More random photos

The Westerkerk (West Church) on Prisengracht (Prince's Canal). This beautiful church is a few houses away from the AnneFrankHuis (Anne Frank House).



The line that wraps around this building is to get into the Anne Frank House. It was exactly 9am, the time that they open. The house that Anne and her famiy stayed in (which was actually an industrial warehouse) is the second from the corner - you can see the beginning of the line starts at the left. The tree is covering the house on the corner, which was purchased by the Anne Frank Foundation as their headquarters. It also houses the store museum. The headquarters was completley remodeled, but the Anne Frank house itself has only had a few renovations. The outside front (bottom half) was redone to make it more secure and the ticket window was added. In side everything remains very much the same - the first two floors show details of the business warehouse and the upstairs show the living quarters. One of the inside staircases was closed because it was a VERY steep wooden staircase that was too dangerous for visitors to trapse up and down (esp those with kids!). They put glass panels over it so that you can look up and see what it was like, and built an additional, safer staircase for museum visitors.

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A view up the Singel canal - the height of the church is phenomenal - it makes the 5 story townhouses look like typical houses!

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Jagger enjoyed playing at a little playground on NassauKade.

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Dinner at a neat Irish Pub. We ate fish and chips in a cozy little room with old leather furniture. Jagger enjoyed playing with the coasters on the table!

The Anne Frank House

Today we took a long walk past the Anne Frank House (Ann Frankhuis). We toured the house on our last trip to Amsterdam. It was quite an amazing experience. The Frank family hid from the Nazis on the top two floors of this building, overtop of the spice factory where Otto Frank (Anne's father) worked. We were able to walk through the exact rooms that Anne and her family stayed in. We were able to look out the same windows, climb the same steep Dutch staircase... On the top floor we were able to look at the actual pages of Anne's diaries (there were actually three books full of her writings) and look up the names of Holoucast victims in a large remembrance book.

Pictures of the interior of the house were not permitted. Today we took some pictures of the area. I will describe them below....

The first picture is of the West Church (Westerkerk). The church is just a few houses down from the Anne Frank House. Anne mentions in her diary how the ringing sound of the church bells would soothe her. Unfortunately, after a time the large bells were taken down and melted and the metal was used for war weaponery. The bells were replaced sometime in the 1950's.

The second picture shows the view as if you were looking out of the window of the spice factory (the first floor of where Anne and her family were hiding) at 263 Prisengracht.

The third picture is of Justice and Journey standing with a statue of Anne Frank in the Westerkerk courtyard.

The fourth picture is of the outside of the Anne Frank house. The outside has been restored, but the inside still has the original structure and some of the original furnishings. The house to the left of this was purchased and contains information about the Holoucast and the role that the Dutch played. It also contains a bookstore, restrooms, and reception area.