Vincent van Gogh's dramatic and daring paintings deserve - no, demand - to be seen up close and in person. Here is one man's quest to visit the world's three major collections of van Gogh's work. In three days.
When I do it all over again, I will start in London.

I will spend the night at the Connaught, then rise early and walk down Piccadilly to the National Gallery. Maybe I will detour through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace and perhaps stop for a coffee on the fringes of Trafalgar Square before marching up the museum steps to seek out, on that wing off the second floor reserved for artists living between 1700 and 1900, the works of Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh's soulful use of color and his three-dimensional strokes of brush and palette knife speak to me. A mere print is, literally, a pale imitation. Van Gogh's brilliance must be seen in person to be believed.

And so, in the dead of winter, I flew to Europe with the goal of seeing the world's three premier van Gogh collections in three days: Paris's Musée d'Orsay, Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, and London's National Gallery. My aim was a museum and a city per day. No more, no less. Twining the slightest touch of adventure to the artistic, I made no advance reservations for museum tickets, hotel rooms, or transportation.

So it was that on the third day of my journey, in the predawn blackness of a bitter February morning, I was the last passenger on a short yellow train approaching the Hook of Holland, the port from which I would catch the channel ferry to Britain. I had been told that the ship left a little past seven. Upon the train's arrival, I would have 15 minutes to run from the train to the ferry station, purchase a ticket, and then climb aboard. I hoped to find a quiet corner belowdecks where I could read up on van Gogh or perhaps just sip coffee and stare out the window at the heaving seas.