Photo
Album Index – Amsterdam
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links beneath full size photos. (Page updated March 23, 2005)
View
from our room of busy Floating Flower Market, where blooms, bulbs and seeds
from around the world are sold from glass-covered shops built on barges.
Several shops offer “Holland Cannabis” starter kits that include marijuana
seeds, growing medium and instructions; residents over 18 are allowed up to
three plants each under pot-tolerate Dutch law.
Betty
by fresh tulips and other flowers grown in Holland hothouses. The main tulip
blooming and export season is in April.
Lewis
with Dutchman who has been selling flowers for more than 40 years. Signs in
several languages ask customers to refrain from touching the blooms. The Flower
Market shop sells bulbs with special “certified” packaging suitable for
carrying through U.S. Customs.
Betty
by boxes and boxes full of tulip and other bulbs in a Flower Market shop. Many
of the bulbs are not generally available in U.S. garden stores.
Betty
and Lewis by boxes of blooming pansies in a Flower Market shop. Both are
dressed for the chilly and changeable Amsterdam weather, which can include
rain, sleet, snow and sunshine within a matter of minutes at any time during
the year.
Betty
by decorated fresh fruit stand a few steps from the front door of our hotel.
Betty
by a rack of wooden shoes at a Flower Market shop that sells blooms and
souvenirs. We saw nobody wearing the traditional Dutch footwear.
Betty
by the massive Rijksmuseum, national art museum of The Netherlands. The main
building is closed until 2008 for renovations but more than 400 of the finest
artwork in the collection are on display in a satellite building including
masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer and other artists.
View
from our hotel window of the Heineken-owned Hotel de L’Europa to right of Coin
Tower, a luxury hotel where Betty and Lewis enjoyed an excellent meal one
evening. The Tower marks one of the busiest convergences of streets and light
rail lines in Amsterdam and is choked with pedestrian, cyclist, tram and car
traffic during the rush periods of the day and early evening.
Lewis
by tiny ferry at Delft, a historic and thriving town about 50 miles from
Amsterdam. Delft is the home of two porcelain factories that make the famous
pottery and once was the home of the powerhouse East India Trading Company of
Holland’s Golden Age in the 17th Century. The ferry hauls walkers
and cyclists across the canal from a commercial to a residential neighborhood –
for a fee of course.
Artists
paint traditional patterns on Delft plates that are destined for decorative
display and not tableware.
Betty
in Delft plant’s retail shop, where collectors purchase the expensive porcelain
pieces in person, by mail or the Internet. The large plate at top left is
priced at 945 Euros, which translated into about $1,300 in early 2005.
Lewis
on bridge with a few houseboats permanently tied up on a canal near the Anne
Frank House in the center of Amsterdam. Boat residents pay a fee to the city,
which provides electricity, gas and water lines to the boats. Small boats tie
up without charge. A surprising number fill up with rainwater and sink on their
moorings.
Lewis
in “Our Lord of the Attic” Catholic Church, a hidden place of worship built in
the tops of three town homes by a wealthy Dutch merchant in the 1600s. It is
four bowling lanes wide and seats 150 on the main floor and two balconies and
is equipped with an organ, religious paintings and statues. The column on the
left contains a swing-out pulpit, still in use for weekly masses plus
occasional weddings and concerts.
Neo-classical
artwork on ceiling of Our Lord of the Attic church.
Lewis
respectfully removes his Irish cap in the Lotus Flower Buddhist Temple in
Amsterdam’s Chinatown section of the Red Light District. The devout place
flowers, grapefruit and other fruit on the altar before a statue of Guan Yin,
whose thousands of hands are always busy helping Buddha.
Outdoors
table at one of several Bulldog Cafes in Amsterdam. The popular establishments
are licensed to sell small quantities of marijuana and hashish to persons over
18. Four cigarettes containing a controlled mixture of tobacco and cannabis are
priced at about $18.
Lewis
by life-size, metal replicas of iguanas in fallow tulip bed in Amsterdam
square.
Vertical
McDonald’s across street from Jolly Carlton Hotel has sex shops and head stores
for neighbors.
Lewis
on bridge over canal near Anne Frank House where many live-aboard houseboats
are tied up permanently.
Anne
Frank House attracts 300,000 visitors per year, with many of them in school
groups. Artifacts on display include her hand-written diaries that have been
translated into 64 languages. Young Anne, her sister, her parents and four
others hid in a secret annex in the home for two years until they were betrayed
to the Nazis in 1944. Of the eight Jews, only Anne’s father, Otto Frank,
survived deportation to the death camps.
Amsterdam’s
Royal Palace on Dam Square, an important hub.
Delft’s
Central Train Station, where hundreds of commuters park their bikes.
Nearly
every available railing in busy areas is used to secure bikes. Many cyclists
ride old and battered bikes and double lock them to discourage theft. Rain like
on this day doesn’t seem to cut into the throngs of riders in Amsterdam, where
narrow streets and lack of parking limits auto use.
Lewis
holds copy of Amsterdam guidebook by professional traveler Rick Steves. The
helpful publication only steered us wrong once, with an outdated reference to a
Tourist Information office in Delft that had been closed.
Betty
in a busy square in Amsterdam served by trams.
LINK
TO MORE PHOTOS. Click here to link to a companion page on Kodak’s Ofoto website
where there are 42 photos posted that were taken by Betty and Lewis during
their visit to Amsterdam and nearby Delft. Several are duplicates. Or, copy and
paste the the following URL into your browser http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=xcy3d41.2jmhu0gt&x=0&y=-q4skqs
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