Amsterdam: Museum District and Canal Houses

On November 27 we walked to the Museum District.  Here are some pictures from along the way:

There were gardens and open green spaces near the musuems:

This is the Rijksmusuem, the main art and history museum of the Netherlands (mostly art), but we are just passing through today on our way to the Van Gogh Musuem.

This skating rink was behind the Rijksmuseum.  Temperatures were above 0, probably around 10 C or so, so it reminded me of the rink they freeze in downtown Los Angeles.

After a while a few skaters came out:

I didn't take any photos at the Van Gogh Museum.  Here are a few more photos as we walked to a couple of Canal House museums that are back in the central part of the city:

This canal house museum we went to as we had free tickets from the history museum we visited the previous day.  It was a lot more interesting than I had expected.  The house is filled with art and artifacts, but the rooms and fixtures are mostly true to the 1800's when it was an upper-class house.

Hallway:

I loved the curved and carved staircase:

On the right side of this fireplace are portraits of the women of the family who owned the house.  The men are on the left, outside of the picture; this whole room is the "portrait room" for the family:

Painted ceiling in one of the rooms:

View of the canal from one of the upper floors:

The top floor had some temporary exhibits, this one is something to do with the Holy land:

Empty top floor room, facing the canal at the front of the house:

The next house we visited was one that was left to the city by a wealthy childless widow (she was from a wealthy family and it was her family home).  I didn't take many photos here as there were a lot more people visiting this one, but I did find this scullery off the kitchen to be interesting:

After this it was dark and rainy as we walked back to the hotel.  (It rained off and on our whole time in Amsterdam, but that is normal for November).  Coming up next is our canal cruise that we took the following day, along with a trip to the Rijksmuseum.