......through the tulips.

April 23:
Our flight from England yesterday was totally uneventful. We were home in Amstelveen by about 4:30 pm and Michelle had a nice dinner awaiting us. Walking from the bus, we saw kids swimming in the Amstel River, which had been frozen when we arrive just two months ago. We caught up on the Julian/Michelle trip to Rome and Venice, and filled them in on our visit to England.
Today, Monday, the kids are back at school so Pat and I set off in the camper van again, to tulip country. We took secondary roads most of the way, through pretty countryside.
Our campground is Camping op Hoop van Zegen near Noordwijk, on a quite country road with some woods on one side and endless tulip fields on the other.
We bicycled in to Noordwijk on the coast. It is a big beach resort town, with gigantic hotels, carnival rides, casinos on one end, and somewhat more dignified beach clubs and hotels at the north end. The beaches are beautiful broad sandy expanses which no doubt will be swarmed in a month or two. As for today, still windy and cold.
A little later we cycled off in the other direction to see the tulips. There are miles and miles of flat sandy fields, many of which had row upon row of the most colourful tulips. They are usually set in long rows of different colours... maybe 10 metres wide of red and as much as 500 metres long, then s 10 metre stretch of pinks ones, then white, then orange, etc etc., often interspersed with rows of  narcissus and rows of hyacinth. Apparently they are not grown for the flowers, most of which are composted, but rather for the bulbs which are exported around the world.

April 24: Keukenhof Garden
We were unsure about spending almost $50 to go into the famous Keukenhof Gardens, when we had seen spectacular tulip rows in the fields, but it was worth it.
We bicycled to the garden from the campsite, about 9 kilometres. It was a cold grey morning, but the weather improved somewhat over the day. The complex is very large, and has many different sections of amazing tulip varieties, beautifully planned with patterns of tulips and hyacinths based on height, colour and texture of the flowers, and set off with trees, bushes, fountains, ponds, canals and sculptures.  There are about 5 pavilions with history of the tulip in Holland, special exhibitions, exotic plants, and of course coffee shops and souvenirs. Our timing was just about perfect, as the garden was in its prime. Indeed, the enormous garden complex is only open two months of the year. At first the crowds were light, but as noon approached bus load after bus load of tourists arrived. Kind of interesting really, to observe the huge variety of sizes, shapes and colours of people as well as the flowers.
After about 5 hours in the garden we left and rode a bit farther into the town of Lisse for a look around, then back to a park across from the garden with an 18th. century chateau and farm. This was free, and very quiet with only a small groups of students playing around.
Then back to the campground on a more roundabout route. At one point while riding alongside a lakeside beach, we were stopped by a security car and asked to stand by while a “parade” of “scootmobiles” passed. Scoot mobiles are what we know as mobility scooters, the little electric carts for of the darned things, decorated with flowers to varying degrees, and some with costumes, offering a cheery hello as they passed us. There was no audience to speak of, just ourselves and 2 or 3 other passers by. It is the week,of the big kings birthday celebration here, so I guess that’s what it was about. It was well organized, with 3 or 4 escort cars, an escort motorcycle. Then to the campsite, exhausted!

April 25: Leiden
We had kind of glimpsed Leiden back in November when we were here, but hadn’t done it justice. So we decided to stay at this campsite a third night, and bicycle in to Leiden, about 12 kms each way. The bicycle routes here are as well marked as the highways, and we had a map book from the tourist information. It was a lovely ride, through woods, sheep goat and dairy farms, along tulip fields, past well established residential areas, parks and golf courses and into the town.
We ditched our bikes and wandered the ancient canals, streets and alleys, it is one of the prettiest towns in Netherlands, with some of the oldest churches, markets and narrow labyrinths of alleys and canals, as well as some lovely open green spaces and shopping streets. We came across two or three particular historical references to the Plymouth Rock pilgrims who set off from Leiden in the 17th C for the new lands. Leiden is a university town, so we did see some of the buildings, galleries and courtyards, with some interesting historical markers for some famous figures of science, art, medicine and religion.
Our return route took us into the pretty lakeside town of Warmund where we stopped for our usual afternoon of grocery shopping.
There was some challenging wind again, so pretty pooped by the time we got back “home” to the campground.
Tonight will Ben our last camping night as we return to Amstelveen to look after Nyah while Michelle gets a last weekend off. Unfortunately we won’t see Julian much as he is off on his Duke of Edinburgh trek this weekend.

Photos from England

I was able to download my photos now that we are back at the house in Amstelveen. Here are a few.
Pat and I will set off for a campground in the tulip field tomorrow.

Erik's flat:

Erik's flat is the windows at the top left and the dormer above.

Nyah and Mark feeding the Queen's horses

Entrance to Hampton Court. Henry wasn't available.

Kitted out for the Welsh coal mine tour. Cousin Sarah on the far right.

Hmmm. Where are we here?

Pat preparing for the Bath.

The promenade at Bath

Visiting Henry

April 18: Visiting Henry
Today’s adventure was a walk across the river through the huge Bushy Park, to Hampton Court Palace. As some of you may know, Hampton Court was one of the primary residences of Henry VIII and a smattering (in more ways than one) of his wives, and then of Elizabeth I. A generation or two later it became the home of William III.
The weather has turned fair, though it was very windy walking through the park. Bushy Park is literally right across the river from Erik’s flat, so we only had to walk 10 minutes up to the Kingston Bridge and across to enter the park. It is a huge green park in a loop of the Thames, and more than a kilometre either way. It is mostly rough grassland, grazed by herds of red deer and roe deer. There are not paved walking trails, but just mowed grass paths to follow. As we approached the Palace at the far end, we realized there would be a large pond with fountain in our way. Enquiring of a stroller, we discovered a passage around to the side via the horse paddock. That was a bonus, because we got a close up and private look at three of the beautiful horses. Not sure what breed... they were fairly stoutly built, but not tall, a beautiful dark chocolate colour, with longish mane and tail.
The palace itself is a great glimpse into the incredible history of the Tudor and the Georgian monarchs. I particularly enjoyed the Tudor era great hall and the historic tennis court. There were two players having a match while we watched. “Real Tennis” is a sort of hybrid between tennis and squash, with wall rebounding as part of the game.
We were to take the boat ride back home, a 15 minute cruise down the Thames. When the boat arrived for what was announced as the 4pm trip, the crew closed the boat down for a break, saying the scheduled trip was 4:45. What followed was an understandable and very British kerfuffle where the customers insisted that the trip was supposed to be 4pm as announced, and the crew stubbornly ignoring them. The crew won the round, so we crossed the nearby bridge and caught a train home.
One of the delights of staying anywhere with Pats brother Mark, is wonderful and meticulous cooking, so we are eating well.

April 19: Bath time
We all 5 piled into the little Vauxhaul Corsa rental car and set off westward, the goal of visiting cousin Sarah near Cardiff, Wales. Today though, the first stage was Bath, stopping at Stonehenge along the way.
The weather has become very nice, so the stop at Stonehenge was beautiful and sunny. Due to its popularity, it has become a well contained comprehensive tourist compound operated by Heritage Trust. Having parked in the large lot, one is first faced with a large steel and glass museum and ticket building. At the ticket booth (19.50 pound each) we were casually informed there would be a delay due to a protest, apparently a fairly regular event, protesting the commercialization, or the appropriation of the spiritual significance or what not. So we had a good look through the museum for 30 or 40 minutes before catching the museum bus to the site.
The site itself is, of course, quite spectacular, Andy is kept clean, bright and well trimmed, despite the heavy tourist traffic.
Then on to Bath, arriving at the Old Mill Hotel at about 2 pm. The hotel was a pleasant surprise, out in the countryside facing sheep fields, and alongside a pretty little river and ancient bridge, with a large working water mill. We unpacked then drove 10 minutes into town to for a 30 minute walking tour, and for an hour and a half or so in the Roman baths complex. The baths complex is very well laid out with audio guides, videos and historical placards describing the more than 2000 years of developments.

April 20: Neath the ground.
We drove all morning around Bristol Channel into Wales and eventually to the Big Pit Mining Museum in Blaenavon, to meet up with Pats cousin, Sarah. Sarah had stayed with us for a few months as a 20 year old, back in 1991, and we have kept in touch since then including visiting her and her new baby about 14 years ago in Wales.
The museum was very good, way up on top of a somewhat bleak plateau. It was a working coal mine for most of the 20th century, so the approach buildings are the actual old wooden mine offices. After a bit of a wait while some French school groups went through, we were fitted out with helmets, electric lights and gas mask kits. The fitters are retired miners, dressed in their overalls and helmets, seeemingly enjoying themselves. Eventually our group of about a dozen joined up with Chuck. Down we went, 300 feet in the real deal mining cage. Chuck then toured us through the tunnels, giving very informative descriptions (in a very interesting clipped Welsh accent) of the hardships of life in the pits. At one point we all switched off our lights to experience the absolute darkness that enveloped the workers, some of whom (as young as 6 yrs old) were assigned menial tasks such as opening bulkhead doors, requiring them to sit amongst the damp, the rats, Andy the absolute dark for hours on end.
Following the mine tour, we followed Sarah home to her delightful house and family in Neath, for dinner and an evening of chat and catch up. Sarah’s baby is now a handsome athletic young 15 year old boy, and she has added Ella, a bright and pretty 11 year old. Mark enjoyed chatting with Kev about the ongoing house renovations.
Mark, Erik and Nyah retired to a nearby hotel for the next night while Pat and I appropriated Charlie’s bedroom for the night while he generously retreated to the couch in the living room.

April 21:  Cardiff and Avebury
Sarah came with us to have a peek around Cardiff for the morning. She knew to park in the gardens so that our entree to town was through the lush, beautiful garden, past the dramatic Cardiff Castle and into the quaint Victorian shopping galleries. She has an aquainatance with a family who had just opened a tiny boutique style pure food eatery. We shared some delightful cheese plates, cured pork charcuterie. To quote Mark, who knows his food, “it was really f......’n good!”.
Early afternoon we set off homeward, but detoured a bit north to Avebury, which is another world heritage prehistoric stone site, but delightfully lower key and authentically sited than Stonehenge.

April 22: Last day in Kingston
As a delightful little serendipity for Nyah, one of her best friends was visiting her Grandma right here in Kingston upon Thames. So they arranged a meetup in town this morning. We were going Tom just leave them to their devices for a couple of hours, but in the end they decided to come along with us for a little ferry ride up the Thames to Hampton Court....about 35 minutes up and 20 minutes down. We had lunch at a riverside restaurant... a nice riverside patio and good food, but an almost hilariously disorganized wait staff....ala Fawlty Towers. It must have been the first day they were open, and they obviously had no training. It even got to the point where they produced a second version of our order from the kitchen just as we were leaving.

Kingston upon Thames

April 15: Kingston upon Thames
Here we are at our nephew’s beautiful little flat in Kingston upon Thames, about 20 miles up river from London. We flew here with 13 year old Nyah yesterday, a simple no nonsense Easy Jet flight from Amsterdam. We arranged to rent a car for the week, so picked it up at Gatwick. The travel around the airport to find the rental office, and the wait at the Europcar booth took longer than the flight from Amsterdam. They do not make it easy.
We eventually found ourselves in a nice enough little Vauxhall Corsa. It’s a bit of a beater by rental car standards, but that means there are already scratches on every panel which is handy because we don’t have to worry about any scratches that we may contribute.
Arrived at Erik’s apartment early afternoon. The bonus is that Erik’s Dad, Pats brother, Mark, is here for the week as well. We lounges and visited, then a walk 15 minutes into Kingston old town for a gawk and a shop.

April 16:
Into London for the day. Nyah has never been here before, despite being a citizen of the world (born in Kenya, lived in Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Jordan and now Amsterdam). It was a bit chilly and windy, but we wandered around Westminster, then across to the south bank to go to London Dungeon. This is a tourist trap thing we never would have done unless with a 13 year old, but was still a lot of fun. It is very much like the Disney “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride to begin with, all dark and riding in a small boat in a moat. Then you get out and walk from moody room to moody room, where you encounter live actors augmented by special effects and lighting describing some of the more wretched incidents (real and fable) of London history, such as the Black Plague, the great fire, Jack the Ripper, Henry VIII’s torture chambers and head chopping. The best little skit was a Sweeney Todd shtick, hosted by the baker woman who made the infamous pies... lots of great punters. It was expensive, but we were glad to have the 13 yr old excuse to do it.
From there we crossed the footbridge back over to to the Charing Cross area, then a long stroll through The Mall, Green Park, to Buckingham Palace.
As a side note, then usual train into London from Kingston was undergoing repair work so an alternate bus was operating... longer trip, almost an hour altogether, but a different view of the outskirts.

April 17:
Into London again, this time to Camden Market which we thought Nyah might enjoy, and she did, as much as a teenage girl can express it. It was a lot of walking this day.
Later in the afternoon we made a quick stop in the British Museum, as Nyah has a school project on history of clocks. That was interesting, as I probably would not have gone to that exhibition otherwise. Whodathunk that actual mechanical clocks and watches go as far back “in time” as then16th century. There was one pocket watch that had belonged to Oliver Cromwell, and a few royal clock, as well as descriptions of the development of clocks.
We caught the tube from there down to Oxford Street where we braved the mobs down Regent Street, to Carnaby Street, a nice stop at Byron’s Burgers for dinner, and the to the Apollo Theatre for a production of “Wicked”.
The show was a typical London extravaganza, the whole theatre was decorated in emerald green, even the seating upholstery. We were up in the “Gods”, but with these shows the dramatic sets and sound system make such seats OK. The show itself was OK, but not as much as expected. It is a story based around Elfreda, the wicked witch of the west, why she became who she was, from her illegitimate parenthood through her social isolation (she was green after all) and exploitation by the Wizard and his his henchwoman. The relationship with Glinda, the good witch of the east, was a big part of the story.  Glinda was very much the “Princess” and knew it. To her credit, she was willing to befriend Elfie, until competition for the love of young prince caused complications, etc etc etc.
Lots of gist for some pretty good songs and effects, with a few nods and chuckles of reference to the characters of Wizard of Oz. There is a cameo by the tin man, and in the contrivances of the happy ending, the young prince is disguised as the scarecrow. The voices of the leads, the acrobatics and the  gigantic set devices were of course top notch! So why did I not feel totally satisfied? I think it was because it was all so predictable and flawless. The storyline was a funny mix between campy and schmaltz which was too much of a stretch for me. We had considered going to The Lion King, which I regret. It would have been just as predictable, but I think the music would have been more memorable, and the Julie Taymor direction would have been spectacular... but twice as expensive.

North Netherlands, Germany

April 8:

Dropped Jeremy at the airport as planned. It is nice to have the opportunity to visit with him more than once a year with the kids in Amsterdam. From the airport we drove a little northward of Amsterdam to a town called Zaanse Schans, a relocated historical Netherlands village. As expected, it was somewhat of a tourist trap, and on this warm sunny Sunday there were thousands of tourists to trap in the tiny village. That said, we thoroughly enjoyed it, and managed to spend almost nothing. The parking was 10 Euro, so we parked outside and rode in. There was a 15 Euro each entrance fee to the museum and some of the craft workshops, but the village itself was absolutely free to wander, and many of the “museum” shops were free because they were selling their wares, such as the cheese makers and bakery.

There were windmills to view… different from Kinderdijk as these ones were operating grinding mills and lumber mills, rather than pumping water. There was no wind, so they were not working, which saved us more Euros because there was little point in going in and seeing nothing working.

We crossed over the bridge to the actual town, and found it to be almost as charming as the fake one, but quieter.

At noonish we set off north eastward across the Afsluisdijk, which is the 30 kilometre dike closing of the Iselmeer, to Leeuwarden. We have been here before, to view the Ceramics museum, but today we discovered it as a vibrant little canal town with some very pretty little renaissance era streets and buildings. We ended up just roaming around, and will do the museum in the morning. The atmosphere in the cafes along the canal was just too much for us so we had to indulge in a beer and some nachos along the way.

We are camped out at a parking lot attached to a yacht harbour, which is a typical locale for the inexpensive “parkings” in Europe…. 12.20 Euro, but it has restrooms, water, grey water dump, and electricity if we wanted it.

April 9:

We were going to revisit the Keramiek Museum in the morning having enjoyed it in 2010, but realized it wouldn’t be open on a Monday. So we headed off to the northern coast of Friesland, the furthest north east province of Netherlands.

As we left Leeuwarden I was hearing a quick roaring sound every few minutes. I thought it was maybe the wind in our slightly open skylight, then thought it sounded like a big jet taking off, and was there an airport nearby?… but the sound was too brief for a passenger aircraft. As we got out into the countryside we noticed some banners along the roadside, and dozens of cars parked with their owners gawking at something, many with cameras. It looked like they were awaiting a parade or something, but on a Monday morning in the middle of the countryside?

So we parked and joined them, just staring at the sky with our camera ready… for what? I thought maybe some new fangled passenger airplane was going to make a visit or something.

So… I asked the guy next to us. It turned out to be a big NATO air forces exercise, and sure enough… ROAR!… a fighter jet takes off, then another and another.. maybe a dozen as we watched. That was the noise I’d been hearing earlier. Apparently this is an annual event and people come from miles away to watch them and take photos. The couple I was talking with had driven here 2 hours from Amsterdam. It was one of those things Europeans seem to take very seriously, like train spotting.

The countryside along the north of Friesland is beautiful… very flat with long vistas of grassy fields, with small towns huddled tightly every 2 or 3 kilometres as if to stave of the storms. At one point a road headed over toward the large grassy dike, so we took it… it turned out to be a ferry terminal, about the size of Langdale, with a ferry to the sandy little island of Ameland. We didn’t catch the ferry, as much as we love them, but had our lunch at a viewpoint along the quay with a good view of some of the ancient dike structures.

The farmsteads in this region are interesting… huge peaked roof barn structures with the farmhouse attached, all in one unit. And most of the farmhouses were proud and beautiful brick structures, with decorated windows and gables, looking like small manor houses… obviously farming has been a profitable enterprise in this region for a few centuries.

We crossed into Germany in mid afternoon, and are heading southward toward Munster before turning back toward Amsterdam later in the week. We are in the town of Meppen, in a parking lot of a swimming pool complex for the night. Just 8 Euro, and a nice chat with the guy who came to collect in the evening. He gave us a card to use the swimming pool facilities in the morning, then, as Pat was playing her guitar when he arrived, he gave us another card in exchange for her singing him a song!

April 10:

Moved on to Munster today via Melle. Why Melle? An automobile museum of course! 

Again, we are taking it easy with driving this week, so have instructed Emily (our Garmin GPS voice) to stay off motorways so the whole day (2.5 hours of driving stretched over the day) was beautiful rolling countryside, small 2 lane tree lined highways, beautiful farmhouses and barns, quaint little towns… but trucks, trucks, trucks. It pays off with fuel mileage… this last fill up was the best yet… 7.7 litres per 100 kms… almost 35 mpg (imperial). The weather i truly springtime now, so warm we had windows open much of the way.

The auto museum was in an old furniture manufacturing building with art deco facade. It was quite a good collection, mostly European makes some of which I’d never heard of such as the Gaz vehicles. There were some great examples of rare vehicles such as Tatra, DKW, a tremendous Stanley Steamer, BMW models I’d never heard of, three 1901 to 1905 DeDions. and of course Mercedes, Porsche, Peugeot, Citroen and VWs through the ages… and a smattering of huge American behemoths. Even Pat enjoyed it!

We wound our way into some heavy traffic in the outskirts of Munster, and into a peaceful little free parking lot alongside a sportsplatz. So great to find such peaceful little spots with only a half dozen other campers, a ten minute bicycle into the old town, through mostly canal side parkland, and free! The only catch is lack of any facilities, so one must plan ahead vis a vis some necessities.

We did bicycle into town in the late afternoon… a delightful atmosphere with hundreds soaking up the sun in the parks and canal banks, bicycles almost to the point go rush hour. We had a quick look around the old town but will have a more careful look tomorrow.

Some of you may have read of a tragedy in Munster just last Saturday. A mentally ill man (not a terrorist) drove his van into a crowd at a popular restaurant in Munster. I knew of that but wasn’t thinking of it until we came across a crowd of people and a spray of candles and flowers in the small square outside the restaurants, which are still closed. A sobering reminder of the fragility of peace, though such things never dampen our travels through fear… accidents and violence can occur anywhere. European cities are many times safer than the equivalent US cities, and more bullets are flying in Greater Vancouver in a year than much of Europe.

April 11:

Walking tour of Munster all day. At least 5 churches from 12th to 15th centuries, and some beautiful old town hall and university buildings. Much of these were reconstructed after WW 2 devastation.

We decided to eat out tonight as a last chance for German dining, and found ourselves in the Pinkus Brauerie… not exactly a beer hall as such, but a very old dining hall in a full service traditional restaurant. We had a platter with various wursts, sauercraut and a nice traditional bean thingy, then back to the campground.

April 12:

Awoke to a big front end loader and a couple of dump trucks roaring around us for some kind of project alongside the parking lot. We weren’t actually in their way, but still a bit weird having them all milling around as we got dressed and had breakfast. I guess that is one drawback to a free camping spot.

The goal today was Apeldoorn. We had some inkling it was a good tourism spot. Well, not really. The first clue was difficulty finding the “parking”. It was near the middle of town, but was still a totally vacant parking lot alongside a huge modern but abandoned apartment complex. It cost 9 Euro for the overnight parking, but no facilities at all, not even a dump station. One other camper came along, but departed after looking around.

We rode into town to find the usual tourist information centre… found what should have been it on Google, but a couple of misleading signs finally got us to a little corner of the museum that had a few pamphlets, but no agent.

Poking around the town, we found mostly modernist shops and walking malls, a couple of 19th C churches, and that was about it. So, we decided to go to the “Palais Het Loo”, a 17th C palace built by some royal prince of the time, and more recently used by the Royal family in the late 19th and early 20th C. Hmmm…. it was closed for renovation! At least the main palace was closed. We were still able to tour the stable and vehicle museum, and the huge garden, ala Versailles. It was sort of worth the 10 Euro, but all in all Apeldoorn was a bust.

April 13:

We stuck to the small roads from Apeldoorn back to Amstelveen and the kids house. We did stop over in Amersfoort for morning coffee… much more quaint and interesting than Amersfoort. We may pay it another visit at a later time.

This afternoon is mostly preparation for our trip to England for the next 10 days, taking Nyah with us and visiting nephew Erik in Kingston upon Thames. As a bonus, his Dad, Pat’s brother Mark is visiting while we are there. Should be great fun. Stay tuned to this channel….

Watching the NATO jets:

The marshlands, northern Netherlands:

One of the starnge cars at the museum:

Stanley Steamer:

Weird motorcycle, automobile hybrid thing with retractable training wheels:

Just chillin'

Munster:

Cute van in Munster:

Palais Het Loo in Apeldoorn:

Our dinner in Munster

Garden at palais Het Loo:

Kroller-Muller and Amsterdam

April 5:

The goal today was to head eastward to the Hoge Veluwe national park and the Kroller Muller art museum, to meet Jeremy who would be coming by bicycle from Amstelveen (90 kilometres in one day!)

We chose to go exclusively side roads rather than motorways, which is a much prettier and more satisfying way to go, though it made for a 3 hour drive rather than 2 hours. Some of the roads were literally single track, where we had to slow and move over for approaching traffic, but it was all pastoral countryside, small villages and dike tops.

The early part of the route took us through Dordrecht, so we stopped over for a bicycle tour of the old town. Another unexpected surprise! We parked in a more modern section, but as we rode toward the harbour we were in small cobbled streets opening onto small “havens”, or enclosed little harbours. One haven was set aside especially for classic old riverboats and hemmed in with picturesque old lift bridges. The weather unfortunately continued to be very cold, very windy, and on and off drizzle.

We settled into the Beek en Hei campground on the edge of the Hoge Veluwe at about 4 pm. We stayed here in 2010 as the first campground of our epic 12 month adventure that year.

Jeremy arrived about 5:30 from his 5 hour bike trip. We have rented a “hikers cabin” for him because there is simply not enough room in the van for three adults. The weather has finally cleared, but that means dipping night time temperature… probably zero tonight, but we do have electricity and thus heat as needed.

Sunset near campground at Kinderdijk

Classic boat haven at Dordrecht

A demonstration of our shopping technique when the store is a bit distant from parking.

The cabin at the campground near Hoge Veleuwe park

April 6:

One of the few bright sunny days of our trip, and ideal for a bicycle through the Home Velouwe park to the Kroller-Muller Museum. We have been to this art museum twice before, but it still takes the breath away (and not just because of the 20 minute bike ride).

It is based on the collection of Helene Kroller-Muller, begun in 1907 through 1922, and the beautiful, bright open concept building was opened 1938. The collection contains the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world, with some 40 of his works including the bridge at Arles, the yellow cafe and the potato eaters. It also has Picasso, Seurat, Monet, Mondrian… all evidence of Kroller-Muller’s perspicacity in her time. Pat particularly enjoys the Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore sculptures in the massive outdoor garden, Bill’s favorites are the Giacometti sculptures and the Lipschitz sculptural paintings. We left feeling still ready for another visit sometime soon.

In late afternoon we set off back to Amstelveen so Jeremy could get back to his kids for the weekend before flying back to Saudi Arabia Sunday. We all had dinner together at the house, but then we chose to go to the nearby Amsterdamse Bos Campground rather than impose of the family on this busy weekend.

Big Netherlands hills in the park

and Jeremy behind.

Entering the garden.

The bridge at Arles as Van Gogh saw it

And as we saw it.

Lipschitz sculpture

April 7:

Pat and I parked the van back at the Amstelveen house, then bicycled into Amsterdam along the Amstel river. This was the first bright sunny Saturday of Spring so the river was crowded with an huge assortment of rowing sculls, and the bike routes were bustling.

We parked our bikes at Rembrandtsplein and spent the day wandering the eastern side of the central canal system. There were a couple of big markets to browse (we bought nothing but a little packet of fries slathered in mayonnaise). We discovered the Nieuwemarkt area, a big square surrounded by cafes and souvenir shops, with “coffee shops” mixed in liberally. “Coffee Shops” are not for buying coffee, but rather another sort of mood altering organic product. It is ironic that tobacco smoking is now banned form all indoor public facilities, but the extremely pungent fumes from the coffee shops still predominate.

We met Jeremy and Nyah for a mid afternoon meal at an Italian Restaurant, then left them for some clothes shopping while we grabbed our bikes for a bit more touring, then the long ride home.

We will stay at the house tonight so that we can drive Jeremy to the airport first thing in the morning.

Cinquecenti, grandad and grandson spotted along the Amstel.

Pat in a melee at Rembrandtsplein.

View at Nieuwemarkt with de Waags Hall... oldest public building in Amsterdam.

Amstelveen, Rotterdam, Delft, Kinderdijk

April 1: Amstelveen

Fun this morning with the kids, easter egg hunts around the house this morning… then we decided to head off on bikes, all together, to the Amsterdamse Bos for the afternoon. This is a huge park near Amstelveen, owned and maintained by Amsterdam, though about a half hour out of the city. It was about 25 minute ride from our house in Ouderkerk. Unfortunately the weather continues to be cold and drizzly… indeed I can count the sunny days of our trip so far on one hand.

At the park was a fun family oriented “Pure Market”, a boulevard of outdoor travelling market booths selling locally made food and crafts. Lots of cheese of course, but various kinds of hot meat finger food, pizza kind of bread thingys, and of course poffertjes and deep fried potato spirals on a stick. There were outdoor tables with lots of families and couples enjoying the food and the music provided by a guitar duo playing country and R&B fun stuff. Great fun with the grandkids and their Dad despite the chill.

Pat and Julian then headed on home while Jeremy and Nyah and I rode further into the park to find the Goat Farm. This turned out not to be just a risky dink petting zoo, but a pretty large scale working goat farm with dozens and dozens of does, and probably close to a hundred “kids” of various ages. The huge barn area was set up with some corrals that kept the goats separate from the crowds… and there were crowds on this Easter Sunday… and one corral that invited the human kids in to interact with the goat kids. Needless to say, that corral was a bit of a madhouse with crying toddlers, rambunctious kids of both species, and the human parents bring to quell the chaos. Fun though. This is Nyah’s kind of thing, so she really enjoyed it. We bought a small milk bottle with nipple for a Euro… most of the “kids” had had enough by this time of day, but she managed to coerce one little guy who slurped down the whole thing in about 10 seconds.

Back home, Pat had a nice Easter dinner ready, followed by a game of Haunted House directed by Julian. It is one of those games where the rules are so obtuse and obscure that no-one can understand them except 15 year old boys, so I didn’t have a clue what I was doing or how I almost won until the last minute where something happened and I lost. Something to do with my ”Cat” failing to “knock down the airplane” which was protecting the “conspirators” in the “haunt” which is the “endgame” that only begins after two hours of…. I dunno what we were doing. Still fun though, to watch Julian in action. He is the “Dungeon Master” with his Dungeons and Dragons buddies.

Had to buy Poffertjes from this guy in the orange VW pickup. 

April 2: Delft

After a relaxed morning, Pat and I set off on stage 2 of our European camping tour. The kids are back in school this week, so we figured we may as well head off and let them get back into school mode.

We are set up in a full service campground at Delft Hout, a park just a 10 minute bike ride into old town Delft. We biked into town after lunch, and spent the afternoon strolling around the canals, squares and shops. Delft is of course famed for its blue pottery, but it is also the home town of Johannes Vermeer, so there are historic signs around that refer to Vermeer’s life and works. It is also a very pretty little town in its own right, with canals, renaissance churches and beautiful old private homes and shops.

At beer o’clock we retreated to a cafe that had music playing.. 2 guitars, a base and and accordion. The lead guitar swapped into mandolin and fiddle as needed. They sang mostly American 60s and 70s pop…. very nice, especially in the atmosphere of a 19th C Delft coffee house.

Tomorrow we will probably leave the van here and catch a train from Delft into Rotterdam.

This is the little group playing in the cafe.

April 3:

Well, prejudices be damned! I’d never particularly been interested in Rotterdam, imaging a big industrial city full of dockyards and freight trucks. Ha! The only dockyards I saw were beautiful little 18th C havens filled with classic old river barges, and the only freighters we saw were plying up the Rhine alongside the beautiful cafe at the Hotel New York where we dropped in for a beer… more on that later.

We set off from the camper at about 9:30 this morning after a leisurely croissant bought at the campsite “supermarket”. Our bicycle route to the train station took us back into the old town through the beautiful twin turret Oostpoort gate with its tiny classic lift bridge, and about a 10 minute ride to the other side of town.

At the bright modern station we bought tickets for the roundtrip to Rotterdam, only 15 Euro for the two of us roundtrip. There is a train every 10 minutes, and the trip itself was only about 15 minutes.

The Rotterdam station, like the rest of the city, is modern and of spectacular design. Indeed, the architecture is what Rotterdam is known for. The city was pretty thoroughly trashed in 1940 by allied bombing. Instead of reconstructing the old buildings, Rotterdam chose to go modern. There are only a few pre-war buildings, including the 13th C Laurenskirk church and the 18th C city hall.

We picked up a walking tour that took us southward through the city to the waterfront. Along the way were some really spectacular buildings, as well as a huge outdoor marketplace. We shared a sandwich of Herring (Pat informed me as I was enjoying it that it was raw… not that that would worry me) and a cone of frites slathered in mayonnaise. 

At the waterfront we walked along some small “havens”, or harbours, with some classic old river barges and the maritime museum boats. We were beginning to get tired after about 3 kilometres of walking, so rather than crossing the iconic Erasmus bridge to the south side of Rotterdam, we hopped on a water taxi… very fast and powerful churning through the very choppy river mouth to the cruise ship port. It landed us right at the Hotel New York, which is a very classic old 1910 hotel and cafe that was the original headquarters and departure point of the Holland America lines. We had to have a proper look inside, which required having a Heineken each!

After walking the little peninsula for a bit, we walked back over the Erasmus bridge, and then northward along a boulevard through a few surviving 18th C houses, some sculpture parks and back to the station. Pretty pooped after about 8 kilometres of walking!

No more dissing Rotterdam… indeed I would now recommend it as a must see for visitors to the Netherlands.

Park in downtown Rotterdam. Artificial turf.

Inside the enclosed market hall apartment building.

And outside...

Famous cube apartments...

View from inside

On the water taxi

In the Hotel New York cafe

Erasmus bridge... aka "the swan"

April 4:  Kinderdijk

Another amazing day at a site that we hadn’t been aware of before, and only came because we noticed we were close to it… but now would call it a “don’t miss” place to visit. It is a large polder territory, still serviced by about 20 authentic old windmills.

But first, our morning in Delft:

We wanted to visit the Vermeer Centre before leaving Delft, so biked in this morning. It is set on two floors of what was once the location of the Artists’ Guild. It was a bit expensive, at least by our standards, at 8 Euro each, but was an excellent exhibition of his life and of the composition and process of his works.. There were no original works at all, Vermeer only painted some 35 works, which are all now in international galleries. But there were displays of each painting, with thorough descriptions to their symbolism, composition and significance, as well as displays of the paint mixing elements, the light effects, and some ceramic, glass and household effects from the mid 1600s.

We were back at the van at the campground for lunch, then departed for Kinderijk. It was only about a 30 minute drive.  mostly freeway and busy town roads. Nearing where we thought was Kinderdijk, our GPS and Google Maps got a bit confused. It turned out we were on the wrong side of “De Lek” which is a part of the complex river system leading down into Rotterdam. We soon determined that there was a five minute ferry ride across, to avoid a 25 minute detour drive. The ferry only cost 3.25 Euro and there was almost no wait.

We drove beyond the town of Kinderdijk to Alblasserdam. Here there is a bit of a small boat port with a nice parking lot type of campground. It has toilets, electricity and wifi for only 17 Euro… thats all we need.

From Alblasserdam it was about a 15 minute bicycle ride back to the windmills. The area is a UNESCO world heritage site, and deservedly so. The polder land is extensive, and has small canals running straight up the middle. Along the canals are the windmills, connected with walking/cycling trails. 4 or 5 of the windmills were operating, though most apparently are capable of operating. Two of the operating windmills were open to the public… we decided to pay the 8 Euro each which gave access to the two operating mills and a visitor centre. They really are incredible feats of engineering considering that we are talking about 350 years ago… the blades alone weigh several tons, and to have them swooping around at quite an amazing speed, attached to wooden gears and shafts, and driving wooden water wheels is quite breathtaking!

After about an hour, as we were checking out the older of the two open mills, the sky had darkened ominously, the wind came up to a gale, there were a few thunder and lightning claps, and the accompanying rain squalls. The wind was strong enough that they put the brakes on the mill for a while.

We took shelter in the mill for the thunderstorm, as advised by the guides. The weather eased enough for us to set off toward home, but soon came on again with a vengeance! We ended up riding home along the bank of de Lek in gale force winds and pelting rain… but no thunder and lightening at this point or we would have taken shelter. It was quite the adventuresome ride! Of course now, as I type this, 20 minutes later, the skies are blue and the breeze is light. It was a nice demonstration of the kind of weather the ancient Dutch had to deal with.

This t3 Vanagon was right in front of us on the ferry.