Rolling Traveler

Amsterdam is certainly a lively and exciting city, but it has far more to offer than the stores and coffee shops in the narrow, bustling streets flanking the Damrak, and the tourist attractions, beer gardens and restaurants ringing the Dam. If art and history are more your style, and you’d rather spend a quieter day, I recommend going to the wonderful Van Gogh Museum, which is out in the Museumplein (Museum Quarter) that also houses the National Gallery and Museum of Modern Art. While you won’t get away from the crowds, it’s a different pace, and I find it very restful.

There are two options for getting out to the Van Gogh Museum from Amsterdam Centraal: cab, or the number 2 or 5 tram. Neither is ideal, so be prepared. There is a cab stand at the main railway station, and it usually has a good number of cabs at it. Cabs can be difficult to hail on busy days, but you can have your hotel call and order one, and remember to have them say that you have a wheelchair with you. Although the museum is only 3 km from Centraal, it can still turn into an expensive trip: there are a lot of cab companies in the city, and not all seem to be well regulated. For example, read this web site; although it’s two years old, the information is still fairly accurate.

The number 2 and 5 go from the same stop in front of the main railway station, but while the number 5 runs accessible vehicles almost all day, about half the number 2 vehicles are not accessible. Also, bear in mind that GVB is not very tourist friendly if you don’t know what you’re doing. Finally, the stop you need to get out at is not level with the floor of the tram, so if you’re not confident with drops, don’t plan to go on your own.

There are good directions to the Museum Quarter on the Van Gogh web site.

The Museum itself is fully accessible, rating a Very Good. The only obstacle is at the outdoor elevator that goes from street level to the ticket office. When I went, someone had left one of those barriers that amusement parks and airports use to show people where to queue across the ticket office-level door of the elevator. I had to ask for it to be moved, and it took a while for the person at the door to realize what I needed. The interior is perfect: elevators to every floor, a disabled access restroom, and plenty of space in all the viewing rooms to accommodate even a wide or bulky chair.

Of course, it is the collection that is the most important thing, and if you enjoy art and history, it doesn’t disappoint. It rates an Excellent; they have done a great job of exhibiting the pieces, and giving historical and personal detail that enriches the experience. There are so many wonderful and famous Van Gogh paintings, and many sketches and smaller pieces. I particularly enjoy his Japanese woodblock print-inspired pieces, which I had been unaware of before my first visit. There are also rooms with works that inspired Van Gogh and that were inspired by Van Gogh. There is a lot to see for just one visit, but even without looking at everything, you can come away with a great sense of the artist and his work.

Final note: I considered giving the museum an accessibility rating of Good, because of one issue that is common to many museums and galleries, but in the end I decided that it was unfair to the Museum. As with many museums exhibiting framed paintings under glass, the positioning of the painting and the lighting can combine to make the image harder to see from the perspective of a wheelchair user; this necessitates backing away to get a better angle (which means you lose detail, or other people get in your way not seeing what you’re trying to do), or trying to pull yourself up a bit (which is tiring and uncomfortable). However, I cannot see any reasonable solution to this issue: if the paintings were at my eye line, they wouldn’t be as viewable to the majority of visitors! Therefore, I didn’t drop the rating, deciding it would be unfair, but I do want to warn wheelchair users that Van Gogh’s early works used very dark tones, and suffer the most from our perspective.

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