With our capacity for milking an occasion, we managed to stretch out the celebration of the 'Seven Year Seven' over the course of two weeks, leading us to rename it 'Festival of Seven'. This festival-of-a-first-date-celebration ultimately took place in three countries, featured 2 concerts (which we will blog about soon!), and involved A LOT of fortifiers.
After spending a lovely weekend in Paris, we next set our sights on Amsterdam. We had been to Amsterdam before (twice in fact), but we had several reasons for a repeat visit. 1) Troy and I are both big fans of Vincent Van Gogh, and we had learned of a special exhibition of his night scenes to be held this spring at the Van Gogh Museum, so we decided to make a special trip up to Amsterdam for it. 2) Our friend Bill from the States lives in Amsterdam, and we wanted to hang out with him. (As it turns out, at the last minute Bill decided to visit family in Italy for Easter, so we ended up having his place to ourselves for four days--thanks Bill!) 3) Springtime is the time when flowers are in bloom, including at the world-famous Keukenhof Gardens. Given that the gardens are basically on the way from our house to Amsterdam, we decided to add them into the mix. 4) After we picked Easter weekend to go, we fortuitously learned that one of our favorite musicians (Marc Broussard) was playing there the next Monday, so we stretched our weekend out by an extra day. So a trip that started out being about an art exhibit grew to encompass anniversaries and gardens and concerts, oh my!
This was our second visit to Keukenhof, and it is so beautiful I anticipate that we will keep coming back as long as we live here. Whereas last year, we spent our time wandering through the beautifully manicured gardens, this year we opted to rent bicycles to ride through the lovely miles of flower fields that surround the gardens.
The weather was absolutely perfect--sunny, warm, with only a mild breeze--and we had a wonderful afternoon of cycling, stopping along the banks of a tiny canal for a late afternoon picnic.
We arrived in Amsterdam in the evening, and had just managed to let ourselves into Bill's apartment when the sky let loose in an unusual-for-here fashion: pops of lightening, window-rattling thunder, and quick, violent bursts of rain. However, rain in all forms is a way of life in Northern Europe, so we waited for a break and made a dash for the tram stop, armed with our 'serious' umbrellas. (We have a collection, each for a different type of rain.) We rode the tram all the way into the Central Station and got inside just before the bottom fell out: sheets of water threw themselves out of the clouds at the hordes of unsuspecting tourists below. We shook our heads a bit pityingly at the novices, feeling rather superior with our rain-conquering skills, and scurried out of the station in search of our chosen dinner spot. We dried out over a yummy Thai dinner at Bird featuring two kinds of curry, kicking off what turned out to be a fun, diverse, and sunny weekend.
We had some fantastic meals and fortifiers at several great restaurants and cafés.
We took in the 'Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night' exhibition, gleefully bypassing the ridiculous queue due to our advanced ticket purchase, hooray!
We attended Easter services at the 300+ year-old Christ Church, located on a beautiful canal in one of the oldest parts in the city.
We window-shopped, wandered the Jordaan, listened to a live 'session' at Mulligan's Irish Pub, and enjoyed the beautiful weather by relaxing canalside as much as possible.
We hung out practically ON STAGE for the Marc Broussard and Paul Carrack show. (Couldn't resist offering a sneak peak!)
And, to round it out, we took in a little live jazz at Alto Jazz Club before calling it a weekend.
Amsterdam & Keukenhof Photos - Click Here
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