Amsterdam

On Thursday May 7th I had a girls trip to Amsterdam with Sarah.  She has always wanted to go there and was leaving, so I went with her on a bus trip for the day.  It is a LONG bus trip, but it was nice to get away for a day!

We stopped at the same cheese and shoe factory as when we went to Kukenhoff.  But one interesting fact I found out the second time is this pair of clogs will tell you where the person lives and what religion they are.  They print it on their shoes.

After a yummy breakfast of fresh made cheese, we finally arrived in the city of Amsterdam.  One interesting fact about Amsterdam is that it charges people taxes on the width, so most people have tall and skinny houses.

We were told before we stepped off the bus that bicyclists have priority over everybody, even walkers.  I have never seen so many bikes in one place, this is just a small showing of all the bikes.  It is true too, you have to look out for the bikers, they don't stop for pedestrians at all.

This is called Weepers Tower because this is where the wives said goodbye to their sailor husbands.

This is called Montal bond tower or nickname Crazy Jack because the clock couldn't keep time.

I can't tell you how many houseboats we saw on the canals.  They had a serious house shortage in Amsterdam so many people started living on the house boats.  The guide said you know which ones are legal because they have electricity, etc going to them.  Some look like houses and others like boats.  It was a little different going past them and seeing their living room, kitchen, etc.

You can see the steeple of the protestant church in the background and some of the scenery around the canal.

This is called Slave bridge.  You can see the ships with people in them on the pillars.

This is called the seven bridges.  It is the one spot on the canal where you can see seven bridges.  There are more than 100 bridges and 100 km of canal that runs about 3 meters deep.

The heads that you see on this building are six burglars that were beheaded by the maid that lived there.  I wouldn't want to try and break in there.

Since the houses were so skinny, the problem was getting furniture up to the top floors.  So there are cranes on every house where they hoist up the furniture through the top window.

I have seen a lot of cool train stations around Europe, but I think this one takes the cake - it is pretty impressive to be just a train station.

There were many people posing in this square with different costumes, this one caught Sarah's eye.

This is the royal palace in Amsterdam.  It is not a museum, but still in use today.  It was built in the 17th century as Amsterdam's town hall.  In 1813 William I came back and re-opened it as a palace.  This is one of three Palaces used by the Dutch Monarch for State Visits, Award Ceremonies, New Years receptions and other official functions.  It is still open to the public when the functions are not going on.

This is the Citizen's Hall.  You can see how massive it is.  It is open to all and was designed to represent the universe.

They had maps all over the floors which are pretty cool.  They still use this room for functions.

It was very ornately decorated in the hall.  They tried to bring in all types of "gods" to incorporate the universe.

This is Atlas bearing the celestial globe on his shoulders with all the stars, constellations and planets.  Earth is at the center of his celestial globe.  In combination with Peace on the front facade of the building, Atlas stands for universal harmony.

This is the famous balcony where royalty meet the people, also were the condemned are brought.

This is the Magistrate Chamber, it was once the court house, but then became the throne room.

This is the bankruptcy room.  This is where Rembrandt declared bankruptcy.

I thought this was a really cool painting, kind of looks like it is not really there, illuminated from behind.

This is the tribunal room where the secretary condemned men to death.  Each of the three sections are from different cultures and show a different form of government.    

The middle one is the story from the Bible about the two moms fighting over the child and how it was resolved.   

This is the city virgin on top, holding the city shield.

This is where the secretary stood and said "You are cold of death." to those who were condemned to die.

After that Sarah and I walked around the town for a little bit, she found this great little cafe where we stopped in to have a tea and relax.

The canals were truly beautiful!

Next we headed to The Church in the Attic.  There were anti-Catholic laws that were imposed by Protestants, partly as retributions and partly from a desire to reform what was seen as a corrupted religion.  This was a front room where they would have visitors to make them think a rich person lived here and they wouldn't look farther.

This is where the priest slept.

They took three houses and put them together and took out the walls to make it so they could have seats for 150 seats.  They have the full altar with the classical columns and topped with an arch featuring a stucco God the Father, a dove of the Holy Spirit, and trumpeting angels.

Here was their organ that they had there.

This was the view from the top of the church - stunning.

They even have confessionals there.

This was the little kitchen they had in there.

This is the front of the church, you can't even tell there is a church on the top two floors.

This is the National Monument in Dam Square.  It is a 1956 World War II monument in Netherlands.  A national Remembrance of the Dead ceremony is held at the monument every year on the 4 May.  

You can see in the background the wreaths are still there from the ceremony.  The lions symbolize the Netherlands.  A semicircular wall surrounds the back side of the monument.  The wall contains eleven urns with soil from World War II execution grounds and war cemeteries in each of the Dutch provinces.  We had a wonderful day in Amsterdam and enjoyed walking around!