I can’t remember this festival existing five years ago, but it does not matter: every year the Amsterdam Light Festival keeps on getting bigger and bigger, and all touristy boats go by the light objects, making the boat tours extra interesting as the guide does not just share info about our capital, but also about the light objects and their meaning.

Though I often feel that art should not be explained, as the explanations are often lame, obvious or too easy, I did like to hear a bit more about some of the objects. There was for example a place at the Heeregracht I think, where 180 origame flowers were floating on the water. They would change in the most amazing colors, and the artist wanted to have some beautiful flower fields in the winter, as it is such a pity that you can usually only see them in spring. I like that thought.

The object I liked the most was probably that thing with the flowers, though there were many more that impressed me. The building of the Scheepvaartmuseum (remember, beautiful building, awful museum) for example, it had green lines projected on it, but they were actually the blueprints of the original building plans of that location. Very cool. And I did not dare to take a picture of the art project that said: “The best souvenirs are memories”, or something like that.

I liked the one with bicycles going into the water, which is a fun way of making the guides tell the people about the 1.2 million bicycles in Amsterdam, though there are only 800.000 people. And there are thousands of bicycles that get scraped off the bottom of the canals every year, hihi. I think some of the light objects are a bit too far fetched or too easy, but I was not expecting them to tell stories about the city like that, that was really good.

The nice thing is that it does not matter if you are a tourist or a native, it is lovely to be on a boat, enjoy some hot chocolate, look at the beautiful techie art objects people have prepared for us, while learning more about Amsterdam. Really lovely!