off the piece of his ear, he gave it to a prostitute; he was named after his stillborn brother; his early paintings (pre-Paris) are super traditional; his brother Theo died six months after him; a lot of the blues in his paintings have faded, originally, they were purples.
But the real surprise on our trip was the Moco Museum. We hadn’t even heard of it until we arrived in Amsterdam and were walking around Museumplein aka Museum Square:
And with signs advertising Banksy and Salvador Dalí how could we not step inside?
Banksy’s an anonymous graffiti artist and political activist based out of England. I was most familiar with his girl with a red balloon piece:
But, just like with van Gogh, I found some other pieces to love:
And no Salvador Dalí collection is completed without a few melting clocks : ) I’m not big on surrealists, but even I like his sculptures.
Both of these museums were wonderful and I would easily recommend them to anyone killing time in Amsterdam.
And if anyone’s ever been to the fluorescent art museum…let me know how it was!
Abroad With Ashley 