We spent the morning at the Van Gogh Museum, seeing the world’s largest collection of Vincent Van Gogh’s artwork, including one of the five “Sunflowers” pieces. The museum also has numerous other artifacts, including the full collection of nearly 900 letters he wrote to his brother Theo. Some of those letters are displayed on a rotational basis.
I remember learning in school that Van Gogh cut off his ear “over a woman” but that was wasn’t quite accurate. He cut off his ear in a fit of rage, after a fight with Paul Gauguin, and then he presented the ear to a girl, a 17 year old working as a cleaning girl, at a nearby brothel.
After the museum, we had a late lunch at a Dutch pancake restaurant. Our timing was fortunate, since two busloads of Chinese tourists arrived about 15 minutes later, overwhelming the kitchen.
We rested at our apartment for the afternoon, and packed some, then met up with our friend Sara and her boyfriend Reuben, who live in Haarlem. We met Sara in 2024 at Oktoberfest. She told us she would take us to a “proper Dutch dinner” and it was fantastic.
“Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds“, 1890. One of Van Gogh’s last paintings, it was completed in July 1890; he shot himself on July 27th. Dave and I visited this piece separately (I’m SLOW in museums!) and we each took several photos of the piece. The sky is so captivating.
The Rijksmuseum (pronounced “rikes-museum”) is across a park field from the Van Gogh Museum. We did not visit the Rijksmuseum this time around — it’s an all day endeavor and we will simply need to visit it another time.
We thought this was just a hole in the wall, so we were quite surprised that 2 busloads of Chinese tourists came in about 10 minutes after we arrived. I’m glad we got our orders in quickly.
We split a “savory” pancake and a “sweet” pancake. This was the sweet “dessert” pancake.
Catching up with friends — and making new friends — was a great end to our time in Amsterdam.
