A Christmas River Cruise - 2023

December 21 - After a very rough night (very little sleep) we were awake early this morning. We were told it was a Dutch tradition for children to leave a shoe outside their door because Sint Nick might leave something in it. We each left a shoe in hopes it was true and sure enough, we awoke to find presents! Each of us had a giant chocolate bar  (we're still working on the first one!)

chocolate made in the Netherlands

Today turned out to be a very busy day! This is our first ever river cruise so we didn't really know what to expect. But our daily program consists of different excursions and we can choose the one we are most interested in. Both choices were good but we decided on the Rijks Museum, partly because the weather was extremely nasty. 

Because the ship could not sail during the night due to high water and wind, we were taken by bus into Amsterdam. Everywhere we visit, we have local guides and Vox ear pieces that work really well. We are also divided into groups of about a dozen so that it is easy to stay together with our guide. We saw some very famous paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh and many others. Ronnie has been studying portraiture so he especially enjoyed the portraits. I'll post a few pics below.

one of 35+ self portraits of Van Gogh

self portrait of Rembrandt

The Milkmaid by Vermeer

The Windmill at Wiik bij Duurstede by Ruisdael

Rembrandt's "The Night Watch"

The Feast of St. Nicholas by Steen

 

Our guide talked about many of the paintings we saw and explained the meanings of them which sometimes were not obvious (to me, anyway). We only hit the high points but a true art lover could spend literally days in this place! The building itself was incredible and a sight to behold. I won't even try to show photos of it here, but it actually looked more like a cathedral than an art gallery. The building was not overly crowded but we were told that on a regular day it is usually wall-to-wall people! Below is a group of school kids learning about the Dutch masters.

 

After a couple of hours in the museum, we headed back to the boat for lunch. After lunch, we were taken to a venue for a concert recital by a professional string quartet. Still fighting sleep, we napped a little before meeting in the lounge for a Canal Light Festival Cruise.

The weather couldn't have been worse, but it seems par for the course here and one has to carry on, regardless. Bikers ride in the rain and runners run in the rain. Bikes are the main way of getting around the city, as it is so expensive to park a car downtown. The average Hollander owns 3 bikes. Most ride pedal bikes but some ride electric ones. They are constantly stolen so many refuse to take their electric bikes to work and use them on weekends only. I read that there are 77 bikes stolen per day, and the number of e-bikes has doubled from 2021 to 2022.

largest windmill still in existence in Amsterdam

inside the canal river boat cruise

seems we are always eating!

 

Of course I always have my camera. As you can imagine, it wasn't easy taking photos from inside the boat with it raining outside, but I got a few images that I liked so I will post them here. We are kept very busy and we think now that we should have come a few days earlier in order to let our body clocks adjust. However, we are only here for a week so we will do what we can and try to catch a nap here and there.

riverboats and restaurants

housing right on the river

lights inside apartment windows

office buildings along river front