Hermitage Amsterdam

Amsterdam has an outpost of the St Petersburg Hermitage. It is housed in a seventeenth centry nursing home, the Amstelhof

 It had three exhibitions on. The first was stuff from the Hermitage in St Petersburg forming an exhibition on Catherine the Great. It was well set out, informative, and very opulent!

 The second was on Outsider Art, and I wished I had ignored this as it meant I had very little time to enjoy the much larger exhibition on the Dutch Golden Age. The outsiders had, as far as I could see from the descriptions, almost all suffered from mental health isues. And the stuff was AWFUL. Below is a good example. If your 4 year old brought that home from nursery you would be worried about him being behind, wouldn't you?

The best part of the Golden Age exhibition was this big room with these big group portraits, every one bursting with character.

Then a pleasant walk back to my apartment on one of the nicest evenings of my stay.