The Below Sea Level High Point of the Cruise

Thursday – 13 June 2013 – Amsterdam, the Netherlands

We went through the Amstel River lock at about 6am and entered the two hour transit of the Amstel Canal to Amsterdam. Barbara and I were characteristically off the ship at 8:30am, right after the ship was cleared by the authorities. This was quite quick since Dutch authorities mostly turn the other way and apologize for being authorities. Ya gotta love Holland.

We characteristically bought our all day transit passes and rode the scenic #2 Tram from Central Station to the museum zone south of town to get to the Rijksmuseum before the massive crowds showed up. Buying e-tickets ahead of time on the ship helped a lot to speed up the entry since the recent "couple of years" renovation lasted ten years. Everyone wants to see the massive collection that has been off limits since, uh, ten years ago.

Quickly in the Rijks we were immediately impressed by the whimsical Dutch statues and wind powered wine cups but headed as fast as possible to the must see Rembrandt gallery. The Mona Lisa of the Rijks is, of course, "Night Watch", not seen in its usual place for, uh, ten years. You might remember that this treasure was slashed not so long ago. The huge painting has been artfully restored, but a guard stood watch, so to speak, between the building crowd and the masterpiece. He looked very cautiously at anyone who got within a meter of the masterpiece. The crowds were not so bad yet to keep us from reading the whimsical informative signs that suggested getting close enough to see where Rembrandt that incorporated a self portrait peering from behind the main figures. Quite cool and of course whimsical. Of course, all of Amsterdam seems to be cool and whimsical.

Our plan proved sound as within an hour or so the crowds became oppressive. We regretfully left the museum a couple of hours after our arrival to begin a quite exploration of Amsterdam. We spent the rest of the day doing the Amsterdam touristic thing. We walked along tonnes of canals, took a canal boat ride, had a wonderful Dutch beer or two, and even checked out a curious neighborhood where 1960s smoke still hovered and the local residents seemed to be in houses kept apparently too warm but waved at me but not Barbara from remarkably large windows. 

Another tram ride to amortize our transit passes took us to the outskirts of the central area where a three dimensional version of "Night Watch" was the focus of a park. The walk back to the Cruise Terminal provided us views of lots of cool 17^th Century churches. We even found Amsterdam's Chinatown where we were amused by, who would have guessed, whimsical statues.

As Silver Cloud won't be sailing back out to the North Sea until 8am tomorrow morning, we will consider taking a tram or two after dinner to see the spectacular city and its canal bridges all lit up after dark. Unfortunately "after dark" is awfully late in June here.