Friends Tour to Amsterdam
Friends Tour to Amsterdam
Friends Tour to Amsterdam
Friends Tour to Amsterdam
The recent Friend’s Dutch tour was a great success!
We set off from Manchester Airport on Wednesday 27th November for the less-than-one-hour (!) flight to Amsterdam. After leaving our bags at the excellent Hotel Bilderberg Jan Luyken, in the heart of the Museum Quarter, we walked (being careful of the bicycles) the short distance to Restaurant Pompa for a ‘welcome’ lunch. The food and service were great and their tomato and basil soup outstanding.
In the afternoon, we had a guided visit in wonderful, recently extended, Stadelijk Museum. This is the Amsterdam municipal museum, specialising in modern art, and it contained a wonderful collection of paintings, sculpture and furniture. Our guide was excellent and our tour of the permanent collection, included works by Mondrian, Matisse and Picasso. There was a wonderful selection of paintings by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich which particularly caught the eye.
On day 2 of our tour, we travelled 30 miles south-west to Leiden, to see the ‘Young Rembrandt- Rising Star’ exhibition at the Lakenhal Museum. The museum had been closed for a number of years for renovations and only reopened in June of this year. The resulting building was very impressive as was the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition, devoted exclusively to his earliest work. The exhibition contained some wonderful, and well-known, portraits. (Those not able to come with us on this trip may be interested to know that the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition has been arranged in conjunction with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where it will be shown in 2020).
There was time to explore a little of Leiden before we returned to Amsterdam. However, that wasn’t the end of the activities for the day! Our wonderful tour guide, Nirvana, had arranged for us to take a canal-boat trip to see the Amsterdam Christmas lights and we had a great time seeing a very different view of the city. Although it was a cold night, there were heated blankets and hot drinks for those that wanted them!
On the Friday morning, most of us opted to visit the Rembrandt House Museum, which has been restored to its 17th Century grandeur. We were able to enjoy a fascinating demonstration of the copper plate engraving process, used by Rembrandt.
The afternoon saw us at the recently re-opened Rijksmuseum, for their ‘Rembrandt-Velázquez: Dutch and Spanish Masters’ exhibition, where we had a guided tour. The exhibition featured a selection of paintings by Dutch and Spanish artists of the 17th century, which were displayed in pairs - one from each country- to explore the relationship between them.
An evening meal at another local restaurant completed our day.
Saturday was our final day in Amsterdam and we visited the Van Gogh Museum. Whilst the majority of people went to see the works of the Dutch artist, our group moved to the quieter galleries for the ‘Jean-François Millet : Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art’ exhibition. This was a particularly good exhibition, with displayed works coming from around the world, and showed how Millet’s paintings, drawings and pastels inspired the work of numerous 19th and early 20th century artists.
Many of our group braved the Van Gogh galleries afterwards whilst some of us explored a little further, including the lovely Vondelpark, before we set off to the airport for our short flight home.
This was an excellent short tour and thanks should go to our guide, Nirvana Romell, for looking after us so well.
It is planned to have another winter tour in the first week of December 2020, although the destination hasn’t yet been finalised. Further details will be sent out as soon as possible. Make a note of the date in your new 2020 diaries!
The recent Friend’s Dutch tour was a great success!
We set off from Manchester Airport on Wednesday 27th November for the less-than-one-hour (!) flight to Amsterdam. After leaving our bags at the excellent Hotel Bilderberg Jan Luyken, in the heart of the Museum Quarter, we walked (being careful of the bicycles) the short distance to Restaurant Pompa for a ‘welcome’ lunch. The food and service were great and their tomato and basil soup outstanding.
In the afternoon, we had a guided visit in wonderful, recently extended, Stadelijk Museum. This is the Amsterdam municipal museum, specialising in modern art, and it contained a wonderful collection of paintings, sculpture and furniture. Our guide was excellent and our tour of the permanent collection, included works by Mondrian, Matisse and Picasso. There was a wonderful selection of paintings by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich which particularly caught the eye.
On day 2 of our tour, we travelled 30 miles south-west to Leiden, to see the ‘Young Rembrandt- Rising Star’ exhibition at the Lakenhal Museum. The museum had been closed for a number of years for renovations and only reopened in June of this year. The resulting building was very impressive as was the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition, devoted exclusively to his earliest work. The exhibition contained some wonderful, and well-known, portraits. (Those not able to come with us on this trip may be interested to know that the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition has been arranged in conjunction with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where it will be shown in 2020).
There was time to explore a little of Leiden before we returned to Amsterdam. However, that wasn’t the end of the activities for the day! Our wonderful tour guide, Nirvana, had arranged for us to take a canal-boat trip to see the Amsterdam Christmas lights and we had a great time seeing a very different view of the city. Although it was a cold night, there were heated blankets and hot drinks for those that wanted them!
On the Friday morning, most of us opted to visit the Rembrandt House Museum, which has been restored to its 17th Century grandeur. We were able to enjoy a fascinating demonstration of the copper plate engraving process, used by Rembrandt.
The afternoon saw us at the recently re-opened Rijksmuseum, for their ‘Rembrandt-Velázquez: Dutch and Spanish Masters’ exhibition, where we had a guided tour. The exhibition featured a selection of paintings by Dutch and Spanish artists of the 17th century, which were displayed in pairs - one from each country- to explore the relationship between them.
An evening meal at another local restaurant completed our day.
Saturday was our final day in Amsterdam and we visited the Van Gogh Museum. Whilst the majority of people went to see the works of the Dutch artist, our group moved to the quieter galleries for the ‘Jean-François Millet : Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art’ exhibition. This was a particularly good exhibition, with displayed works coming from around the world, and showed how Millet’s paintings, drawings and pastels inspired the work of numerous 19th and early 20th century artists.
Many of our group braved the Van Gogh galleries afterwards whilst some of us explored a little further, including the lovely Vondelpark, before we set off to the airport for our short flight home.
This was an excellent short tour and thanks should go to our guide, Nirvana Romell, for looking after us so well.
It is planned to have another winter tour in the first week of December 2020, although the destination hasn’t yet been finalised. Further details will be sent out as soon as possible. Make a note of the date in your new 2020 diaries!
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