Monday, 5 August
Today we stayed in Amsterdam as Angela and Fin are leaving after lunch – at least going home we are right by the station and there’s only one change in Brussels!
We took the ferry and went to the Oude Kerk which was lovely and peaceful after the walk through the busy red light district that hadn’t been cleaned up from the night before.
This is the oldest church in Amsterdam and features in many Dutch paintings
The wooden ceiling with paintings were discovered in the 1950s when they did some restoration. They are the Catholic decorations that got white-washed over by the Protestants.
The misericords in the choir were amusing
We saw the tombstone for Sakia, Rembrandt’s wife
We had lunch and said goodbye to our crew. Suddenly we feel quite on our own!
We went to the Rembrandt House museum, also not busy, and very well put together.
It was nice to see where he lived and worked in his heyday before he went bankrupt and had to sell everything off.
He had a lot of props for his paintings that he often got down the docks when the Dutch merchant ships arrived from the East
They also showed the process for making the copper plate etchings and they have a collection here.
We also enjoyed the botanical gardens
And butterflies
And a walk round old Amsterdam
Tomorrow we set sail again, for Scheveningen near Den Haag (The Hague)
Bringing back more special memories. The lovely church was under restoration when we were in Holland but the Rembrandts house is still very recognisable. Such a distinctive city. Enjoy being the two of you.