theres always another gallery somewhere...

''There is no blue without yellow and without orange'' Vincent Van Gogh

Talking of galleries I went to Amsterdam last September for a birthday break... I've been to the city many times but my partner had never visited so alongside lots of pavement cafes and brown bars we did the usual interesting rounds of sights and galleries. We caught the Van Gogh Museum just at the wrong time. The day before they had celebrated opening a new wing with a walkway of sunflowers which were given away at the end of the day - an explanation why so many people had been walking about clutching bunches of glorious giant blooms as we staggered down cobbled streets looking for our hotel, and the next week they were opening an exhibition of Edvard Munch paintings which I would have loved to have seen. However, the museum itself is still really pleasant - the famous painting of sunflowers being central to the exhibition and the space has a light airy feel allowing the paintings to glow.

birthday girl with poster of famous sunflowers

The other excellent gallery not to be missed in Amsterdam is the Stedelijk Museum of Contemporary Art. This wonderfully spacious gallery is beautifully curated with an extensive eclectic collection of diverse art.

Lichtenstein - not a particular favourite but still impressive to see real size...

we gave the Rijks Museum a miss on this trip as after a while we got ''museum leg''.. to say nothing of the sore feet from doing about 22 miles wandering along scenic canals and various markets.

Comments

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

Search This Blog