Anne Frank House, Maritime Museum & More

Anne Frank House
We tried to get tickets to this highly sought after destination a couple of months before our trip. At that time all available online tickets were sold out. A note on the website suggested that often some tickets become available within a week of your visit. So, naturally, I tried again about a week before our departure. Same deal. There was one ticket available on one day and another ticket available on a different day but that was it. At that point, our only choice was to show up early and hope we could get tickets "on the spot." I researched this method of obtaining tickets and learned from other very helpful travelers that even arriving 30 minutes before the opening was no guarantee of entry. We decided to be in line at 8:00 am for the 9:00 am opening. We were not the first in line but we were way up in the front (B: we were number 15).

Later on the line was lllllllloooooonnnnnnnnggggggg.  We were finished touring the museum by this point. The line got big fast.

 The long line panoramic shot.

This is a very interesting place to visit. The space the families occupied (the upper floors of the rear building annexed to Anne's father's business) is actually much larger than I had imagined. Still, it was two years that 8 people lived here in hiding. They did have access to a radio they listened to at night so they were aware of what was going around them. His office staff knew about those in hiding (and helped) but apparently the warehouse workers on the lower floors did not. Once they were exposed (by someone) they were taken to camps. Only Otto Frank, Anne's father, survived the ordeal. Anne's diaries exist because her father was somehow able to continue replenishing her with new blank books and blank sheets of paper. When all were taken prisoner, an office worker hid the journals for safekeeping. When it was learned that Anne had died, the office worker returned the journals to her father.

Walking distance from the Anne Frank House was a small little spot we wanted to investigate called Begijnhof- a courtyard surrounded by homes and two churches. The site dates to the 14th c. No photos are allowed. Naturally, that did not discourage most of the other visitors to the site. We snapped one photo before entering- of the courtyard door. This was the only "sign" indicating this was the correct place. Just an arch with the name of the place over the door in the middle of an average looking block.

Het Scheepvaart Museum
Later in the day we also visited the Maritime Museum. It was set up in 4 wings. All three of us did three wings then we separated. Two of us went to visit a ship anchored outside.

The third member of our team (me) visited the fourth wing. This was the wing we should have visited first. Absolutely the best. A very large space filled with navigational instruments in a room displaying constellations on the wall and ceiling. Gorgeous. This wing also held a collection of maritime landscape paintings—Dutch Masters.

Battle of Gibralter Between the Dutch and the Spanish Fleet (1622) , Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen

Water as a Landscape (1650) Aert van der Neer. After 1625, a group of maritime artists emerged who no longer used vivid colors but instead used subdued tones of the Dutch climate. Aert van der Neer.

There was also an entire room with comfy chairs and sofas filled with albums of actual photos taken by travelers from long ago. I could have spent hours there.

Fancy mast decorations