After having walked out of the Van Gogh Museum, we sat at a Café for a little while, so as to decide what to do next. Soon after we were crossing the Museumplein said to have been landscaped in 1953 and later redesigned in 1990.
Rijksmuseum seemed to be a permanent presence, irrespective of the direction we looked at. Its magnificent façade imposed itself ... even in the distance.
To our right stood the Stedelijk Museum entirely devoted to modern Art from the mid 19th century to the present day ... but all we saw was its1891-1895 Neo-Renaissance palish stone and red brick façade decorated with several rather impressive figurative sculptures of the past.
We then strolled in the Vondelpark, which was founded by a group of philantrdopic cittizens in 1864, having later been named after the 17th poet Joost van den Vondel. It has a profusion of trees and lakes. According to the city guide book it became a sort of mecca for the hippies in the late 60s and nowadays it is said to still gather quite a lot of people on open air concerts.
One of the lakes was surrounded by red baloons, which gave the whole scenario an air of wedding like festivity.
We then walked back to the Singelgracht and along it pass the 1902 American Hotel, well known for the Art Nouveau interpreted approach of its façade.
We walked a bit further to the right till we reached the Stadsschouwburg, which hosts theatre and dance performances and finally the Leidseplein, where we were told groups of street performers usually gather to amuse both tourists and passers-by ... which is exactly what a group of break-dancers was doing ...
It must have been around seven when we left the Leidseplein and walked along the Singel towards the Reguliersbeestraat to have something to eat before going back to the Hotel.
We stopped briefly at the Tushinsky Theatre, which caught our attention and more so when we read about the Jewish tailor from Poland whose obsession for films led him to build this magnificent and exquisite Cinema in 1921. He was later to perish in Auschwitz without having realised how admired his creation was to become.
We walked home via the Rembrandtplein, a former butter market in whose centre stood the 19th century statue of Rembrandt ... we felt like sitting at one of the Cafés that surrounded it, but it was getting late and we had a long day ahead ... we had realised that three days would clearly not be enough to see all we wanted to ... but we were determined to try to see and visit everything we might within the limited amount of time ...
As we were getting ready to go to bed I looked out of the window and surrendered to the night beauty over the Amstel ... Couldn't resist it and attempted to capture it in one last picture ...
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