Amsterdam and Poland 2017
Day 3, Amsterdam
Tueday, June 6
Today we had 10:45 tickets to Anne Fra
nk's house which was about a
15-minute walk from our hotel. Again we had a delicious breakfast in the
hotel. The weather isn't nice, with a drizzle on and off and quite
cloudy. The other two days have been very nice with temperatures in the
high 60s. We both wore our raincoats and the hotel loaned us a large
umbrella.
We arrived at Anne Frank's house on time. There was a long
line of those who had purchased online tickets, as we did a number of
months ago. In fact, you can only get in for that time if you have
printed online tickets. There were people standing in line waiting to
buy tickets and when we left the line was several blocks long.
I'm sure most of you, at one time or another, have read the
Diary of Anne Frank. I read it in college and then two years ago when we
were planning to go on the Baltic Sea cruise and had purchased online
tickets then for Ann Frank's house.
The Anne Frank House is dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne
Frank. The building is located on a canal called the Prinsengracht,
close to the Westerkerk.
During World War II, Anne Frank hid from Nazi persecution with
her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the
17th-century
canal house, known as the Secret Annex. Anne Frank did not survive the
war, but in 1947 her wartime diary was published. In 1957, the Anne
Frank Foundation was established to protect the property from developers
who wanted to demolish the block.
The museum opened on May 3 1960. It preserves the hiding place, has
a permanent exhibition on the life and times of Anne Frank. Everyone
had audio devices which gave the history of each room and stories about
Anne Frank and her family. There is no furniture in the house, but we
moved from room to room and floor to floor clear to the attic where the
Frank family lived. Each floor the steps became steeper and the tread
narrower. As we
reached the 3rd floor where the bookcase was, the
narration stopped and everyone just walked in silence and looked at the
photos and read the printed information. It was a very moving
experience. No photos were allowed inside the house.
They had a paper model of house but it was too big and too heavy to
carry around for the rest of the trip. I ordered it when we got home.
It came in less that two weeks, and I made it that day. For
other photos of this model click
here.
When we came out it was raining. Next door toAn
n Frank's house is
the Westerkerk, a large church with an extremely high tower. The church
was not open but the tower was. We passed up that opportunity. Climbing
all of those steep in the Frank house will do us for a while.
Westerkerk is the largest church in Amsterdam, built 1619 –
1631. The Western Church, is the most important Protestant church in the
city, while its bell tower remains until today the pride of Amsterdam,
regarded by many, as the city symbol.
Probably because their land is so flat, the Dutch love towers. The
275ft high Westerkerk Tower, built in 1638, dominates above most of the
Old City center.
Westerkerk is the burial place of the famous Dutch painter
Rembrandt, who at the end of his life lived nearby. When he died in
1669, Rembrandt was so poor, that he was buried in an unmarked church
grave, with several other people, where human remains were buried only
for 20 years, to make place for other poor people in the
same grave.
That is why the exact place of Rembrandt’s grave remains unknown. A
memorial shield inside the church on its left nave wall, is a symbolic
mark of Rembrandt’s place of burial.
There was a large glass covered sightseeing boat in the canal in
front of Anne Frank's house, so we decided to take that as we had wanted
to take a boat ride on the canals. This was a 2 1/2 hour trip around and
through the canal district. The buildings are very remarkable. Like Old
Town Alexandria houses are rowhouses and the width of the houses was
very restricted but not the height nor depth. The tour was narrated and
we were told that some of the houses had from 20 to 40 rooms.
We got back to where we started
at Ann Frank's house about
2:30. Nearby was a Pancake House so we stopped in. The pancakes were
thin and covered the entire plate. We both had a pancake with yogurt,
strawberries and honey. They were delicious. By then it was after 3:00
so we decided to come back to the hotel to rest, besides it was raining
and the wind blowing quite strongly.
Kathleen had made dinner reservations several months ago in the
The Brasserie in the Ambassase Hotel which was in a lovely dining room
about two blocks from our hotel. For the appetizer we shared a
half-dozen Irish oysters on the half shell – they were wonderful. For
the main course Kathleen had the fish of the day which was sole and I
had seabass with a few interesting vegetables. For dessert Kathleen had
a chocolate crępe and I had a orange crepe. Both of us were really bad
and had ice cream on it.
It rained on us as we went to dinner, but cleared up a little for
our walk home but it is cold and windy.
Even though yesterday was Pentecost Monday, which is a
legal holiday, we thought that all of the thousands of people that we
saw were celebrating the day off, but the streets were just as crowded
today even with the rain.
Day 12 - Poznan and
Torun
Day 15 coming soon
