Van Gogh Museum | London | National Gallery | Amsterdam

Indeed, during that time he was often painting a new work each day.

What struck me was how van Gogh used other artists as a constant source of inspiration. He often practiced by painting reproductions of famous works by Delacroix and Rembrandt. But to look at those paintings created between 1888 and 1890 made me wonder at the cost of his devotion to the creative process. Those paintings were almost all done when he was confined to an insane asylum (thanks to a misdiagnosed case of epilepsy), and this was when he so famously chopped off part of his ear.

The Van Gogh Museum is inspirational, and there is a calming aesthetic to wandering through the large galleries in an unhurried fashion. But it is also impossible to take in its four floors without feeling slightly unsettled. I found myself wondering about that curious place a man inhabits in the artistic realm - one foot in the world's reality and the other in that place of artistic creation that dares to let the mind run wild.

I walked around Amsterdam for a couple hours after that, over cobbled streets and canal bridges. The city was clean and the mood bohemian. The next stop on my short tour was London and the National Gallery, but after the full immersion of the Van Gogh Museum, it felt like my journey into the life and works of Vincent van Gogh had already come to an end.

London: National Gallery

The wonderful thing about travel is that each day offers a fresh start. I was up at 4:30 a.m., eager to catch the train from Amsterdam's Central Station to the Hook of Holland, there to fulfill a desire to cross the English Channel in the manner used by van Gogh when he traveled to London: by ship.