The last stop of our whirlwind two week Europe taste tester was beautiful Amsterdam. The first thing my mind thinks of remembering Amsterdam was just how lost we got every.single.time we went to go somewhere... and it was not because of happy herbs, I promise! After navigating London and Paris without too many problems we were a little dumbfounded at how we kept messing up the streets and directions we were meant to be walking in! If anyone else has experienced this or has a reason why we might have been getting so lost I would appreciate hearing it!
After having an amazing run of sunny weather we arrived to a cold and wet day for our first full day in Amsterdam. As days like this are best spent indoors we made our way up to the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum is the museum of the Netherlands and houses artworks and artefacts from the Middle Ages to present day. We ended up spending half a day inside the Rijk as there was so much to see. As we were making our way out my sister Ruby found an exhibition called 'New for Now' - the origins of fashion magazines. To say I was enthralled would be an understatement. I often wonder how things begin but it never really crossed my mind that magazines had to start from somewhere. Now I know that magazines started, of course, in Paris. Women of the upper echelons would wear their finest items to a park in Paris on a Sunday afternoon and artists would draw what they saw which would be distributed in to a fortnightly magazine. I might have to do a whole post on this because I have some really amazing photos of the illustrations that continue to inspire me to this day.
Other 'things to do and see' on our list for our two-ish days in Amsterdam were the flower markets, Vondelpark, Rembrandt Square, Spuirstraat 199 (street art area) and De 9 Straatjes (vintage shopping, cool cafes). Riding bikes has never been a strong suit for us Paton girls (we grew up on a hill so we never bothered with bikes!) so we went without hiring bikes and getting in the way of all of the Dutch bike rider extraordinaires. However we did eat magnificent Dutch pancakes and cheese croquettes that I will remember fondly until next time. There was a calmness about Amsterdam that I quite enjoyed compared to the hustle and bustle of the other cities we visited. Maybe this is because everything is surrounded by water. Maybe it's because all of the people need to be active to ride around from A to B. Or maybe it's because of how they unwind? It was really pleasant to have some sort of calmness before returning home to the race of every day life.
