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I arrived in Amsterdam without a guidebook or map, which turned out to be a good thing. It’s an excellent place to get lost.
Once I’d found my hotel, I set out on foot to enjoy the fall evening. Without looking for them, I found the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum and Dam Square, all by virtue of an hour of aimless strolling. A few minutes later, I discovered the Red Light District the same way. From behind a glass door, a portly woman in a tank top and neon-blue underwear whistled at me.
I normally don’t get that kind of reaction from women, and I was a bit puzzled until I remembered that prostitution is legal in the Netherlands. Hers was a commercial appeal.
I spent two more days in Amsterdam, and even with a map in hand, I often found myself disoriented. I considered renting a bike – it is said there are a half-million of them in the city of 1 million people – but I realized this would only cause me to lose my way more quickly.
If I wasn’t really lost on the city’s crazy quilt of streets and canals, then I was lost in some other sense, trying to accommodate anomalies like a Red Light District arrayed around one of the city’s oldest churches. Or the strange combination opera house and town hall, dubbed the Stopera.
With time short and questions large, I spent an hour at my hotel’s computer, looking for people with answers. I chose two walking tours, one with a historical bent and one focusing on drugs and sex in the Red Light District. I still had time in between to hit the city’s cultural high marks.
A portrait of love
The main building of the Rijksmuseum is still under renovation (and will be until 2008). But the museum arranged its prized works of art – the Dutch masters, mainly – into the smaller Philips Wing.
The museum’s four amazing Vermeers are on display (but not “Girl with a Pearl Earring” – that’s in the Hague). There were also many arresting works by Rembrandt van Rijn, including the epic “Night Watch.” But it wasn’t any of those that made the trip worthwhile.
I spent an extra half-hour parked in front of Rembrandt’s “The Jewish Bride,” which depicts a man standing next to his intended, with his hand over her heart. One of her hands reaches for his. A warm light falls on the couple from above. Their expressions and postures, the light, the gold of his shirt and the red of her dress, all embody affection in a way that only a heartfelt embrace can. It’s riveting.
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