***please try to look at these photos on a bigger screen. Your phone will crush all the details***
This is the second post in a five part series. To start at the beginning CLICK HERE.
Prinsengracht Concert in Amsterdam
Once a year, the largest free classical music concert in the Netherlands happens on a canal on the Prinsengracht. A big orchestra is set up on a floating barge in the canal where the public can gather around for a night time serenade. The rich and influential Amsterdammers get front row seats on the water and anyone else who wants to see it has to camp out all afternoon to secure a good spot. There were so many people by the time we got there that we couldn’t get close enough to see anything at all, but at least we could hear it.
Crowds of people fill the narrow streets and bridges surrounding the orchestra barge. Packed like herring!People come out in boats to listen too. I messed up my camera settings so many of my pictures were blurry but I thought this one looked like an oil painting so I included it here. If you zoom in on the boats or the people you will see what I mean.Night time along the canals.Amsterdam cat way up in a window watching all the people below. I don’t see all that many cats outside in the city but lots of window kitties.Almost all of the boaters had a table of wine, cheese and other snacks on board to enjoy with the music. I like the way the people on the bench are all watching this floating picnic pass by. Outdoor restaurant patio right on the edge of a canal.Patio glow. There is a lot going on in this picture if you look around. Good action and good faces too.Quiet canals at night lit by old lamp posts and a near-full moon.
Anne Frank House
The slightly taller, lit up building with the blacked-out windows is the Anne Frank house. She and her family hid in a secret annex behind the top 2 floors for two years without ever going outside. Their hiding place is still there, just as it was when they were discovered by the Gestapo and eventually deported to Auschwitz. The furniture was removed by the Nazis after their arrest but the rooms, kitchen fixtures, the hinged bookcase hiding the annex entrance, the staircases, the attic, the toilet and Anne’s pictures which she pasted to her bedroom walls are still there. The house is now a museum open to the public where you can see all of this plus Anne’s original hand written diaries and notebooks as well as any personal effects that were left behind. I visited the museum early one morning to see all of this. It is not really possible to describe the experience in any meaningful way here so I won’t say any more. Read the book and visit in person and you will know.A glow of blue light above the orchestra in the distance. The tall tower belongs to Westerkerk church. This is the church Anne Frank writes about in her famous diary. She could see the clock face from the attic of their hiding place and hear the church bell ring every 15 minutes which, she wrote, was a source of great comfort. The church sounds gave her some small connection to the outside world during her two years in hiding.
Day Trip to Delft
Delft is the centre of production for the famous Dutch blue on white Royal Delft Pottery. It is beautiful small town. Canals, bridges and bicycles…just like Amsterdam but on a much smaller scale. It has a slower feel to it too. Only 1 hour from Amsterdam by train, it is a nice place to spend a relaxing afternoon.
Delft City Hall is a massive building. See all the little bikes at the bottom for scale.A pretty scene on the cobblestone sidewalk.Delft has it’s own system of bridges and canals similar to Amsterdam but smaller and less busy.Handsome buildings. I am now kicking myself for not buying some small piece of pottery while I was here. Next time!
Goodbye Netherlands… hope to see you again someday.
