Amsterdam and Bag Museum

Last week I was on holidays with Mr Sewchristine in Holland.  We met up with my sister and her husband for a week of Dutch hospitality.  We did the usual sightseeing like windmills, cheese factories (yum!) and Delft ware and tiles.   

 Of course we took a canal boat and had an hour travelling around the canals.  Very pretty it was too.

Sadly, the weather wasn't kind to us and we spent a number of days dodging the rain hence my hair in this photo!

Mr Sewchristine is a keen photographer and he took some stunning black and white shots of the city streets.  I'm going to get a couple printed out and framed.  They look so atmospheric and really beautiful.  This one captures the canal, bridge and bikes.  The essence of Amsterdam.

While the boys were off bike riding around the city, my sister and I made our way to the Bag and Purse Museum.  Yes that's right, a whole museum for bags and purses!



This was a beautiful old house, stunningly decorated with three large floors of handbags and purses.  It told the history of the handbag through the ages, and had examples of very early purses right throught to today.  I loved the turn of the 20th century leather bags that were made by saddlemakers, the gorgeous flapper clutch bags, the elegant bags of the 40's and 50's, the encrusted evening bags, the dainty little frame bags and the lovely evening bags.  The museum had a sweet little garden that we had a little breather in while the sun was out.  We also sampled their cafe which was quite reminiscent of an traditional style British Tea Room with lovely china, yummy things to eat and great tea and coffee.  They even had little chocolates with little handbags on them.



I wasn't allowed to take photos in the actual museum so these pictures have been scanned from their advertsing material.