Anne Frank, Rembrandt, and the Hard Rock Cafe

Our final day began with a delicious breakfast buffet in the hotel, we then walked in the rain to the Anne Frank Museum.

Anne Frank's house was heart-wrenching, and moving. The story, the layout of the museum, they way the story was conveyed, and walking through the rooms, really has an impact. It was amazing that she wrote in her diary, that she "hoped to become a famous writer". Her actual diaries are on display, along with the German attendance sheet, checking her in to Bergen-Belson Concentration Camp. She died 1 month before the liberation. Her diary was actually a series of notebooks, which she then re-wrote and edited on 300+ individual looseleaf sheets.

After the Anne Frank Museum, we went to RijkMuseum, which is a very large building, but is rather small inside. They do have an amazing array of Rembrandt works, Rembrandt was from Amsterdam, and was a very famous and wealthy artist by the time he was in his early 20's, a big contrast to Van Gogh, who never knew success during his lifetime. Highlights of the Rembrandt exhibit were the "Night Watch", his masterpiece, and "The Jewish Bride", about which Van Gogh himself said he would give up 10 years of his life if he could sit in front of that painting for "2 weeks with a stale loaf of bread".

Rembrandt made over 80 self portraits, largely because he used himself as the test whenever he wanted to try a new technique, or something new with light, texture, etc.

We saw our second Academy Award of the trip, the first was at the Imperial War Museum for a documentary produced about D-Day, the second was Shelly Winters for the 1959 movie version of "Diary of Anne Frank".

After RijkMuseum we headed next door to the Heineken Brewery, we skipped the tour, since we already know how Arthur Guinness makes beer, and spent some time in the Heineken Gift Shop.

We've been to the Hard Rock Cafe four times in three days, Tom said it is the "Most American Place I've Ever Been". The weather today has gone back and forth between hard rain and very sunny. We are now on our standard afternoon break, we'll be out again soon for our final European Dinner, then home in the AM.

This may be it, maybe one more post from the Airport tomorrow if we have time.

Thanks for your support, and your comments, we've had a GREAT, GREAT, GREAT time together, but we are still ready to come home.