blog d'europe: van gogh

a museum/gallery housed in the old gare d'orsay, the old beaux-arts railway station. the station was put into disuse in the 70s before being transformed into the musée d'orsay a few years later. the original glass ceilings & walled arches are still the original, however its train-tracks & platforms have been removed & replaced by little galleries - to house some of france's most celebrated impressionist & post-impressionist artworks.

the musée d'orsay has a crazy number of monet, cézanne & renoir pieces - it was such a surreal feeling (as it always is) to see the real originals before my eyes. ahh! normally there are van gogh works on display, but the gallery was being renovated at the time, so i didn't get to see them. having visisted the van gogh gallery in amsterdam however, i wasn't too devo.

annoyingly, the museum has that irritating 'no photos' rule all throughout the gallery. i managed to snap a few sneaky shots, to capture the beauty of the architecture...but in front of the artworks, if the museum workers even see a camera they chivvy you on your way.

i'd been meaning to get here for months, and (unfortunately) eventually came during peak summer: hundred's of people lining up to get in. i went to the nearest tabac (our equivalent of a milk shop) and managed to buy a ticket there instead, and got to enter through the side door of the museum straight away. saved myself a good two hours of lines - life is sweet!

a quote written down in miniscule writing next to one of monet's pieces has stayed with me: "everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand it, as if it were necessary to understand - when it is simply necessary to love".

à toute,

S.

the exterior of the museum - the original railway station

the original, ornate clock from the railway station is still there in the museum

just one week in paris, and i was already on a train heading north to the netherlands. together with my au pair family, we spent a phenom weekend in a-a-a-amsterdam...

wheels, water & weed - the three most common things you'll find in amsterdam:
1. wheels. amsterdam is a city that runs on two wheels. old-school push-bikes with super skinny wheels & cliché european vespas dominate the roads. apparently 80,000 bikes are stolen in amsterdam every year... happy days!
between us all we hired a bunch of bikes for the weekend and rode around the beautiful city. scariest thing ever trying to switch to the right-hand side on a bike - especially with a million +1 other bikes whizzing around. i just never know which way to look...

2. water. canals criss-cross their way across amsterdam, meaning that there was a never-ending number of bridges. at first it was confusing & so hard to tell where i was - it kinda felt like a maze. bit hard to read a map while riding a bike... sssssooo pretty cycling along the edges of canals, then up & over the little bridges. at night it's especially beautiful because all the cities light's are reflected in the water. amaze!

3. weed. no matter where i was in amsterdam, there was always a whiff of pot hanging in the air. there are coffee shops left, right & centre - this is amsterdam and there's nothing quite like it.

apart from these, i also cycled to the incred van gogh & stedelijk museums. got to see van gogh's famous sunflowers, as well as a tidal wave of impressionist & pop-art works at de stedelijk. i couldn't come to amsterdam and not go to the anne frank huis, so i pedalled on to check out where she hid away for two years during the WWII. it was a bit spooky to be standing in the actual house & reading (pretending to understand dutch) her actual diary...

in the centre of nieuwmarkt there's a chateau-turned-restaurant where we ate on our first night here - then in the morning the whole square was transformed into a market. i lost track of time looking through a huge collection of old postcards, sketches, drawings and photographs of amsterdam & dutch culture - and eventually ended up buying several of my favs...for a grand total of 80c.
lining one of the central canals is the bloemenmarkt - amsterdam's floating flower market. it's full of life with bright & bold flowers blooming from every free space - including a pile of wooden clogs.

gotta say though that my delish breakfast of poffages on sunday topped off the entire weekend. omnomnom dutch pancakes with lemon & dusted with icing sugar...

dag for now, amsterdam ...but i'll be back

S.