History lessons

After the Rembrandt house we took the tram to the Keizersgracht to visit Museum van Loon. Family van Loon, descendants of one of the founders of the VOC (first multinational, first company to issue stock), decided to open their beautiful house on the canal, the garden behind it and the carriage house in the back to the public. Nice detail: the first tenant was Rembrandts' student Ferdinand Boll. Our girls both know a lot about the golden age (thanks to a fantastic series on the subject on tv: welkom in de gouden eeuw!) and were pretty excited about the fact that the house was built in that period. J kept saying how wonderful it would be to live there. Or even sleeping there for just one night. I can relate.

Back in time

The girls had an extra day off from school. We used it for a trip to Amsterdam. By public transport, train and tram. The daughters, living in a village, in a 2-car household, don't get to use it every day and it was time to get to know their way around with it a bit more. The three of us started at the Rembrandt house, which was high on my list. Although the museum slightly felt like a tourist trap (everything is focused on foreign tourists) it was very special to be in the house of this famous painter. To know that he has actually made a lot of his work there is amazing. We saw how pigments were turned into paint and J assisted on a etching-demonstration. She got to keep the "rembrandt" etch that was printed. After that we made our own etching. Dry needle on plastic, worked out perfectly. I should use my etching press again. Last time was for printing the birth cards for J. Ten years ago...