A Morning in Amsterdam

The number of cities that I've seen a bit of by means of a very early morning walk before other commitments is really quite a long one… Brussels, Shanghai, Warsaw, Santiago to name a few. There are certainly drawbacks to this approach. It's hard to enjoy the nice cafes in the main square of Brussels or the wonders of Shanghai street fair at 6:00 in the morning. But there's also a tranquility hanging over great cities in these early morning hours. And if nothing else, you learn a lot about how cities clean their streets. 

Amsterdam, fortunately, is a city I've explored numerous times, almost always during a lengthy layover at Schiphol, which is probably the airport in the world where I have spent the most time. The city center is a quick and easy 15-minute train ride from the airport and the city has marvelous public transport. It's hard to forget that the Netherlands means literally the "low-lying country" in Amsterdam, as it's hard to get more than 20 feet from some body of water anywhere in the city. The feats of engineering that have made Amsterdam (and Rotterdam, and the Hague, etc.) possible are quite amazing. Yet these wonders of hard-wired engineering are also strikingly beautiful, as the canals of central Amsterdam gradually slope in half circles, creating fascinating vistas at nearly every turn. 

A painting of one of the gentle curves of one of Amsterdam's canals. They don't look all that different today! (from Wikipedia)

So much of Amsterdam is a great monument to the Golden Age of Dutch history in the 17th century when the Netherlands, having brushed off Spanish rule, became a commercial and maritime power. Although the Dutch are rarely thought of as a great colonial power, the number of places they have colonized is significant -- from Northeast Brazil and many places in West Africa to Sri Lanka and even a tiny island in Nagasaki Bay that for a number of years in the 17th century served as the only European trading link to the Empire of Japan. And of course, there are the East Indies that would later form Indonesia, where Dutch power was most enduring. 

A fascinating window display in the Spiegelgracht

Walking the streets of Amsterdam, I am amazed at how many grand buildings show their year of construction as sometime in the 1600s. This was a time of great commercial power, but it was also a time of enormous cultural output. My main reason for journeying into Amsterdam was to visit the Rijksmuseum. Housed in a spectacular nineteenth century building (on a canal!), the building is an artistic wonder of it's own. But walking through the vast collections of mostly Dutch art, I couldn't help but be amazed at the sheer burst of creative wonder that emerged in this Dutch Golden age. The long central gallery, filled as it is with the works of Halls, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, is crowned most by the view of Rembrandt's spectacular Night Watch in a grand hall at gallery's end. I know little about art, but it seems to me that there are few painters in history who capture the fullness of the human as well as Rembrandt. 

The entrance to the Rijksmuseum

By the time I left the museum at 11 am, it was swarming with people, as were the nearby streets, which just a few hours before were quiet enough to hear a pigeon take to flight, the "jing-jing" of a bike horn, or the sound of a shopkeeper washing down the sidewalk in front of his or her store. While it might be hard to find a cup of coffee, it gives you both a fascinating view of a great city, as well as proper time and atmosphere to think about it. 

And it's always good to be reminded that there are places in the world that are indeed more Dutch than West Michigan.