Me and my friend Jeanne decided to “do” the tour of the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. It was on both our bucket lists. Be prepared for many photos while I vicariously take you with us.
It was a wonderful sunny summer day which shows Amsterdam at its best. I decided to wear my wide stone wash blue trousers to stay cool. This time I combined it with my gifted Vivienne Westwood blouse instead of with the matching long jacket. It is called ice blue in the post with the original outfit. I loved the shoes with the trousers in the original outfit but they made me trip on my face and shoulder so violently, that I now decided on less pointy shoes.
The Vivienne Westwood blouse you have seen with jeans in this post.
Below: The outside of the Royal Palace facing the Dam; the stone is in need of a clean, but the roof and the Atlas statue on the roof are recently restored.
Just like Delft last week, Amsterdam was quite empty. Even half the amount of pigeons were away on holiday. Only a lonely seagull in this photo haha.
The Palace was originally built as City Hall and designed by architect Jacob van Campen in the time period 1648-1665. Amsterdam had great ambitions in those days.
The white marble reliefs and sculptures were crafted by Artus Quellinus (and his assistants) like most of them in the building.
Below: This hall was the Tribunal where high judges passed death sentences in public.
Below: The left statue represents Schuld (Guilty) and the right one Spijt (Remorse).
Below: Entrance into the big hall. So impressive.
Below: There are three of such marble world maps on the floor in the main hall, created around 1742-1746, symbolising wealth, trade and worldwide ambition of Amsterdam during the Golden Age.
Below: I also looked up at the ceiling and the lamp in the main hall.
You will see many ceilings and lamps in this post. I was mesmerised by them.
Below: At the exit of the main hall, another Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, different from the one on the roof. All the marble figures above the exit symbolise something. Lady Justice in the middle holding a sword, trampling the personifications of Ignorance, Greed and Envy.
Below: I went left, into a corridor, again with such a magnificent lamp and ceiling. Also wall paintings everywhere.
Below: This lamp was on the wall of the corridor. Wouldn’t mind it in my own corridor. Mind you…I have been thinking about cleaning these lamps. Who does that and how? I think if I had to do it, I would tremble with fear of breaking, making me totally unfit for the job.
Below: A 17th-century Japanese lacquer cabinet from the Edo period (c. 1670). On a video we saw that behind the two doors lies an interior with numerous small drawers, designed to store valuables and curiosities.
Below: Me and Jeanne and an antique mirror. I really shouldn’t take such photos haha.
Below: Another ceiling and another lamp. I forgot the story about the painting. To tell you the truth I forgot all stories about the paintings. Beautiful as they may be, they do not keep my interest.
The curtains in all the rooms were closed as not to let sunlight harm the fabrics, the paintings etc.
Below: The story about this room was funny (to me). This is a bedroom and apparently, this room is now used for guests of the Dutch Royal family. However, the bed which you can see on the right (I wrote BED on it), is far too small for people these days. So, the palace staff replaces the antique bed with a modern bed for the duration of the stay.
Below: This is another bedroom, the one of Louis Bonaparte when he lived at the palace for a while.
You should read about Louis Bonaparte, the King of Holland on Wikipedia. (The Netherlands were called Holland in those days.)
Louis was good for the people of our country, which was entirely not to the liking of his brother Napoleon who intended for Holland to be little more than a puppet state. But Louis was determined to be as independent as possible and became quite popular amongst his new people.
Below: The marble relief (bottom middle) is the god Apollo who beats the dragon Python, created by Artus Quellinus, as so many marble reliefs and statues in the palace.
Below: Again, a marvellous ceiling and lamp.
Below: The last ceiling and lamp and the last photo of the palace.
I hope you enjoyed the Royal Palace tour.
Question: If it was too much, let me know.
So far I only ever got comments saying there can never be too many photos, but if you are a reader who disagrees with that, please speak up and tell me your opinion in the comments at the end of this post.
We ventured outside and had a coffee nearby at De Drie Graefjes. They have the best cakes and really good coffee. Just know that if you order a cake, you will get an enormous slice; well…enormous for Dutch standards.
Below: Jeanne at De Drie Graefjes after seeing the size of her cake.
Below: We walked on to the Dam square in front of the Royal Palace where a street artist was entertaining us.
Below: Jeanne trying not to laugh.
Of course we headed to the Nine Streets. Although the quirky little shops are slowly being taken over by the chain stores, the little shops are still there. Won’t be long before this beautiful part of Amsterdam will be ruined because of money.
Below: The black Vivienne Westwood blouse has little blue stars with sparkles. I deliberately chose the bulky belt for the juxtaposition. The bag is an Etsy purchase from so many years ago. It is certainly vintage. The fabric shoes are H&M, from years ago and don’t give me any blisters. Mind you, they don’t give any support either. The nose of the shoe is short enough not to make me trip.
Below: Jeanne tried to get me in the photo together with the houses behind me.
Below: When she took a head-to-toe shot, you couldn’t see the houses, really.
Below: And another photo of Jeanne on one of these cute Amsterdam stairs.
Below: Lunch view from restaurant Smelt, Runstraat, Amsterdam. Looking at people, the best there is when you are on a terrace. It is a cheese fondue restaurant, something I could have guessed because of the name; smelt means melt.
Below: This is Raadhuisstraat, roughly going from the Dam where the palace is, to the Westertoren (western tower). I think it looks Italian.
Below: One last architectural photo. Aren’t these houses cute?
Below: Amsterdam without a photo of a canal is unthinkable.
What happened in my life this week
Finally, it started raining from the weekend on. Mind you, to get the water back to a normal level in the rivers, canals and ditches it has to rain significantly more. Temperatures are back to normal.
Below: Ron found this gnome years ago in the woods. He took it home and in the night we hoisted it over the fence (2 metres high) and put it in the neighbours’ garden. Killing ourselves laughing with the thought of their faces when they were to have breakfast, looking out of the window and seeing this giant gnome in their garden. Our gardens have no access other than through the house so how did it get there? But the neighbours know us and I guess it didn’t take them long to come up with the perpetrators.
When I was leaning out of the window at the back the other day, I saw our neighbour clearing out his shed and out came the gnome. We had a good chuckle remembering the event. He didn’t know what to do with it and I suggested, he’d put it by the side of the canal near our houses. The people who live there, have joined forces planting all sorts of plants and flowers by the side of the canal and maintain it well. It is not really allowed but the city tolerates it as long as it is maintained.
In the evening I wanted to get the gnome back and place it at the neighbour’s front door with a note saying he was homesick and could he come back. But the canal residents had already adopted the gnome, placed it a bit further up the road and secured it so it couldn’t be stolen. They really like him.
These are things I live for.
Other things I live for are the everyday encounters with people. Like I went into the greengrocer this week and the owner (around the age of 50 I think, although she looks younger), was music playing from a very famous Amsterdam artist, André Hazes.
Background:
In every Amsterdam bar, especially in the eighties, you could hear André’s songs blasting. The songs are simple and invite to sing along, which everybody always did, at the top of their lungs.
So, when I stepped into the greengrocer shop and heard the music, the owner and I immediately burst out singing together at the top of our lungs, waving arms. We also sang the quirky repeats in the song. It was so funny and so connecting. (For the Dutch, it was the song ‘Een vriend’. Remember ‘….was jij zo hard en zo gemeen? ZO GEMEEN!)
Below: On Saturday Anke, Sabine and I were to go out on one of our Shopping Saturday tours, but poor Sabine wasn’t feeling well so it fell through. Instead Anke came downtown with me for a coffee. We didn’t buy anything which is a miracle.
Below: Monday outfit. Not my finest outfit but I was going to get a pedicure and needed to wear these shoes as they weren’t going to damage the fresh nail polish on my toes. Starting point of the outfit was the pink of the shoes. Hideous sandals (IMO), even in pink, but boy, are they comfortable.
Below: Another outfit this week. Pink was the colour of the week. Multicoloured earrings (Lara Design), jeans Denham and sequinned trainers (old Essentiel Antwerp).
Till next week.
Greetje
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