After leaving the Kiel Canal, the National Geographic Explorer sailed overnight to Amsterdam. The sunny weather had departed for parts unknown, and the morning was overcast with a light rain. I took a couple of pictures through our cabin window as the ship eased towards its berth.
Our pigs, Mocha Puff and Cream Puff, took an intense interest in the landscape and waterscapes.
As we disembarked Joan and I were startled to see a short-eared owl. It flew out from the nautical equivalent of a jetway, used presumably for tall cruise ships, darted past the Explorer, and was gone. I wish I had a photo!
The first item in today's itinerary was a tour boat ride through the harbor and the canals, ending up close to the national museum, the Rijksmuseum. Here, our tour boat makes a close pass by a replica of the Amsterdam, a ship of the Dutch East India Company that was lost in 1749.
After cruising the harbor our tour boat began exploring the canals of Amsterdam.
This picture shows how ingrained bicycles are in the life of Amsterdam. There were also bicycle traffic signals in Copenhagen, but I believe there's an even greater density of bicycles in Amsterdam.
I will note that the Rijksmuseum allows photography, but flash or other extra illumination is prohibited. Some exhibits were better lit, from my camera's point of view, than others.
The first piece that grabs your attention is this painting, Banquet of the Amsterdam City Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster, by Bartholomeus van der Helst. Most pictures of this painting show it in true rectangular form, but standing close to it, as you must in a crowded room, the effect is more like this:
In the same room is a large naval cannon and a historic ship model.
The next attraction was a pair of dollhouses. The larger of the two had short stepladders in front to allow closer viewing.
The light was more favorable and the crowd thinner for the smaller one (click to enlarge).
Then we dashed into the Great Paintings room for about five minutes. First, Portrait of a Girl Dressed in Blue.
A much better image is located here.
My photo of the Nightwatch didn't turn out so well, but here is an image of Vermeer's The Kitchen Maid.
This was an unfortunate time for avid museum-goers to be visiting Amsterdam. Not only is the Rijksmuseum truncated, but the Van Gogh museum was being renovated and much of the collection had been moved to the Hermitage Museum, where it resided from Sept. 29 2012 to April 13 2013. Thus, nothing of Van Gogh was available when we were in Amsterdam: it was in transit to the Hermitage. Oh well.
We were bussed back to the ship for lunch, and then Joan and I joined the group taking a guided walk that began at the dock. By now the wind was picking up and squalls would occasionally bluster, releasing a heavy downpour that would last at most fifteen minutes. We were only a few blocks from the Amsterdam Centraal, the railway and subway hub, around which there is much construction: a controversial new subway line is being built which passes under the river Ij. The inbound and outbound tunnels are stacked vertically between 20 and 35 meters (65 to 115 feet) below the streets, canals, and river.
We hustled after our Dutch guide, a lady who obviously had strong legs and good lungs. Having entered Centraal from the back, we emerged from the front:
Facing the main square is the Royal Palace, built in the 17th Century as the city hall.
Here is the entrance to the Amsterdam Historical Museum, which we didn't enter but rather walked past down the gallery.
Along the way there is a restaurant and these historic figures of David and Goliath.
The passage takes you into the Begijnhof, a secluded courtyard that dates from the early 1300s.
Our group then reached the Flower Market, where our numbers diminished. Some tarried to explore the market in depth, while others desired to shop before the last shuttle bus back to the Explorer. Joan and I remained with the walking tour. The wind was strengthening even more, and we saw a few parked bicycles that had been toppled.
There was just time to trot over to the current City Hall and peek inside. One floor beneath ground level is the Normaal Amsterdam Peil (NAP), or Amsterdam Ordnance Datum, a sea level benchmark for much of Western Europe that was originally based, centuries ago, on the highest normal summer sea level outside Amsterdam.
The tube you see marks the levels of several floods, including the monster storm of 1953.
The 1953 level reaches beyond the top of this photograph; the flood crested at 4.55 meters (15 feet) above NAP. In the Netherlands 1,876 people died as a direct consequence, and the Dutch responded with the massive Deltaworks project.
Along the wall there is a city profile showing buildings sitting on piles (many wooden piles from earlier eras still exist), the canals, sedimentary strata, and the various water levels. Looking at the right of this photo, you can see how the altitude of Schipol -- Europe's fourth busiest airport -- at 11 feet below sea level is represented.
We made it back to the shuttle bus with five minutes to spare, and returned to the ship, briefly, and not for dinner. This evening we were bussed to the West-Indisch Huis, or West Indies House, the former headquarters of the Dutch West India Company, dating from 1617. There was concern because the buses would not, because of the narrow streets, be able to drive up to the entrance. We expected a walk of 10 minutes, possibly in the rain. As it turned out, for most of us it was just 5 minutes, and although windy there was not much rain. The dinner itself was wonderful, including complementary wine.
On arriving back at the ship Joan and I started to prepare for bed as Jen Martin, the expedition leader, began a review of the next day's activities over the intercom. (There had not been time in the afternoon for a recap, a Lindblad tradition, nor for a briefing on the schedule.) Midway through she changed course. Because of continuing high winds, the ship would remain dockside in Amsterdam overnight rather than sailing into the North Sea. This delay meant that tomorrow would be spent entirely at sea, without the scheduled stop in Belgium that would have taken us to Bruges (Brugge). Thus September 25th would be one of two days spent entirely at sea on this voyage.
Our day at sea and first day in France will be the subject of the next post.
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