Around Amsterdam, no cycling: more museums

May 8, 2012

WEATHER: rain a.m. then cloudy

We woke up to rain, and went downstairs to breakfast right at 8:00. We planned to visit the Anne Frank Museum this morning and wanted to get there as close to the 9:00 opening time as possible to avoid big lineups. When we were in Amsterdam in early April before heading off on our bikes, the lines had been so long that we had postponed our visit. This time we only had to wait about 20 minutes in the rain before being admitted and given a plastic bag to hold our wet umbrellas.

The line outside the Anne Frank Museum stretched around the corner and down the block when we first planned to visit. No photos were permitted inside.

It was deeply affecting to walk past the bookcase barrier and through the actual rooms in the secret annex where Anne, her family and four other people had hidden from the Nazis for more than two years, before they were anonymously betrayed and shipped to concentration camps. All the furniture and contents of the hidden annex were seized by the authorities, but they overlooked Anne's diaries, which were collected and kept safe by a loyal employee. Anne's father, Otto Frank, was the only survivor of the eight people who had hidden in the annex, and Anne's writings were given to him when he returned after the war. He compiled a book which was originally published in Dutch in 1947. Since then the book has been translated into many languages and has become known around the world.

The museum was arranged efficiently to allow many people to go through at their own pace, but without bottlenecks. Judicious use of short video clips and plenty of commentary in English enabled us to add to our knowledge of World War II history, but there was also a strong emotional component due to the poignancy of Anne's short life (and those of the others hiding there as well). We hadn't realized that the Franks had applied for immigration to England, the US and New Zealand as early as 1937. They were wealthy, entrepreneurial and well educated—seemingly ideal new residents—yet they were refused by these and other countries. More than poignancy, one feels outrage that so many lives were lost or ruined by the Holocaust in particular and WWII in general, not to mention in all the conflicts before and since that time.

This was a pretty somber start to the day, and parts of it have stayed with us, but we did want to make use of the rest of our time in Amsterdam. The rain had let up when we left the Anne Frank Huis and walked to the nearby Houseboat Museum, also on Prinsengracht. The houseboat, built in 1914, was originally a freighter hauling gravel on the Amsterdam canals with tiny living quarters at the stern. In the 1950s the living space was extended to 80 sq metres, about the size of an Amsterdam apartment, and it was lived in until 1997, when the houseboat was turned into a museum. We had been through the brand new modern houseboat in Enkhuizen, and this more traditional one was an interesting contrast.

Inside the houseboat, rooms were furnished with items appropriate to the time it was lived in.

Looking up the canal from the deck of the houseboat. The church tower was one of the few things visible from the skylight Anne Frank could look through during her confinement.

For lunch we headed up to the excellent La Place cafe at the public library near Centraal Station where we had eaten in April. It felt good to sit down for awhile and digest the morning's experiences along with tomato soup and mixed salads. The weather was still very grey and cool, but it had stopped raining. After lunch we walked further around the old harbour, admiring the many antique wooden boats moored there, to Arcam, the Amsterdam Architecture Foundation's glass walled headquarters with scale models of new housing developments and major buildings in the city. A model of the newly renovated Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Netherlands Shipping Museum) stood below a window overlooking the imposing building itself, a few hundred metres further around the harbour. We decided to go and have a look, especially since the steep entrance fee (15 euros) was covered by our museumkaarts.

The relatively small and very modern Architectural Association display (ARCAM) on the quay near the large, much older Maritime Museum.

The shipping museum is housed in a former naval storehouse built in 1656. It was closed for four years for extensive renovations and had only reopened in October 2011. The four-sided structure is built around a central courtyard with a new glass roof (reminiscent of the Great Court at the British Museum). The architecture was impressive, but we walked right through the building to the wharf. Here we could board a replica of the Amsterdam, a huge three-masted Dutch East India Company cargo ship which plied the seas in the 1700s, bringing the riches of the Golden Age to the Netherlands (at the considerable expense of the native populations). A tiny bit of sun was peeking through the clouds, and we wanted to take full advantage of the better light for photos.

The replica of the Amsterdam moored just outside the Maritime Museum.

On the deck of the Amsterdam -- totally out of its original time and place, thankfully.

Back indoors, we visited an impressive display of antique globes, some dating from the 15th century. The lighting was very low to preserve the old globes--too dim for good photos, but Al tried.

An early, rough view of the Indian Ocean on one of the many old globes on display.

By now it was late afternoon, and most of the other displays of maritime regalia didn't interest us, so we set off for the long walk back to Hotel Verdi. Altogether we walked about 12 kilometres (not counting inside the museums), and a nice cup of tea in our room definitely hit the spot. We didn't even consider going anywhere but Pompa for dinner. The waitstaff all recognized us by now, and we enjoyed a selection of tapas and then delicious chocolate cake (Eva) and apple cake (Al).

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