Amsterdam - Rijksmuseum & Anne Frank House

Our next day in Amsterdam we spent the morning doing a scavenger hunt at the Rijksmuseum! It was a fun way to see lots of areas of the museum without being tedious.

The front of the museum and the beginning of our scavenger hunt.

Our first painting that we had to answer questions on. We each had an audio/video device and different questions to answer. Everyone had to finish their question to get a letter. At the end of 9 clues we had to unscramble the letters to make a word and get our prize.

The Night's Watch painting is in it's own glassed in room and there is a slot in the floor where the painting can drop down in case of an emergency.

Our next clues took us to the miniature ships room.

Not sure if you can see it but this pic on the right has images of sailors on the deck doing their work. It was a video loop about 2 minutes long. I cropped the pic a bit below to make it easier to see them.

The next section we went to was the 3-D dioramas which were really interesting.

Next up was a beautiful cabinet, some M.C. Escher prints and an old airplane!

Gavin giving his own impression of a statue.

After we finished our scavenger hunt, we headed outside to check out the area and found a playground for the kids. So they played while I went to take some more pictures of the nearby buildings.

The back of the Rijksmuseum.

Concert Hall.

Van Gogh Museum above and a large gummy bear outside the Moco Museum. This area was called the Museum Quarter.

In the afternoon we visited the Anne Frank House for an audio tour. Very busy museum - we had to book our tickets six weeks ahead of time! The outside of the house was not at all what we expected. Pictures were not allowed to be taken inside any part of the museum. It's been a long time since I've read her book, so I didn't remember details of the living situation but it's actually her father's former office where they were hiding. There were 8 in hiding and they had three rooms plus a tiny kitchen and bathroom. But they couldn't really do anything during work hours for fear that one of the workers would hear them.

It was a wonderful museum, very well done at telling the stories of each person in hiding, not just Anne Frank. If you are in the area, I highly recommend it!

The last pic I have for this post is Gavin next to one of the little commuter cars that we saw a lot of in the city.

So we had our first bathroom emergency on this day. As we were walking around in the evening, Gavin realized he had to poop! So I ran with him to a public toilet but they don't take credit cards, only change and we hadn't exchanged any money. All the places we had been to actually did not accept cash, only credit cards! So then I ran with Gavin to a nearby Burger King. I figured they should have a public toilet! They did, upstairs, but you had to pay for that one too. Luckily it took credit cards but there was a turnstile for one person at a time. I wasn't about to pay for both of us, so I paid once and pulled Gavin over the turnstile to get him in the bathroom as quickly as possible!! We avoided an accident thankfully! The things you learn when you travel with kids!!


The next day we visited Zaanse Schans. Stay tuned!