One of the things we love about living in Amsterdam is visiting the city centre. While Amsterdam is famous for its multitude of, shall we say, earthly delights, there are also plenty of wonderful family-friendly activities here. Shortly after we arrived, we bought ourselves the Museumkaart, a card that allows you to get into most of Amsterdam’s museums and other historical sites like the Anne Frank House for free.
Our first couple of times using the cards at the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum were somewhat less than successful, due to a combination of crowds, long lines, and insufficient parental ingenuity. Today I was determined to make a better plan. We started off the morning with hot chocolate and pain au chocolat (keyword: chocolate) at De Bakkerswinkel, slathered liberally with their signature strawberry jam, lemon curd, and pineapple basil preserves.
While everyone was still on a sugar high, we cycled over to Dam Square, site of the Royal Palace, our cultural destination for the day.
When we asked about kid-friendly things to do while touring the Palace, they informed us that unfortunately the audio tour for children had been discontinued. Undeterred, we opted for the adult audio tour for everyone, which the children ended up finding fascinating.
The Palace was full of all manner of marble reliefs and gigantic paintings depicting Greco-Roman themes, so I once again was happy that I spent the first 6-8 years of my children’s lives thoroughly indoctrinating them in Classical mythology. For example, here’s a fairly terrible photo of a relief of Icarus, placed, appropriately enough, above the room designated to hear bankruptcy cases.
In this photo you can see Atlas holding up the sky, whilst presiding over three gigantic floor maps depicting the Eastern Hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere, and the night sky, complete with constellations. Political borders and European knowledge of North America have changed significantly during the few hundred years since the maps were made. But the stars have not.
Once finished inside the Palace, we went back out to the square, where a delightfully atmospheric puppet show was in progress.
Street performers in Dam Square today included a Darth Vader, a Yoda, two Grim Reapers, a nude woman being progressively covered in body paint, and this impressive Neptune (who is, you’ll notice, pulling Axa’s hair. Why?!?).
The usual bubble blowers were out in force as well, and Axa and Raj are clearly not too old to partake in some gratuitous bubble popping.
And yes, we are “those tourists” who shamelessly feed the pigeons.
It might seem like an innocent photo, but the pigeons here are really a bit of a problem. Not only have I seen them brazenly stealing food off of (occupied) outdoor cafe tables; they are not above flying in and snatching a tender morsel out of the very hand of an unsuspecting passerby. In fact, watching these pigeons in action, it’s easy to imagine how the tale of King Phineas and the Harpies, who stole an entire banquet off his table every night before he could even begin to eat, got its start.
Speaking of which, we finished off the afternoon with Dutch hotdogs, complete with all the trimmings. Which in this case included ketchup, mustard, curry sauce, mayonnaise, diced onions, pickle relish, red peppers, sauerkraut, french onions, and mini potato sticks. They disappeared into our mouths so quickly the pigeons didn’t have a chance.
Wow, those are some hotdogs!! 🙂