The document provides information about key locations in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, including museums, landmarks, and famous artists. It discusses Amsterdam's central station, bicycle culture, and important museums like the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum. It also describes the Anne Frank House, Red Light District, Homomonument, and the city of Haarlem and artist Frans Hals. St. Bavo Church and the city of Utrecht are briefly mentioned.

1. THE NETHERLANDS
Summer 2010

2. AMSTERDAM

3. THE CENTRAL STATION

4.  Amsterdam is the
capital and largest city
the Netherlands,
located in the North
Holland in the west of
the country. Settled as
a small fishing village
in the late 12th century,
Amsterdam became
one of the most
important ports in the
world during the Dutch
Golden Age.

5. BICYCLES
 Amsterdam is one of the most
bicycle-friendly large cities in
the world and is a centre of
bicycle culture with good
facilities for cyclists. In 2006,
there were about 465,000
bicycles in Amsterdam. They
are used by al socio-economic
groups because of their
convenience, Amsterdam's
small size, the large number of
bike paths and the flat terrain.
A wide variety of bicycles are
used, such as road bicycles,
mountain bikes and racing
bikes but the vast majority of
bicycles are second-hand.

6. MUSEUMS
RIJKSMUSEUM VAN GOGH’S MUSEUM
 The most important  Van Gogh lived in Amsterdam for a
museums of Amsterdam short while, so there is a museum
dedicated to his early work. The
are located on the museum is housed in one of the
few modern buildings in this area of
Museum Square, located Amsterdam.
at the southern side of
 This building is where the
the Rijksmuseum. permanent collection is displayed.
A new building was added to the
 It was created in the last museum in 1999. This building,
quarter of the 19th known as the performance wing,
was designed by Japanese
century on the grounds of architect Kisho Kurokawa.
the former World
Exposition.

7. RIJKSMUSEUM

8. THE MILKMAID VERMEER
 The museum was founded
in 1800 in The Hague to
exhibit the collections of the
Dutch stadtholders. It was
inspired by French example.
By then it was known as the
National Art Gallery (Dutch:
Nationale Kunst-Gallerij). In
1808 the museum moved to
Amsterdam on the orders of
king Louis Bonaparte,
brother of Napoleon
Bonaparte. The paintings
owned by that city, such as
The Night Watch by
Rembrandt, became part of
the collection.

9. THE ANATOMY LECTURE OF DR. NICOLAES TULP
 In 1863 there was a
design contest for a new
building for the
Rijksmuseum and Pierre
Cuypers won. The design
was a combination of
gothic and renaissance
elements. The
construction began on
October 1,1876. On both
the inside and the outside,
the building was richly
decorated with references
to Dutch art history.
Another contest was held
for these decorations.
çThe museum was
opened at its new location
on July 13, 1885

10. VAN GOGH MUSEUM
 The Van Gogh Museum
is a museum in
Amsterdam,
Netherlands, featuring
the works of the Dutch
painter Vincent van
Gogh and his
contemporaries. It has
the largest collection of
Van Gogh's paintings
and drawings in the
world.

11. VAN GOGH MUSEUM THE DEPRESSION
A visit to the Van Gogh Museum is a
unique experience. The museum
contains the largest collection of
paintings by Vincent van Gogh in the
world. It provides the opportunity to
keep track of the artist's developments,
or compare his paintings to works by
other artists from the 19th century in
the collection. The museum also holds
an extensive offer of exhibitions on
various subjects from 19th-century art
history. The museum’s permanent
collection includes more than 200
paintings by Van Gogh and many
drawings and letters

13. STEDELIJ MUSEUM
 Next to the Van Gogh
museum. This is
Amsterdam's largest museum
concerning modern art. The
museum opened its doors at
around the same time the
Museum Square was
created. The permanent
collection consists of works of
art from artists like Piet
Mondriaan, Karel Appel and
Malevich .This museum is
also currently being
renovated and expanded.
The main entrance will be
relocated from the Paulus
Potterstraat to the Museum
Square itself. It will be open
again to public in 2009.

14. ANNEFRANKHOUSE
 Anne Frank was one of the Jewish victims of
Nazi persecution during the second world
war. After Nazi Germany invaded the
Netherlands in 1940, increasingly severe
anti-Jewish measures began here as well.
The Frank family tried to escape by going
into hiding.
 On July 1942, Otto Frank, Edith Frank-
Hollander and their daughters Margot and
Anne hid in this building on the
Prinsengracht. They where later joined by
Mr. and Mrs Daan, their sun Peter and Mr.
Dussel. The building consists of two parts : a
front house and a back annex. Otto Frank's
business was located in the front house.
 The uppermost floors of the back anexe
became the hiding place. After more than
two years the group was betrayed and
deported. Anne and Margot died of typhus
in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, only a few
weeks before this concentration camp was
liberated.

15. RED LIGHT DISTRICT
De Wallen, also known as
Rosse Buurt, is a designated
area for legalized prostitution
and is Amsterdam's largest and
most well known red-light
district.This neighborhood has
become a famous tourist
attraction. It consists of a
network of roads and alleys
containing several hundred
small, one-room apartments
rented by sex workers who
offer their services from behind
a window or glass
door, typically illuminated with
red lights. The area also has a
number of sex shops, sex
theatres, peep shows, a sex
museum, a cannabis
museum, and a number of
coffee shops offering various
cannabis products.

16. HOMOMONUMENT
 The monument's design
simultaneously looks back on
gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender histories as it also
looks toward the future.
Designed by Karin Daan, the
monument consists of three
triangles of pinkish granite that
together compose one giant
triangle.
In the picture on the left you see
the first triangle close to a canal.
This triangle points to the
National War Memorial on the
Dam in the centre of Amsterdam.
The three triangles are linked by
a stripe of pink bricks that are
connected across a road and
into a church's backyard.

17. HAARLEM

18. FRAN HALS

19. FRAN HALS RENÉ DESCARTES
 Hals was born in 1580 in Antwerp . He
studied under another Flemish-émigré, Karel
van Mander(1548–1606), whose Manerist
influence, however, is not noticeably visible in
his work. At the age of 27, he became a
member of the city's painter's corporation,
and he started to earn money as an art
restorer for the city council.
 He worked on their large art collection. The
restoration work was paid for by the city of
Haarlem, since all religious art was
confiscated after the iconoclasm, but the
entire collection of paintings was not formally
possessed by the city council until 1625, after
the city fathers had decided which paintings
were suitable for the city hall.
 Hals began his career in portraiture, since
the market for religious themes had
disappeared. His most famous portrait today
is the one he made in 1649 of René
Descartes.
 Frans Hals died in Haarlem in 1666 and was
buried in the city's St. Bavo Church.

21. SAINT BAVO CHURCH
 St. Bravo Church (St. Bravo Church ) is
probably the most well-known landmark in
Haarlem Holland. It is a beautiful gothic
building that was erected around 1559.
 In the subsequent period from the 14th
through 16th centuries, nearly continuous
expansion projects in the Gothic style were
executed on the structure. A new
choir, radiating chapels, expansions of the
transepts, a Chapterhouse, nave aisles and
a single tower western section were all
added during this period. Construction was
considered complete June 7, 1569.
 In 1539, as a result of the rebellion against
Charles V, the old Abbey of St. Bavo was
dissolved. Its abbot and monks went on to
become canons in a Chapter that was
attached to what then became the Church
of Saint Bavo. When the Diocese of Ghent
was founded in 1559, the church became
its Cathedral. The church of Saint Bavo was
also the site of the baptism of Charles V.

22. UTRECHT
 Utrecht is the capital and
most populous city of the
Dutch province of Utrecht.
It is located in the eastern
end of the Randstad, and
is the fourth largest city of
the Netherlands, with a
population of 300,030 in
2007. The smaller Utrecht
agglomeration including
adjacent suburbs and
annexed towns is home to
some 640,000 registered
inhabitants, while the
larger region contains up
to 820,000 inhabitants.

23. THE CATHEDRAL OF
UTRECHT

24. THE DOM TOWER
 The Dom tower, with to
the left behind it the
remaining section of
the Dom church. The
two parts have not
been connected since
the collapse of the
nave in 1674

25. THE OUDEGRACHT
 The Oudegracht is a curved
canal, partly following an old
arm of the Rhine. The inner
city has largely retained its
Medieval structure and the
moat ringing the old town is
largely intact. Because of
the role of Utrecht as a
fortified city, which restricted
construction outside the
walls, until the 19th century
the city has remained very
compact. Surrounding the
medieval core there is a ring
of late 19th and early 20th
century neighborhoods, with
newer neighborhoods
positioned farther out.

26.  Utrecht's ancient city-centre features UNIVERSITY
many buildings and structures from
its earliest origins onwards. It has
been the religious centre of the
Netherlands since the eighth century.
Utrecht is also the see of the
archbishop of the Old Catholic
church,
 Until the golden age, Utrecht was the
city of most importance in the
northern Netherlands (the present-
day country of the Netherlands,
excluding Belgium and Luxembourg),
until Amsterdam became the cultural
and populous centre of the
Netherlands.
 Utrecht is host to Utrecht University,
the largest university of the
Netherlands, as well as several other
institutes for higher education in the
Netherlands. It has the second
highest number of cultural events in
the Netherlands, after Amsterdam.

27. DELFT
 Delft is a city and
municipality in the
province of South
Holland), the
Netherlands. It is located
in between Rotterdam
and The Hague. Delft is
primarily known for its
typically Dutch town
centre, also for the
painter Vermeer, Delft
Blue pottery.

28. THE NEW CHURCH
The church which rose up on the
market square following the visions of
Brother Simon and Jan Col was the
second parish church in Delft and was
called the New Church . The original
church was a temporary wooden
building around which the basilica, as
we know it today, was built over a
period of a century. The wooden
church, which remained until 1420,
was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
While the brick basilica was still under
construction, St. Ursula became the
second patron saint of the New
Church.

29. JOHANNES VERMEER
 The painter Johannes
Vermeer1632–1675) was
born in Delft. Vermeer used
Delft streets and home
interiors as the subject or
background of his paintings.
 Several other famous
painters lived and worked in
Delft at that time, such as
Pieter de Hoogh, Carel
Fabritius, Nicolaes Maes,
Gerard Houckgeest and
Hendrick Cornelisz. van
Vliet. They all were
members of the Delft
School.

30. VIEW OF DELFT BY JOHANNES VERMEER,
 Delft is more than 750 years old. Its
name is derived from 'delven' which
means delve or digging. Delft's oldest
canal is called The Old Delft . Delft
expanded around it; later on many other
city-canals were dug as life lines through
the city.
 In 1246 Delft received city
rights, granted by Holland's Duke
William II. Delft grew prosperous and
new neighborhoods' were added to the
city. In 1355 it reached the size it would
remain at until the 1900s.
 In 1536 a great fire destroyed 2300
houses. The most likely cause was
lightning striking the tower of The New
Church. About 100 years later, in
1654, an explosion destroyed large
parts of town; a warehouse with 36000
kg of gunpowder blew up. A new
warehouse (Kruithuis) was later
built, outside the city perimeter.

31. THE CERAMIC OF DELFT
 Delftware, or Delft pottery,
denotes blue and white
pottery made in and around
Delft in the Netherlands and
the tin-glazed pottery made in
the Netherlands from the
sixteenth century.
 Delftware in the latter sense
is a type of pottery in which a
white glaze is applied, usually
decorated with metal oxides.
Delftware includes pottery
objects of all descriptions
such as plates, ornaments
and tiles.

32. MAASTRICHT

33. MAASTRICHT
Maastricht is a city and a municipality in the southern
part of the Dutch province of Limburg, of which it is
the capital.
Maastricht is widely known as a city of history, culture,
local folklore and education . The town is popular with
tourists for shopping and recreation. The city has a
large international student population.
The name Maastricht is derived from Latin Trajectum
ad Mosam (or Mosae Trajectum), meaning 'crossing at
the Meuse', and referring to the bridge built by the
Romans during the reign of Augustus Caesar.

34. MAASTRICHT CITY HALL

35. BASILICA OF SAINT SERVATIUS
 The present-day church
is probably the fourth
church that was built on
the site of the grave of
Saint Servatius, the first
bishop of the diocese of
century. The increasing
flow of pilgrims in the 9th-
10th century made it
necessary to built a large
pilgrim church. This
church was replaced by
the present-day
Romanesque church,
which was built in several
stages from the 11th until
the 13th centuries.

36. SAINT SERVATIUS
 In the first half of the 13th
century the Bergportaal,
a portal in early Gothic
style, was added to the
south side and is perhaps
the first Gothic
construction in the
Netherlands. Also in
Gothic style are the
chapels along the side
aisles, which were added
in the 14th and 15th
centuries, and the
southern transept.

37. Fort Sint
Pieter, which
FORTRESS OF SINT PIETER
has been
modified quite
a lot over the
years, is intact
and can also
be visited.
This is not a
comprehensiv
e list, but
these are the
main
remnants - be
sure to ask in
the tourist
information if
you visit, they
will be able to
help you find
more.

38. Bonnefanten Museum

39. BONNEFANTEN MUSEUM
 The foremost museum
for old masters and
contemporary fine art
in the province of
Limburg. The
collection features
Medieval sculpture,
early-Italian and
Southern
Netherlandish painting,
and contemporary art
(American Minimalism,
Concept Art and Arte
Povera.

40. It is located in the
city’s old Dominican
Church. Selexyz
Dominicanen is the
result of a merge
SALEXYZ DOMINICANEN
between Maastricht’s
Bergmans bookshop
and the Academische
Boekhandel. The
name Selexyz
indicates that the new
bookstore also
belongs to the same
chain as Selexyz
Donner in Rotterdam
and Selexyz Broese
in Utrecht, among
others. One of the
most attractive
characteristics of
Selexyz bookstores is
that they offer a wide
selection of books in
English… and at first
glance, Selexyz
Dominicanen did not
look disappointing at
all in that department
purpose.

41. ROTTERDAM

42. ROTTERDAM
 Rotterdam is a municipality and city
in the Dutch province of South-
Holland, situated in the west of The
Netherlands .The municipality is the
second largest in the country with a
population of approximately 600,000
people. The city has 1.3 million
inhabitants in its metropolitan area.
 The port of Rotterdam is the largest in
Europe. From 1962 to 2004, it was
the world's busiest port; then it was
superseded by Shanghai.
 Rotterdam is known as a city of
architecture. A few square kilometres
of the city centre offers a complete
overview of what the twentieth
century has produced in terms of
modern architecture.

43. CUBE HOUSES
 Kubuswoningen, or cube
houses, are a set of
innovative houses built in
Rotterdam and Helmond in
The Netherlands, designed
by architect Piet Blom in
1984. The houses in
Rotterdam are located on
Overblaak Street, and
beside the Blaak Subway
Station. Blom tilted the cube
of a conventional house 45
degrees, and rested it upon
a hexagon-shaped pylon.
There are 38 small cubes
and two so called 'super-
cubes', all attached to each
other.

44. CUBE HOUSES
As residents are
disturbed so often by
curious passers-by, one
owner decided to open a
"show cube", which is
furnished as a normal
house, and is making a
living out of offering
tours to visitors.
The houses contain
three floors:
ground floor entrance
first floor with living room
and open kitchen
second floor with two
bedrooms and bathroom
top floor which is
sometimes used as a
small garden
The walls and windows
are angled at 54.7
degrees. The total area
of the apartment is
around 100 square
meters, but around a
quarter of the space is
unusable because of the
walls that are under the
angled ceilings.

45. ROTTERDAM’S LIBRARY
 The Rotterdam Library (Bibliotheek
Rotterdam) includes the Central
Library (Centrale Bibliotheek) and 23
branches. Every year, the library
draws 3.4 million people, making it
Rotterdam’s most popular public
institution. With 24,000 square
metres of floor surface, the Central
Library is one of the largest public
libraries in the Netherlands.
 The most striking part of the
Rotterdam Library collection is the
so-called Erasmus Collection. It
includes the largest collection of
books ‘about’ and ’by’ Erasmus in the
world. In addition the Rotterdam
Library also owns a collection of old
children’s books numbering 6,000
volumes and growing by the year.

46. ARCHITECTURE OF ROTTERDAM
 In 1898, the 45 meter high-rise
office building the White House
was completed, at that time the
tallest office building in Europe. In
the first decades of the 20th century,
some influential architecture in the
modern style was built in
Rotterdam. Notable are the Van
Nelle fabriek (1929) a monument of
modern factory design by Brinkman
en Van der Vlugt, the Jugendstil
clubhouse of the Royal Maas Yacht
Club designed by Hooijkaas jr. en
Brinkman (1909). During the early
stages of World War II the center of
Rotterdam was bombed by the
Germans, destroying many of the
older buildings in the center of the
city. After initial crisis re-construction
the center of Rotterdam has
become the site of ambitious new
architecture.

48. PORT OF ROTTERDAM
 Rotterdam World Port
Europe
 Directly situated on the
North Sea, with optimum,
24/7 access, a wide range
of companies specialising
in storage, transshipment,
industrial processing and
auxiliary services on hand,
and excellent hinterland
connections via 5 different
modes of transport: rail,
inland shipping, road, short
sea/feeder and pipeline.

49. ERASMUS BRIDGE

50. The Erasmus Bridge
(1996) is a 790-
meter (2,600 ft)
cable stayed bridge
linking the north
and south of
Rotterdam. It is
held up by a
138 meters (453 ft)
tall pylon with a
characteristic bend,
earning the bridge
its nickname 'De
Zwaan' ('the
Swan').