2023.04 Amsterdam and Berlin (Part 8)
Tickets for the Vermeer special exhibition sold out quickly, and in retrospect I’m glad happy that we bought tickets, as the exhibit lived up to expectations. But first, we had sometime to explore Amsterdam.
Sea Palace
Getting bored of us going to the same place in Amsterdam for Dim Sum? We aren’t!
For this visit to Amsterdam, we visited Sea Palace twice. Yup! Twice. It was even funnier on the second day as we arrived and one of the wait staff saw us, stopped and said “Weren’t you here yesterday?” To which we replied to the affirmative.
Without further comments, enjoy a slideshow of food we enjoyed during our visit to Sea Palace:
One afternoon we walked around the streets and did a fair bit of window shopping:
Vermeer
Rijksmuseum was subtle in their advertising for this event. Vermeer’s works have never been consolidated and put on display like this before. Part of what led to the event occurring is that works held in North America, those galleries were undergoing renovations, and as such, they agreed with the offer to loan them to the Rijksmuseum for this event.
Regular tickets to the Rijksmuseum were still easily available, and there was a separate entrance based on the ticket type you held.
We visited the exhibit on a Monday, and the fellow attendees were my mom’s age range. Just a few grey and white haired individuals. 😉
The space setup for the exhibit was straight forward, and once we got a chance to get close to the works, his work and his ability at details were exceptional.
Below is a slideshow of a few of the works:
In case you want an idea of the size of Vermeer’s paintings relative to the exhibition space, this provides an adequate idea:
And another slideshow with some more works.
I’ve purposely split up his works as why flip through only one large slideshow?
And another slideshow:
The detail and skill in his work was outstanding, and being able to see almost all of his works at once was incredible. Even though the series of different task/jobs/professions did show his preference to have light entering from one side.
Restaurant
After our walk through Vermeer’s works we decided on a snack in the restaurant. There were many options available, and the selections we made were excellent.
Instead of reading the menu, it was simpler to walk up to the display and make our selection. Here’s a slideshow of what was in the display case.
After a refreshing cup of tea and something to eat we continued to explore a few other parts of the museum.
Rijksmuseum
As we had recently visited the museum the prior year, we returned to the gorgeous hall that holds Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch”. Everytime I have seen it, the scale of the painting is outstanding.
The Nightswatch is always a treat to visit.
During this visit we ended up finding an area that had a spectacular collection of model ships.
And then we found a section of Delft pottery:
During our walk, the day before, part of Museumplein had a market open that was filled with local artists. We enjoyed taking a look at the unique items available for sale:
Explore other parts of this trip:
Part 1 – KLM Lounge and Flight Toronto to Amsterdam
Part 6 – Berlin, not sightseeing
Part 7 – Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Part 8 – Vermeer at Rijksmuseum (this post!)