In December, 1996 I was lucky enough to take holidays in both Amsterdam as well as southern California. The Dutch airline, KLM, was offering an excellent deal for a trip to Amsterdam: round-trip airfare, four days and three nights in a four star hotel, as well as tons of discounts on museums and attractions--all for only $725 Canadian. This was too good a deal to pass up.

I decided to add on three more days to the Amsterdam trip and then tack on a second holiday as well--this time to southern California. Again, an excellent deal for the airfare was one of the motivating factors, but I also thought that a trip to California would give me a chance to see several more Van Gogh paintings while at the same time enjoying some warm and sunny weather.

Both trips were, without question, very different from each other (from an evening cruise along the Amsterdam canals to the incredible Joshua Tree National Park in the Mojave Desert). If you're planning a Van Gogh trip of your own to either Amsterdam or southern California, then I hope that you find the information I pass along to be of some value. I highly recommend a visit to the official Netherlands Board of Tourism website in order to help you plan your holiday.

Throughout the course of my holidays in both the Netherlands and California, I visited a total of 7 museums and saw 221 Van Gogh paintings. I don't have to tell you how wonderful (and overwhelming!) this was since, up until now, I'd only seen 33 Van Gogh paintings in person in my entire life. Below I include some information about each of the museums along with some friendly advice.

The Museums

• The Van Gogh Museum (Paulus Potterstraat 7, Amsterdam, tel. 31 (0) 20 570 52 00): My visit to the Van Gogh Museum was, without a doubt, one of the great highlights of my trip. The Van Gogh Museum is Mecca to any Van Gogh enthusiast. The museum, of course, has on display far more Van Gogh paintings than you'll find anywhere else in the world, but more than that--it's also the centre of research and study of Van Gogh and his works.

  The museum presents an excellent chronological display of Van Gogh's works. The works are presented as follows:

  • Ground floor: Here you will find many works by Van Gogh's contemporaries which offer a glimpse as to some of the other great painters who influenced Van Gogh. Works by Gauguin, Pissarro, Bernard and many others are included.

  • Second floor: The permanent display of Van Gogh's paintings. Here you will find 83 of Van Gogh's works, from the very beginning in Nuenen to some of his final paintings, including the haunting Wheat Field with Crows. The paintings are beautiful and extremely well displayed. It's obvious that the staff of the Van Gogh Museum doesn't do anything by half-measures. I read one article which dealt specifically on what sort of framing choices have been made--choices which not only enhance the paintings, but also adhere to Van Gogh's own specific feelings about the use of frames. The second floor is a joy--not only with regards to the paintings, but also some of the other items on display: Van Gogh's father's bible, the actual copper vase as seen in his Fritillaries, the plaster statues he used as models while in Paris (along with the paintings themselves), and much more.

  • Third floor: Here one will find the "studies" of Van Gogh--smaller, but no less interesting paintings. There are currently 58 on display in one long glass case, as well as Van Gogh's three beautiful Japonaiseries paintings (in addition, here you will also find an impressive display of many of the actual Japanese woodblock prints that Vincent collected and valued so much). Some of Van Gogh's best works can be found here including Skull with Burning Cigarette and Death's-Head Moth.

  Finally a trip to the Van Gogh Museum just isn't complete without a visit to the absolutely wonderful The Van Gogh Museum Library.

• The Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo): About two hours from Amsterdam is the city of Otterlo where you'll find the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller. Some travel advice: while it would probably be faster to rent a car and drive directly to Otterlo, another alternative would be to go to Amsterdam's Central Station and purchase a train ticket to Apeldoorn. In fact, the vendor in Central Station will sell you a full packet of tickets including the return train trip, the bus from Apeldoorn to Otterlo (the 110--it leaves on an hourly basis), as well as a free coffee at the museum. The train trip takes about an hour and the bus from Apeldoorn takes about 45 minutes (if you have time, stop in the small restaurant just across from the bus platform and have a hearty bowl of the traditional Dutch potato soup). The driver will drop you off about a two minute walk from the Kröller-Müller.

  I wish that I'd had more time to spend at the Kröller-Müller Museum (and that the weather had been warmer so that I could have had a long stroll through the beautiful grounds). In addition to the gorgeous 58 Van Gogh paintings on display are a number of other works by famous artists, including one of Van Gogh's favourites, Jean-François Millet. The museum itself is beautiful situated within a huge park and has a number of interesting sculptures adorning the grounds. The works themselves are extremely well presented and the Kröller-Müller is lucky enough to have some of Van Gogh's most famous works including The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin and Road with Cypress and Star.

  A visit to the Kröller-Müller Museum is an absolute must for anyone interested in the works of Vincent van Gogh.

• The Stedelijk Museum (Paulus Potterstraat 13, Amsterdam, tel. 020 573 29 11): Located directly next door to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk has an interesting collection of contemporary art, including some works by Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso. Though the Stedelijk has five Van Gogh paintings within its holdings, only one, La Berceuse (Augustine Roulin) was on display when I went. Still, the rest of the museum is certainly worth a visit.

A non-Van Gogh recommendation: The Ann Frank House (Prinsengracht 263, Amsterdam, tel. 020 556 71 00): Be sure to pay a visit to the Ann Frank House while in Amsterdam. It's an incredibly moving and profoundly sad experience. Anne and her family spent two years in hiding here during World War II, behind the famous revolving bookcase. Eventually they were betrayed and Anne and her family were deported by the Nazis. Anne and her sister, Margot, died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen in March, 1945--only a few weeks before the concentration camp was liberated.

For me, the most wrenching moment of the visit came while visiting the very room where Anne slept. In order to keep up her spirits, Anne covered the walls with pictures of movie stars and drawings of happy, laughing children. The pictures are still there. So are the memories . . . .

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