Little Lolly's Small Adventures: A Wander Around Amsterdam

Paul and I were up at a reasonable hour and after checking out of the hotel we put our luggage back in the car but make sure that it couldn't be seen and then took the ferry across the canal to get into central Amsterdam.

We walked along the streets, ending up at the red light district - the first time for me. Paul pointed out glass doors behind which ladies of the night sold "their wares". In fact there were a couple of women sitting at the doors waiting for customers, or maybe it was just part and parcel of the touristy look. Either way I stand to be corrected.

We eventually found the Erotica Museum. It was quite small although it was consisted of 5 floors. We weren't terribly impressed by it, possibly a bit disappointed to say the least with pictures and drawings and little else.

After that we took a long walk through the streets of Amsterdam to the Rijksmuseum where we spent a good couple of hours or wandering through the different galleries looking at various forms of art, modern to classical, paintings to statues and more. Some of the paintings were nice, some of them not so. (It depends on people's personal taste so I have to take that into consideration - what we might not like someone else will love.) We saw a few famous paintings including the Night Watch and a couple of other Rembrandt paintings. There were pottery, pieces silverware and artifacts from different eras including furniture, clothing, weaponry and more.

After walking for so long in the museum we felt a little bit "painted out" and also quite footsore. It was time to head home. Just outside the museum there was beautiful music being played, sounding as if it came from a church organ. Instead it was a quintet group consisting of a tuba player, violinist and 2 piano accordionists. The archway made for fantastic acoustics, transforming the sounds of the instruments into what sounded like a church organ. It was quite amazing what the group could achieve with their instruments combined with the acoustic value of the archway they were playing in. Unfortunately my phone's video player couldn't capture the true sound of the music but here is an excerpt of what they were playing:

Our car seemed to be many miles away and our feet were not happy. It was just tempting to catch either a bus or a tram back to Central Station (which is next to where the ferry crossing was, to our car) but we saw a bicycle taxi outside archway. The chap was reading and obviously had nothing to do so we asked him to take us to Central Station. The ride in the taxi bicycle taxi was pure heaven for our poor feet but we were in for a very bumpy ride as our taxi cyclist negotiated bumpy cobblestones.

At Central Station we bought a sandwich then caught a ferry across to the other side of the canal and hit the road home to Paul's mum's place.

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