Day 17 – Van Gogh, The Nine Streets, Canal Life

Street Scenes — Walking the City

We only had one true agenda today: visit the Van Gogh Museum. But as always, the meandering moments end up carrying just as much weight.

The area known as the Nine Streets—De Negen Straatjes—is a cluster of narrow lanes woven between Amsterdam’s canals, filled with independent shops, cafés, and storefronts that feel distinctly local. This is where much of our wandering took place before and after visiting the museum, and where the city’s character really revealed itself—unpolished, expressive, and full of personality.

Walking a place can be just as profound as any must-see attraction. And for some reason, I always notice the birds singing. I don’t think I even notice them in city spaces at home. So perplexing, but the feeling remains steadfast in me no matter where I go.

New places purge your senses and light them up.

There is so much to take in.

Everything is art.

I found myself noticing small, inconsequential things: the way a tree frames a façade, the way red flowers climb up toward a window. Wrought iron swirls as a handrail. The way the clouds blanket the May to June sky in puffy cotton balls.

This is what I love about wandering a city like this; taking in all its layers.

And when I get home from traveling, I always see every ordinary thing in my life from a different perspective. For example, I see my home as a castle—grander than I knew.

Whatever it is, it is enough.

My perspective is clearer. And I am better for it.

Once again, I stand firmly with my megaphone declaring that travel is a crucial element in a life well-lived.

Click (or tap) any photo to open all galleries, see the full image, captions, and scroll through the set.

Van Gogh Museum

Visiting the Van Gogh Museum felt significant.

There’s something profound about seeing an artist’s work in the place where their life unfolded. You’re not just looking at paintings—you’re standing inside the context that shaped them.

I’ll be honest: Van Gogh has never been my favorite. There are other artists I’m more drawn to.

But standing in front of his work, seeing the texture of the brushstrokes, the movement in the paint—it gave me a new appreciation.

His work feels restless. Intentional, but searching. Experimental, yet lived.

And what struck me most was not just Van Gogh’s work—but how it became revered.

Vincent sold almost nothing in his lifetime—likely just one painting. He struggled financially, relied on his brother Theo for almost everything, and dealt with ongoing mental and physical challenges. The image we have of him—a poor, troubled, deeply passionate artist—is grounded in truth.

But that alone doesn’t create legacy.

After Vincent died in 1890, Theo died just six months later. Theo’s wife, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, was left with hundreds of Vincent’s paintings.

And what she did next matters.

She didn’t just preserve his work—she shaped how the world encountered it.

She organized exhibitions. She placed his paintings where they would be seen. She published his letters, giving people access to his thoughts, his struggles, his intensity. She gave context to the work—emotion, story, meaning.

All of this is illustrated in the museum.

From a modern lens, it’s hard not to see this as a form of public relations.

Not in a manipulative sense, but in the clearest definition: framing, positioning, and carrying a story into public view.

And it worked.

Which raises questions I can’t quite shake:

Would Van Gogh be as revered without the public relations effort?

Why didn’t his work sell when he was alive?

What changed? The art—or the way it was presented?

What Johanna offered wasn’t just paintings. It was a narrative: a passionate artist, misunderstood, struggling, searching, creating anyway.

That story matters. It gives people a way in.

And it makes me think about how often public relations—good, strategic, intentional public relations—shape what we come to value.

We see this everywhere.

There’s a famous example from the diamond industry—De Beers—where a sustained campaign and their slogan “A Diamond is Forever” helped position diamonds as essential to engagement—something timeless and rare, even though the supply was carefully managed and far from scarce. The campaign is often cited as one of the greatest public relations campaigns in history. If you’re curious, this video  explains it well.  Different context, but the mechanism feels familiar. And if you’re curious about my career in public relations—and my passion for the subject— that’s here.

After visiting so many museums over the years, I keep coming back to this:

Art is subjective. No one person gets to decide what is great.

Sometimes it’s skill. Sometimes it’s emotion. Sometimes it’s something unusual that catches hold. And sometimes, it’s the story that carries it forward. We all know that stories can create legends.

Because of that, I think it’s just as important to look in the smaller places. Artists are everywhere. Their work is often overlooked—not because it lacks something, but because it hasn’t been brought into view.

I never tire of seeing it.

And I’m grateful for the people who preserve it—and, yes, the ones who help us see it.

Click into a photo to explore the full gallery—it’s part of the experience.

The Museum Offers An Immersive Experience

Click the picture to see the captions.

 Other Great Artists At The Van Gogh Museum

I was just as drawn to the surrounding works.

Monet and Degas, in particular—two very different approaches, but both unmistakable. Seeing them side by side reminded me how varied art can be, even within the same era. It’s one thing to see these pieces in books. It’s another to stand in front of them and realize how much doesn’t translate through a page or a screen.

Each one so unique.

Claude Monet’s Tulip Fields near The Hague (1886).

Theo van Gogh had written admiringly about Monet’s art as early as 1885. Vincent initially dismissed the Impressionists as careless and badly painted, but in Paris he came to see what Theo saw—bright color, loose brushwork, and a radically fresh way of looking. This painting became part of that story; Vincent saw it in Paris in 1887.

This also connects to what scholars call Van Gogh’s Paris period (1886–1888), when exposure to the Impressionists transformed his palette. That makes Monet’s presence in this museum feel especially resonant.

I love knowing Monet’s luminous tulip fields helped shape Van Gogh’s evolving eye.

Edgar Degas’s Woman Bathing 

I was surprised and delighted to find a Degas at the Van Gogh Museum. Woman Bathing (c. 1887) by Edgar Degas (1834–1917) reflects what I love about his work: something simple and everyday-ish made extraordinary. Degas was known for finding beauty in unposed moments. Van Gogh saw Degas’s nudes in Paris and greatly admired them, which likely explains why his work is featured here. That attention to ordinary life is part of what sets Degas apart, and why he matters to so many people.

Storefronts & Windows

Back out on the streets, store windows held my attention. They set the vibe of Amsterdam’s cool urban attitude.

I especially love that storeowners project their attitude onto their glass canvasses. To this beautiful-thing/meaningful-thing seeker, window expressions touting love-you-as-you-are poetry represent Amsterdam as a whole: free, hip, rooted, gracious, kind, fond, and welcoming  to all humans, no matter our packaging.

Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones)

And then, more stumbling stones.

I always stop when I see them.

If you don’t know about Stolpersteines yet, check out my previous posts What the Holocaust Taught Me About Human Nature, Day 12: Castles in the Mist | Sailing the Rhine & Koblenz, and Day 13 — Cologne, Germany: A City of Locks & Fragrance.They are just too important. Each one carries a name, a life. I feel a responsibility to photograph them, to share them, to keep those names moving forward in whatever way I can.

There are some places that don’t allow them. Some people wish to forget the atrocities of the war, of the Holocaust, and move on.

But they are of equal value to other historical elements, just as important as architecture, or canals, or food, or cobblestones, or churches…

History is history.

Glorious or grotesque.

I can’t imagine a more proper or respectful way to honor those who were stolen, lest we grow immune to their tragedies and commit the same atrocities on others.

Story Tiles

One little discovery I loved in Amsterdam was StoryTiles, handmade ceramic art tiles created by Dutch designer Marga van Oers’ . They riff on traditional Delftware, but with wit, whimsy, and often a surreal twist.

They often begin with classic Dutch imagery—canal houses, windmills, tulips, bicycles, ships at sea, birds, pastoral scenes—and then slip into little visual stories: lovers on rooftops, a woman reading in a tree, a whale floating above the city, a cyclist pedaling through clouds. That’s why they’re called StoryTiles. Each one tells a story.

But the beauty is…you get to make up the story.

I chose one of a little dark-haired girl riding a bicycle across a canal bridge, with a dog tucked in her basket. I couldn’t help but think of Anne Frank. If Anne Frank had been allowed the ordinary freedoms of childhood, I imagine her pedaling over bridges like this, along the canals, as carefree as any Amsterdam girl. That is what this little tile came to mean to me. I find it sad, but also hopeful. In this scene, I see Amsterdam as it is now. And how it should be.

The second felt iconic Amsterdam: canal houses, a classic Dutch city bike—an omafiets (“grandma bike”)—and a basket spilling over with flowers. I later learned those upright Dutch bicycles became beloved because they are both romantic and practical: graceful to look at, but designed for ordinary life, with stable frames, easy step-through mounts, baskets, and an unhurried posture suited to city streets. That feels very Amsterdam to me—beauty woven into usefulness. Honestly, I think I’m in love with them.

I can’t wait to buy more from this store. I will when I return for my 42 Days: A Viking Passage & Beyond trip.

Money

Oh, I’m such a tourist taking pictures of currency.

I don’t care. They are art.

Again… it’s the little things that all make up a big thing.