In Amsterdam, everyone–young old, with dogs, kids or flowers, rides a bike.
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is having a major renovation but what they term their “masterworks” are on view in the Phillips Wing. For two months, a portrait of Jan Six by Rembrandt is there and I was lucky to catch it as it’s almost always in the private collection of the Six family.
The Night Watch is on view as are many other works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other big names of the Dutch Golden Age. An Adriaen Coorte work of a bunch of asparagus really struck me in terms of how exquisitely Herr Coorte painted the vegetables. The photo shows green asparagus; the Coorte painting is of the thick, white kind which I don’t like eating as much but what a painting!
That night we didn’t eat asparagus but one of our group had a terrific bowl of snert, the Dutch word for pea soup. The snert was served with smoked bacon on very thin dark bread alongside. Next time I make pea soup, I will bill it as snert. 