Eurostar

Last day of the trip and we decide to eschew the buffet breakfast at Cafe Moer and take our suitcases for a short walk up Overtoom to the Toasty Cafe we’d walked past on Monday’s exploration. Pink grapefruit juice, coffee and croissant and we’re off to the tram stop heading for Leidseplein – getting the hang of direction of travel and so on by now. The trams are very frequent and easy to use. You can buy a transport card or just touch in and out with a credit card or phone. They look quite small from outside with just two coaches but have Tardis-like interiors.

As we walked across Museumplein yesterday, we’d spied a locker storage facility in the Q-Park garage and so our first port of call was here to leave our suitcases knowing we could retrieve them later and get a tram back to Centraal Station from the stop opposite the Concertgebouw. This proved very easy and secure and saved us either trekking back to the hotel or going to the station twice. We had two more museums to tick off before checking in for the return Eurostar jouney at three-thirty. I had been to the Moco in Barcelona at Christmas and so was keen to visit the original in Amsterdam. Their mission is to present modern and contemporary artists in elegant surroundings. In Barcelona the museum occupies the fine old Palacio Cervelló not far from the equally impressive Picasso Museum. In Amsterdam they took over the historic Villa Alsberg next to the Van Gogh Museum. They have a significant number of authenticated Banksy originals and prints, some Yayoi Kusama pumpkins, a couple by Warhol, Basquiat and Keith Haring – and a Damien Hirst. There were also many artworks and video installations which were fascinating to explore. Some left me cold and uncomprehending, others I revelled in. That’s art I guess. One area was devoted to NFTs which despite all attempts I still don’t understand. One artist in the NFT exhibit that really appealed to me was Andres Reisinger whose environmental messages video Arcadia is accompanied by narration and an undulating minimalist music track. It has some phenomenal animation in the visuals and the poetry is very affecting. The room had a mirror wall so seeing ourselves and the video images stretching off into infinity reminded me of walking the great length of Hockney’s Normandy frieze at Saltmills in Bradford a while back. You can see Arcadia on Vimeo and Reisinger, composer RAC and poet Arch Hades talk about making it on YouTube.

Moco museum exterior and stairwell, Banksy’s faceless policemen, Kusama pumpkin, Takashi Murakami X Virgil Abloh sculpture and an animated NFT

Time for lunch now and we decided to take it in the elegant cafe at the Stedelijk Museum which was to be our last port of call on our cultural marathon. The museum is in someways I suppose the Tate Modern to Tate Britain comparison with the Rijksmuseum. The permanent collection is divided into three sections: up to 1950, 1950-80 and 1980 to the present. It’s striking modern entrance hall conceals a fine Victorian edifice from 1895. I guess we might be having art fatigue but I found it the least interesting of our visits although there were still quite a few objects that caught my eye.

Stedelijk Museum exterior, Vanishing Point cotton sculpture by Lenore Towney, El Anatsui’s In the World But Don’t Know the World made from bottle tops and found objects which reminded me of the huge Miro tapestry with umbrellas I’d seen in Barcelona at Christmas and Paul Citroen’s Escher-like Metropolis.

We set off to collect our luggage with Fran nobly fetching mine as well, as I’d omitted to take photos of the museums as I’d originally thought I wouldn’t be writing a blog about this trip. But we’ve had such a good time I just thought I had to share. We board a tram at Concertgebouw and soon arrive at the main station – another impressive building.

Check in at Amsterdam was less good than in London as we were all cooped up for an hour in a small enclosure on Platform 15 with few seats and no food facilities other than a vending machine. Every visit we’ve made this trip has been followed, almost instantly, with a request for feedback. I am very bored with this constant search for meaningless comment and generally disregard them but I did fill in Eurostar’s with my thoughts about the check in arrangements in Amsterdam. The journey itself was impeccable, so much so that at one point I said to Fran that we must be nearing Lille and she replied that we were already in England. We parted at St Pancras with the words ‘See you tomorrow’ since the reason for our return was to attend Thursday’s Gala Dinner for the Watford Community Sports & Education Trust to celebrate 30 years. Can it really be five years ago that I wrote a book for them? The evening was a total delight with many current and former players present as well as many friends and colleagues. We were presented with a substantial book containing the annual impact review and thirty stories from Trust supporters. Fran and I were delighted to find ourselves on adjacent pages.

The evening was made even more special when Fran collected an award for being the Trust’s Fundraising Champion. We then stayed partying until far too late but it was a brilliant culmination of a week celebrating all the things we love – art. music, travel, beer and wine, food, friends and football.

Monday 20 March 5 am! Is this wise? Wearily into the shower, check small suitcase and lock up the house and set off to catch the 05:59 from Lee to London Bridge and thence to St Pancras. On arrival I’m just about to WhatsApp ‘I’m here’ when Frances appears beside me. We then move to the Eurostar check in line. This ridiculous hour is because they suggest you check in 90 minutes before the scheduled departure – in our case 08:16. The check in process is simple with the exception that I have to go through the scanner twice because it detected my house keys in my jeans pocket – but not my trusty Swiss Army knife! Security! Fortified with coffee and croissant we board the train and set off for a three day trip to hoover up culture in Amsterdam. This was in response to a random comment by me in the pub before the Reading game on 4 February along the lines of: ‘There’s this once in a lifetime exhibition of 28 of Vermeer’s known 37 paintings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I‘m going. Anyone else?’ After several attempts to sort out mutually acceptable arrangements in transpired that just Fran and I (oh the joys of retirement) were able to make it. So off we go.

The journey was direct to Amsterdam – last time I had to change in Brussels. It takes just about four hours and we arrived in a rather damp Amsterdam Centraal Station a little after one o’clock. Time for a beer rather than taking the tram straight to the hotel. So we set off across the canal down a street towards Dam Square where I have previously found suitable quaffing locations.

Before long – rejecting all the chain places on the main streets we found the delightful Kadinsky (sic -not named after the painter) in Langebrugsteeg just around the corner from Dam Square and the Royal Palace. Affligem Blond was exactly to Fran’s taste and the regular suited me just fine. We accompanied the second with a very tasty ham and cheese toastie. Observing people coming and going from the shop opposite it became clear that this was a cannabis bar – we didn’t partake. Then finally with the rain abating a little we set off to take a tram to the hotel which was south west of the centre near Vondelpark one of the city’s several big open areas. Last time I was here in 2018 I’d seen people skating on one of the lakes in the park.

Like so many other cities, Amsterdam is a complete mess of diggers, holes in the road, muddy pavements and ‘tram stop not in operation’ signs. So we had a bit of a trek to find a stop for the number 17 to Surinamplein which deposited us a five minute walk from the hotel. Only later in the Stedelik Museum did the significance of Suriname become clear. The hotel was part of a Eurostar package but looked OK on the website. Being greeted at the main entrance by chaps carrying plasterboard to to their van wasn’t the best start.

A sign indicated their apologies that the foyer was being refurbished and that the ‘VIP’ entrance (Dutch sense of humour) was round the corner right and right. Easy enough and check in was conducted by a pleasant enough chap. The the challenge began. Take the lift to floor one in this Tower B go through the door and turn left along a safari route all the while admiring the Conscious Hotel Group’s green roof. They are also very eco conscious in every other aspect which was no bad thing. I could even scan a QR code to say ‘Don’t bother to clean my room’ with its promise of environmental benefits and that they would plant a tree. But that was after reaching the room – something still to be achieved. The walkway led to Tower A where another lift took us to the fifth floor and two similar and very clean, neat and pleasant rooms with huge comfortable beds.

We each took a few moments to unpack and sort ourselves out and then went to find an early evening beer as we were due to meet the agent who sends me occasional paid work from the Netherlands for dinner. We hadn’t seen each other for five or six years and Annemarie and her husband Alan were driving up from Utrecht to meet us at Cafe Moer – a vegan joint also owned by the Conscious Hotel. We were on a very long street called Overtoom where there were few open options. It seems a lot of places close for several hours after three o’clock and open again around five or six. Off the main road in a side street we did find a thriving local with a raucous group playing pool, a pair sharing the cares of the world with each other and good beer and free crisps. One elderly gent sitting in a window seat looked enviously at the bowl in front of us, but when we offered him our cheesy waffles they were not to his taste and he demanded – and got – proper crisps from the genial landlady. Just time for one and then back to the hotel to get ready for dinner at 6.30.

Annemarie is Dutch and married to Alan who is from Croydon and a Crystal Palace fan. But neither of us had a lot to say about football given this season for both clubs. We did talk a bit about the work of Watford’s chairty the Community Sports & Eductaion Trust and I promised to try to send them a copy of the book I wrote for the 25th Anniversary which would show them the scope of the charitable work. We had a very lively evening with acceptable if not gourmet, vegan dishes, good beers and a more than passable German red wine which can’t have been too bad as Fran and I did another bottle after Alan and Annemarie had left to get back home to relive her father of their 13-year-old. They were both great company and I refrained from talking too boringly about work! So a first day – rather a long one – came to an end and a good night’s, much needed, sleep ensued.

Tag: Eurostar

Last day – more art and a celebration

Culture trip – setting off