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)