National Park 'De Hoge Veluwe'

23-7-2006

Artis Zoo

22-7-2006

National Park Hoge Veluwe (23-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

An unique place in the Netherlands! Not only does this national park include many forms of unique landscapes there's also a museum with an impressive modern art collection. It's the perfect combination of culture and nature and therefor the perfect place for us ;-)

Another great thing is the fact that you can use free bikes in the park so you don't need your car to get in. You just pay the entrance fee of the park, grab a bike and start cycling. And for us the museum was free (www.amuseevous.be).

The Kröller-Müller (as is the official name of the museum) has an impressive collection of modern art, mainly Van Goghs. They also have a large sculpture garden. And they serve great sandwiches ;-)
There's also a free museum in the park about the park and the animals. Another man made structure you should visit is the hunting lodge St.-Hubertus.
And the nature is just great: many many trees, a sand drift, heath lands...

If you ever have the time to visit this national park you should! Or just visit the site and learn about the history and the nature here

Artis Zoo (Amsterdam, 22-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

A great day:

During the months of July and August the Artis zoo (full name: Natura Artis Magistra) is open un-till the sun sets every saturday night.
This is perfect for us! We get to visit museums un-till they close at 17:00 and then we still have loads of time to visit the zoo! Another perfect thing is the fact that because of our local zoo's season ticket we get to visit this zoo for free. Can it get any better?

Of course it can! We saw many nice animals ànd we had great food in the zoo.
Animal highlights:
- the black jaguar
- the owls
- the vultures
- the reptiles
- the insects
- the 3 elephants; mother, father and child who where totally showing off
- the three day old giraffe (very cute!)
- the aquarium
- mmm well actually all animals were great ;-)

Tropenmuseum (Amsterdam, 22-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Another one of my favorite museums, especially in the ethnographic department. This is not a traditional ethnographic museum and that is exactly what makes it so great. This museum is not afraid to show ancient art combined with current local kitsch. This way you learn and feel more about different cultures around the world than you would normally. It's for instance a lot of fun to see local African or Latin-American shops totally recreated. Or to watch Mexican Lucha Libre on the tv ;-)

We didn't have a lot of time to visit the museum (we had to wait before we could cross the street too because it was raining extremely hard; quite impressive thunderstorm and it cooled us down) so we saw the special exhibit about Hinduism (Dealing with the Gods) and some Latin-America.

We had a lot of fun and the special exhibit was very beautiful as usual. This museum is always worth a visit, especially if it's for free ;-) (www.amuseevous.be)
The English museum site here

Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 22-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Like a lot of museums the real Stedelijk Museum is currently being renovated so they moved to another location near the central station of Amsterdam. I had not been to the new temporary location yet even though the SM (yes that is their official abbreviation; it used to be on the tags you got in the wardrobe, the towels etc.) is one of my favorite museums. But then again I moved to Belgium some time after they moved and I haven't been in Amsterdam a lot recently.

This temporary location is in an old post office building which actually looks more like some kind of apartment building. It's pretty hot inside too by the way.
But it's another free visit (www.amuseevous.be) so it doesn't matter if we wont stay long ;-)

My favorite way of visiting modern art, and especially the SM, is to let myself be flooded by visual information. So not much reading just walking around and looking and not too slow either. It makes you feel the art rather than understand it.
And it was a nice visual flooding ;-)

The site of the SM here (also available in English!)
There are only temporary exhibits on this location. Some include parts of their collection. The real museum opens again in the autumn of 2008.

Nightwatching

During our Rembrandt-day in Amsterdam we visited the Rembrandtsquare and ate a sandwich behind the bronze 3-D Nightwatch.
Nightwatching is the name of the Peter Greenaway project by the way (visit his site or see Rijksmuseum review)

Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, 21-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Next on our tour is I guess the most famous museum of the Netherlands where they have the most famous of Rembrandt's works: the Nightwatch (Nachtwacht).
A good thing about it being a famous museum is that it's open more often: mondays (most museums are closed then) and friday night un till 22 pm. I love visiting museums by night but I rarely get a chance :-(

The museum is still being renovated so they are only exhibiting part of their collection. There's only about 11 rooms with objects and paintings at the moment but it's still an impressive collection including some of the most famous painters from the Dutch Golden Age: Vermeer, Hals and Rembrandt of course.

But the main reason to visit the Rijks is Peter Greenaway. I'm a big fan of his work and he has done something special with Rembrandt's Nightwatch. Just the idea of two of my favorite artists being combined already excites me, a lot.
But to see it for real is beyond comparison.

What Greenaway has done with the sound and the light makes the painting come alive in so many different ways. You just have to see this for real if you have the chance. It's quite amazing and it even made the people visiting applaud!

Info on the Rijksmuseum here

Rembrandthouse (Amsterdam, 21-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

It's Rembrandt year this year! He was born exactly 400 years ago so it's party time in the Netherlands. There are loads of special exhibits and events so it's the perfect year to go and see anything Rembrandt-related.

I'm quite a big fan of Rembrandt myself because I like the darkness in his work a lot. He is also amazingly good at drawing people with only a few lines. All his 'people' have real character and he's also quite good at painting the texture of clothes.
So I'm very excited about this Rembrandt year ;-D

First on our Rembrandt tour is the house he used to live in from 1639 until 1658. His old house is a museum now with the main house refurnished as in Rembrandt's days (with all his old stuff) and some rooms for special exhibits.

Rembrandt and his family certainly had a nice and cosy house. Our favorite room is of course his 'kunstcaemer' where he kept all his weird stuff like marble busts of Roman emperors, bones of extinct animals, stuffed animals, shells, coins etc etc

The special exhibit was about Rembrandt's etchings and they were brilliant! You can see very well what a good drawer he was and how he loved experimenting. And that he had a good sense of humour too ;-)

More info on this museum (dutch site!) here

picture = "selfpotrait with surprised look" from 1630

More Fireworks!

11-7-2006, first firework pics with a digital camera

Celebrating a Battle (Guldenontsporing, Brussels, 11-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Because the 11th of july is a Flemish holiday there are loads of fun things to do today. We are celebrating winning from the French in 1302 in a battle called "the battle of the spurs" (actually called "the battle of the gold spurs" in Dutch). So let's party!

On this day in Brussels there are several extremely funny and weird street theatre acts.There's a lot of other things you can do and see too but this is where we went.

The best thing we saw was 'The Gaiety Engine', a Victorian-like travelling freak show, by a group called Strangelings. Their humour is great! Very British and quite hilarious. Nothing can beat a singing prawn right? (see picture)

Back home at night we also saw the inevitable fireworks show from our window, which is great fun of course. You can see the pictures in my album ;-)

Museum of the National Bank of Belgium, Brussels (11-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Not my first choice for a fun day out but Mark loves coins so to him it's almost heaven ;-)
We could visit this museum for free too because of the Werchter-wristband so there's no reason not to go.

And I must admit that most of the museum is indeed interesting and pretty. The parts about how economy works are quite redundant to me as I already know and don't care much either.
But the history of currencies around the world with loads of old and weird coins and especially the original old rooms of the bank are worth even a paying visit.

Just look at this room!! =>


=> Amuseevous
=> National Bank

MIM (Musical Instruments Museum) 11-7-2006

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

As we already went here last year for the same reason read this => review from last year


This time we also went to the roof terrace where you have a nice view of Brussels. The building and the instruments are still totally wonderful. Definitely worth a visit!



This is the view from the outside terrace of the restaurant =>
The building with the Belgian flag is a church.

Sportimonium / Domein Hofstade (9-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

The weather is alright, it's sunday, I want to go outside so it's time for a walk! And another stamp ;-) (see previous review)

The Sportimonium is a museum about the history of sports located in a big park. So the best thing to do is to park your car outside, take a nice walk through the park and then visit the museum. The nature is pretty nice even though this spot is mainly visited by people who want to swim or fish in the lakes. Today we saw loads and loads of blue damselflies, several waterbirds, a very small toad and some magpies.

We already went here last year, also for the Amuseevous / Rockwerchter project so there aren't many new things to see in the museum. But it's still fun to see all the sport outfits (the picture is a Kendo-outfit by the way) and the pictures, the books etc from a time when sports were still quaint.
A nice new thing is the Sportlabo where you can actually play several weird local sports and games. We just had to try most of them.
One of the games there, that I have played many many times when I was young, was 'shuffleboard'. Of course we did a match and I won ;-)

=> Sportimonium / Amuseevous
=> Mark's review from last year

Hof van Busleyden / Busleyden Court (Mechelen, 7-7-2006)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

It's always nice when a good thing is repeated. This year, like last year, you can visit several museums for free with your Werchter-combiticket-wristband. This year you get 48(!) museums in Belgium and the Netherlands for free! With the stamps you collect on your card you can also win a piece of art.
Time to get our first stamp!

One of the museums you can visit for a stamp is in Mechelen. The museum itself is actually always free but it's still nice to visit it.
As we live here we have visited the Busleyden Court loads of times already so we just went to get a stamp and to see if there was anything new there.

The Busleyden Court is a very nice and recently renovated 16th century 'house'. In this museum you can see historical objects related to Mechelen. Highlights of the museum are the Mechlin lace, the gold leather and the local pieces of art (paintings and statues).

If you visit this museum be sure to visit the other two free city-museums and the free exhibit in Lamot about city-views. There is usually some interesting exhibits and events going on in Mechelen so be sure to check out the tourist site before you visit us!


=> Busleyden / Amuseevous

=> tourist site Mechelen

Fire!

Rock Werchter 2006

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Yes it's that time of year again! It's festival time!
So what did we see?


Thursday 29th of June

- the Deftones => a slow thundering wall of punk-metal sound
- Kaizers Orchestra => a few Gypsy-songs of these weird Norwegians
- Tool => when I grow up I want to be a Tool song
- Death cab for cutie => they're ok, not very exciting
- Manu Chao => party as expected, fun but nothing new here
- Red Hot Chili Peppers => great musicians! even though we'd rather hear older songs ;-)


Friday 30th of June

- Editors => I love them and they're great live!
- Clap your hands say yeah => I think they'll sound better on cd
- Elbow => very nice!
- Mogwai => another great wall of sound
- some Vitalic / Tiga => still ok ;-)
- Muse => I like things bombastic
- The Who => in the garden, far away (6km) it's ok ;-)


Saturday 1st of July

- Kaiser Chiefs => I predict a riot!
- An Pierlé & White Velvet => I love these fairy tales
- Calexico => americana at it's very best!
- Franz Ferdinand => didn't see them but heard them quite good, still very nice
- Goldfrapp => oh lalala erotic electro pop, I just have to love it ;-)
- Placebo => they're still doing fine too
- Sigur Rós => extremely brilliant fairytale soundtracks, I want to be a Sigur Rós song too!
- Deus => some songs to finish the day


Sunday 2nd of July

- Hooverphonic => sometimes you have to sing this song and I love it
- Depeche Mode => ah the memories! I'm taking a ride with my best friend (after the show, home hehe)

It was fun but hopefully next year it wont be so hot!