Rijks Museum - Amsterdam

Our guided tour of Amsterdam from our ship brought us to the plaza fronted by lots of museums and the famous concert hall.

With the hour or less we had we went to the Rijks Museum to see the famous Rembrandt painting "Night Watch".

A lot of the visitors were more interested in taking their own photos on the I Amsterdam sculpture.

It is a huge museum as you can see and we had time to see a fraction of what was there.

We paid our entrance fee and headed to the Rembrandt floor.  This stained glass caught my eye.

Here's Dan getting his bearings.

And here's the painting with a class sitting in front of it.

But first to the other paintings in this gallery.  Rembrandt's self portrait.  We learned later he died in poverty.

Many other massive paintings on the walls.

Back to Night Watch and there's a crowd in front now.

Look to the right and there's this huge painting.

Finally I get a closer look at Night Watch.

Dan has told me that one of the figures in this painting has the same last name as my son in law.  He doesn't know which one.  I guess it could be one of these.

Or one of these.

Or these?

Unlikely to be her.

From Rembrandt we went in search of Vermeer.  The one below was my favorite.

There's no mention of her being pregnant.

The galleries were beautiful and very crowded.

Dan took time to study the perspective in this painting.  As he did the gallery attendant kept watching him and then moved closer to see what he was up to when he held up the brochure to compare the lines.  He didn't touch the painting but she couldn't see that from where she was.

We learned later from our guide that a very quick acting attendant who just happened to have a bottle of water with him saved the Night Watch from an acid attack by throwing water on the acid thrown on the painting.  Now all the attendants carry water.

Next stop was the Van Gogh exhibit on another floor.  There is an entire museum in Amsterdam devoted to him but you need to purchase tickets ahead of time on line.

One more glance into another gallery and it was time to meet up with the guide again and go on a canal boat tour.