Amsterdam Five: Holidays must end as you know

Six weeks later, and I am finally finishing my series about our trip to Amsterdam. Our last day actually included some real activity, since our plane for Toulouse didn't leave until 8:15 pm.

After enjoying the hotel buffet breakfast together -- the only time on the trip both girls managed to be up in time to take advantage of it -- we packed our bags, stored them at the hotel, and walked through the brisk cold to the Katten Kabinet, or Cat Cabinet.

I had really been looking forward to what sounded like a deliciously off-beat site: a huge house on the Herengracht dedicated to the memory of a cat.

"The Cat Cabinet was founded in commemoration of the red and frisky Tom Cat John Pierpont Morgan, the life-long companion and buddy of the museum's founder, Bob Meijer," explains the rudimentary website. For information, the cat lived from 1966-1983.

It was a fun and funky visit, but I expected a little more as far as feline-related works of art. We were also disappointed that much of the house was closed off to visitors. Let's just say we were expecting a little more, but definitely enjoyed the opportunity to pet some of the kitty residents that roam freely through the mansion:

Our next stop was another smaller museum, this one exhbiting handbags and purses. After the somewhat underwhelming Kat Kabinet, we weren't sure what to expect from the Tassenmuseum Hendrikj.

Before the visit, we were lured into the lovely coffee shop:

Lovely, cozy coffee shops such as this one were one of our favorite features in Amsterdam:

After our refreshments, we visited the museum which, to our delight, holds an astounding and well-curated collection of bags, wallets and luggage throughout the ages. I don't have any photos to share of this museum, but the website provides a good idea of what is on display.

All good things must come to an end, and after the handbag museum, we realized we were down to a few hours before having to walk back to the hotel and take the taxi to the airport.

It was about 4pm, the perfect time to eat a lunch/dinner/whatever in the city. We were lucky enough to stumble upon the Get toGether restaurant, a rather chic eatery connected to The Albus Grand Hotel:

Gazing in from the street, we couldn't quite believe the reasonable prices on the lunch menu. This light meal was perhaps the closest we got to typically Dutch restaurant food: delicious soups and sandwiches at a price that seemed unbelievable for a European capital.

For example, I savored the "creamy spinach soup with goat’s cheese and pieces of smoked chicken," a meal in itself, for only 4,50 euros.

I don't really want to go into detail about what followed: the last-minute souvenir shopping, the taxi trip to the airport, Starbucks in Schipol.

All of that went well, but it's not what I will recall years from now.

"Holidays must end as you know/All is memory taken home with me" (Nathalie Merchant)

Amsterdam Five: Day Three

Monday December 28th was the most glorious of our days in Amsterdam weatherwise. It was sunny from dawn on, and with no biting wind.

Of course the sun rises late up there -- well past 9am at the time we were in the city -- so we had a hard time getting a move on in the morning -- I'm an early riser and found myself sleeping in until 9:15 through the whole trip. I don't think all four of us got moving until past 11, but Thierry went out earlier to take some photos in our "neighborhood," including the one above.

Well, now you know our main destination for the day. After a nice walk through neighborhoods we hadn't seen yet, a snack of waffles, and a short stroll through Vondelpark, we got to the Van Gogh museum... and almost decided to put off our visit until the next day. The lines appeared dreadfully long, and we feared a crowd inside.

We decided to see how the line was moving and, surprisingly, got in after only a 20-minute wait. And I'm not so sure where all of the people ended up going, because the exhibit halls were hardly packed:

Some of the crowd was in the gift shop, where my husband was tempted by these volumes, which represented the exhibition that was on at the time about Van Gogh's letters. Fortunately, I convinced my spouse that the 6-volume set would be a bit heavy in our suitcases.

After a leisurely visit in the museum, which I had already seen once but didn't remember that well, we walked around the Hoofstraat area, where many of Amsterdam's luxury shops are located.


We had dinner at an Italian restaurant that I would highly recommend: the Ristorante Saturnino. It's clearly a popular joint, and the waiters started all contacts by speaking Italian, which was a fun touch. Prices were reasonable, the atmosphere was jolly, and the upscale pasta and pizza absolutely delicious.

I'm starting to regret not taking pictures of our food...

(All photos except #2 courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Amsterdam Three: Day Two

I'm finally back to my Amsterdam series, and only on Day Two of our trip! It's been a long time since I've put together multi-photo posts, and it takes a while. But here are a few selections from our second day.

We started off Sunday Dec. 27th with a beautiful but brisk walk to The Amsterdam Music Theater in hope of buying tickets for a ballet that evening. We were advised to come back and buy at the door before the show, as student prices are only ten euros under this system.

We didn't go for nothing, though, because it is an intriguing building both inside:

and outside:

(First three photos courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Our main sightseeing activity, that afternoon, was going to the Foam photo museum. Before visiting the exhibits, we warmed up with delicious and reasonably-priced soups and sandwiches in the restaurant café:

From what I gather, this photography museum shows temporary exhibits only, and the main one going on was photos by Alexander Rodchenko. It gave an intriguing look at life in the Soviet Union during the 20s and 30s.

The Foam museum is in a larg former home along the Keizersgracht, and we all enjoyed the archicture of the building as well as the exhibit and the atmosphere:


Dinner was Indonesian, although we didn't go in for a large, expensive meal. Caught in a rainstorm at about 5:30pm, we ran into this restaurant and were lucky enough to get in. I didn't write down what we ate, but we all had one-bowl dishes that look very much like the one in their Internet advertisement photo: a great deal at just under 10 euros per person.

There is actually more to tell about this day as it included an evening out...but I can save that for another NaBloPoMo post!

Amsterdam Two: Day One

(Near our hotel in Amsterdam)

This week has been so wild that I am only now getting back to writing about our trip to Amsterdam.

Excuse me if I go into a little micro-detail here, but I've decided to do these posts partly for my family. Rather than writing a long email rundown about our trip, I thought it might be fun to write here and include photos.

First, below you can see our hotel. I would highly recommend the Hotel Mercure Arthur Frommer provided you can get a deal where you pay about 25% of the normal room price, as we did:

(Our hotel, clearly NOT on a very busy street!)

The price my travel agent found for us for three nights (two rooms a night) with breakfast included seemed highly reasonable, but I didn't know just what a great deal we were getting.

Imagine my surprise when we arrived and I saw that the posted price for one double room for one night was practically 300 euros, and breakfast 16 euros per person!

My knees were going a little weak until I remembered that we had prepaid our hotel, and I had papers to show for it. Each room had cost us about 80 euros a night, breakfast included. I had never bought a prepaid hotel package and may well look into this possibility again. It sure allowed us to have nice accomodations for a reasonable price.

This hotel has the advantage of being on a very quiet, residential street, yet only about a ten-minute walk in any direction from many of Amsterdam's major attractions. It is located on Noorderstraat, just south of the Prinsengracht canal.

Although it had been a tad bit challenging to leave Aveyron at 3:00 am to catch our early flight out of Toulouse, we were in Amsterdam by noon and that meant having a full first day.

As I like to do when I first get to a city, we spent our first day just walking around and getting our bearings. We were surrounded by beautiful views:

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau, who deeply regretted not taking his mega-Pentax with him...)

I had been to Amsterdam just once before, in 1994, and didn't remember much; nor had I done much research before this trip. So I didn't really know what to expect in the restaurant department. Overall, we were pleased by the quality and reasonable prices of food and drink in the city.

I didn't do any food blogging as such, so no photos of our meals...but I will tell you where we had them. Our first evening's dinner was in the Castillo Tapas Bar and Steakhouse on the Reguliersdwarsstraat, which has plenty of reasonably-priced restaurants.

We all enjoyed being able to eat early, and on our first evening, we got back to the hotel just a little past 7pm! We all wanted to make up for the previous short night and to be able to hit the town running on the next day, Sunday, December 27th, which we figured would be pretty calm....

Amsterdam 1

What Christmas present is suitable for teenage daughters who have, by their own admission, virtually everything?

A trip.

This year, rather than going overboard on packages (we still had a few), all four of us took off to the Dutch capital from December 26-29.

It was a crazy idea, in a way. Winter travel can be hell, and we had proof of that just a week and a half before our departure when a snowstorm shut down Paris airports and temporarily paralyzed the roads in our area. But I had checked out the weather report (read: plans were made at the last minute) and everything looked viable for the week between Christmas and New Year's. And it was.

Four full days, only three nights, but a rich experience for "the whole family" -- a family that had been separated for ten months during my youngest daughter's stay in the USA last year.

I have a lot to say about this trip, and am going to try to find the words this week to say it...