{"id":319,"date":"2014-04-25T20:45:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T20:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=319"},"modified":"2016-08-23T20:39:20","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T20:39:20","slug":"thursday-april-24-day-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, April 24, Day 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simple plan made the night before: visit the Hermitage Museum<\/strong> outpost<\/strong> in Amsterdam to see the Silk Road<\/em> exhibition, \u00a0then head back towards the B&B, with a stop at the van Loon museum<\/strong> or maybe the Albert Cuyp Marke<\/strong>t. Rain is forecast to start at 10am and that will\u00a0decide how much walking around I’ll be doing. I put on my raincoat \u00a0(the only time I have worn it. The winter coat has not left the bag it was stuffed in) \u00a0and slip the collapsible umbrella in my bag.<\/p>\n

Ubered over to the museum, which reminded me of an Apple store on the inside \u2013 curving white walls, glass and metal stairs, lots of interaction features \u2013 swipe your ticket over a sensor to be admitted, doors swing open as you approach, the audio guide is triggered from a point on the wall you swipe with you audio unit, like the self check-out at Kroger.<\/p>\n

My experience with the Silk Road<\/em> exhibit will be all tell and no show, since photographs were prohibited. It\u00a0ranged from fragments of damaged, extremely faded wall murals, to an entire silk garment lined in squirrel fur, preserved in ice for over a\u00a0thousand years. Multi-media elements included a stuffed dromedary, a two-story high wall projection\/slide show of individual items in the exhibit, and audio of Tibetan monks chanting. \u00a0There were sections on the archeological aspects, past and current, For me, the idea of the show was more interesting than the artifacts on loan. I think the Hermitage<\/strong> mother ship could have been a little more generous with what they made available for this.<\/p>\n

I left on foot through spitting rain, \u00a0toward the Museum van Loon<\/strong>. \u00a0Passed by a bustling entry and peered inside at what turned out to be\u00a0the\u00a0Tassenmuseum Hendrikje,<\/strong> the Museum of Bags and Purses.<\/strong> I hesitated, but with a museumkaart, entry was free, so what the hay. Once inside I\u00a0winced at the sign announcing a\u00a0special exhibit – 50 years of Barbie! \u2013 but figured I could skip that, no one ever had to know. \u00a0The collection is housed in a classic,\u00a0canal view\u00a0mansion, with the earliest objects\u00a0on the top floor. One four-story climb later I walked in, and saw a goatskin drawstring bag with iron clasps from 1600. I was hooked. I loved it when they put a painting from the same era behind the purse – instant context.\u00a0 Like this:<\/p>\n

\"purse1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0displays address the evolution of material and function. There are examples of \u00a0beading, basketry,\u00a0 leather, plastic, and metal.\u00a0Purses for brides and for chatelaines.\u00a0Exhibits of what women\u00a0carried, in various eras. So many of the purses were playful, inventive, or as \u00a0hand held sculpture, like the clutch that mimicked a\u00a0steamship. I pressed my nose against the glass more than once.<\/p>\n

A cafe on the second floor had two formal rooms set for a high tea.\u00a0 They found me a table, slipping me in between the reservations.<\/p>\n

\"tea\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I promised to be quick. Clotted cream, jam, and biscuits, how I missed you. I wolfed down\u00a0crustless triangles of smoked salmon sandwiches, that biscuit, and a pot of Earl Grey. On my way out, I ducked into the gift shop. A Margaret Thatcher lookalike enthusiastically assisted me, and a mug, postcard, and one secret item later (a gift for Robert so I can\u2019t include it here), I made it out the door. Guilty pleasures\u00a0are the sweetest.<\/p>\n

Walked on to the Museum van Loon, <\/strong>in the home belonging to the co-founder of the \u00a0Dutch East-India Company. \u00a0<\/strong>Interesting tension between the portraits of van Loon children by\u00a0Dirck Santvoort and Nicolaes Maes, and a\u00a0series of contemporary children\u2019s portraits by artist\u00a0Katinka Lampe\u00a0they inspired.<\/p>\n

\"loon4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Both disturbing, in their own way.<\/p>\n

\"loon1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I revisited rooms multiple times. They had massive bouquets of fresh flowers throughout the mansion, a living version of Rachel Ruysch\u2019s stilleven met bloemen<\/em> paintings.<\/p>\n

\"flowers\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The formal garden behind the house was blooming in a palette of \u00a0orange and purple\u00a0and graced with a copy of the sculpture I last saw in the Louvre, Hercules carrying his son\u00a0T\u00e9l\u00e8phe.<\/p>\n

\"va<\/a><\/p>\n

Thirty more minutes of walking over bridges, dodging around bicycles and trams, and I was back at the B&B. It was a day that convinced me of how good it is to have a museumkaart in my pocket. and time to allocate as I wish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simple plan made the night before: visit the Hermitage Museum outpost in Amsterdam to see the Silk Road exhibition, \u00a0then head back towards the B&B, with a stop at the van Loon museum or maybe the Albert Cuyp Market. Rain is forecast to start at 10am and that will\u00a0decide how much walking around I’ll be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14,137],"tags":[225,224,186,194,213,223],"class_list":{"0":"post-319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-amsterdam","8":"category-short-trips","9":"tag-cafe","10":"tag-market","11":"tag-museum","12":"tag-restaurant","13":"tag-strategy","14":"tag-van-loon-museum","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/purse1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-59","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2280,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/2280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}