We then went out to explore and were thankful for a warmer day! We were headed to the I AMsterdam letters by the Rijksmuseum and saw a free tour at Coster diamonds, so we decided to pop in. I had originally planned to go to the Diamond Museum, but after reading some reviews of it, I wasn't sure it was worth the money, so this free diamond experience seemed like the perfect opportunity! And it ended up sharing a gift shop with the Diamond Museum, so of course the kids were excited! But first they really loved watching the men who were working on the diamonds and seeing all the gems and diamonds.
We crossed the street over to get some photos at the I AMsterdam letters. We should have gone early in the morning the day before when we are trying to kill time because it would have been emptier then!
The kids played on a little playground for a while, and then we went over to the van Gogh Museum. This was something I was really looking forward to, and the kids ended up LOVING it and were really interested and engaged. We had such a nice time there together. Leighton was a bit disappointed to not see Starry Night, but he knew a few of the other paintings and was super excited to see them (Potato Eaters is his favorite, followed by van Gogh's bedroom and Sunflowers). Riley really loved a lot of the landscapes and flowers, and her favorite was the Almond Blossoms.
 |
| SUCH a clever souvenir! |
When we were leaving, we saw this Almond Blossoms car parked across the street!
The kids ran up and down a hill a few times, and then we went to a grocery store to grab some picnic supplies for our very late lunch. Riley was thrilled that a. the carts were teal and b. they had little ones for kids!
Leighton was so excited to see this giant croissant!
We relaxed in the garden at the hotel and had our little picnic, including Leighton's first stroopwaffle of the trip.
We got ourselves ready and went to meet Roy outside his meeting venue so we could join him and some of the other conference speakers for a canal boat ride and dinner.
After the boat dropped us off, we were near the I AMsterdam letters so took a few more pictures before heading to the hotel for bed.
- - - -
total walking: approximately 3.5km or 2.2 miles (plus museums)
- - - -
Did Leighton buy the clever souvenir? Pretty cute. And I don't know if I've ever seen the Almond Blossoms painting...and to see a car painted in the same pattern is very cool. I'm going to dig out the Van Gogh books I have.
ReplyDeleteWe bought the chips :) Of course we did! Couldn't resist. They were really, really good!
Delete