This is part two of a series of posts sharing the pictures I took on vacation in Europe in June/July 2026. you can find Part One here:
Part one was just the first day we were in Amsterdam and spent the day walking around the centre part of the city taking in the sights, admiring the old buildings, marvelling at all the BICYCLES, checking out street art and looking for Space Invaders. The next few days we spent in galleries (which I'll probably just do separate posts about!). So this post has pictures of things we saw on the way to and from said galleries over the next two days...
The first day we went to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and spent most of the day there. The second day we went to the Van Gogh museum in the morning (and a bit of the afternoon?) and the Moco Museum Amsterdam later in the afternoon.
Most of the route to the Rijksmuseum we'd already walked a lot of in our search for Space Invaders the first day, so there wasn't a pile of new pictures to add. The Van Gogh Museum and the Moco Museum Amsterdam are all in the same area as the Rijksmuseum, so there are even fewer photos for the second day...
I'd made a mistake of mentioning to Amanda that there was this thing called the I AMsterdam card... which was a pass that could get you into a BUNCH of things... and Amanda is a sucker for a GOOD DEAL... so my list of things we COULD do in Amsterdam, suddenly became a checklist of all the things we MUST do - PLUS a bunch of other stuff was added by Amanda... just because it was FREE!! (entry included with the pass!).
The ONE THING that wasn't included was the Van Gogh museum - which the people selling the I AMsterdam Card told us we were unlikely to get into if we didn't already have tickets, because they were usually sold out weeks in advance! After a bit of a panic, when we later got back to the hotel, we found there were tickets available for just about any time we were going to be there over the next week, so we booked tickets for the very next day!
While panicking about the Van Gogh museum, I also remembered that the same often happens with the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay, and so I made a mental note to check those and potentially book tickets for when we were in Paris... but then when there was zero problem getting tickets for the Van Gogh museum, I completely forgot about the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay...
Space Invader we spotted on the way to the Rijksmuseum.
Another Space Invader on the way to the Rijksmuseum
Detail of the above - note the two rows of the small drab tiles below (that I noticed near some of the other invaders in part one!
Yet another Space Invader on the way to the Rijksmuseum.
Getting closer.
Closer Still!
it looks like there was another of the two lines of rows above it... but one of the rows has fallen off or been chipped off.
Also I'm not sure what the yellow and reddish-orange thing is off to the left of it... is it some sort of street art installation...? I can't make out what it's supposed to be (if it's supposed to be anything!?). Or perhaps it was part of a bigger thing that was broken...!? Or maybe it's just a colourful bit of garbage stuck to the wall!?
This one we spotted after we left the Rijksmuseum. Amanda had not yet spotted it and wondered why I was backing away from her and was about to yell at me, concerned I was going to back all the way into the bike lane!
Detail of the Invader above.
Another Invader found on the way back to the hotel. Can you spot it...?
There it is!
Amanda was getting right into the hunt for these - and started taking selfies of herself with a lot of them... I'm not entirely sure what she was doing with said selfies...? It's not like she posts much of anything on social media anymore... not can I think of anyone she'd send them to (other than me!?)
Other public art in Amsterdam
These were some really fun lizards cast in bronze(?) that we spotted the second day on the way to the Van Gogh museum! They lined the stone edges along two sides of a small green space...
But then I noticed there were some even in the grass!! (how do they MOW it!?)
The only invaders we saw that day were the ones IN THE MOCO MUSEUM!?
This one was on display in the museum.
The info posted along with the invader in the museum.
apparently a collab between Invader and Damien Hirst...?
This Space Invader was located IN THE GIFT SHOP!?
(yes, that is a €9500.00 price tag!?)
Tempted as I was, it was a little out of my price range... Totally would have been able to get that in the luggage, without any problems... could not say the same for ALL THE BOOKS I ended up buying along the way!?
random public sculpture of naked dude down some side street...
More Building details/ornamentation...
close-up details of a building I'd seen the other day?
More of the same.
Building detail/publis statuary... there was a fair bit of this... I did not take pictures of EVERYONE I saw... I was already taking hundreds of photos per day... I had to draw the line somewhere.
Another of the Foot Print casts I mentioned in Part One.
Stay tuned for Part Three, which covers the next day or two of wandering around Amsterdam.
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