Amsterdam The Netherlands

     We have finally reached Amsterdam. We have six days to explore this eclectic Dutch city. Our ship docked at the port early on Wednesday, April 19. We had an early morning cruise of the canals which was really very beautiful and interesting. I was totally disoriented, but enjoyed seeing all the different buildings and learning some history of the city.

     This area has always had access to the sea and been a center for trade and commerce.  In the 1200’s there was a fishing village on the Amstel River. The fishermen built a dam on this river and that gave the name to the future city – Amstel-damme. The Amstel flows into the Ij (pronounced Eye) River (now created into the Ijsselmeer), which in turn entered the Zuiderzee, an inlet from the North Sea. So, this gave Amsterdam ready access to shipping from all over the world. Its history is fraught with many ups and downs, periods of vast wealth and stagnation. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was founded here and that was the golden age (1600 – 1650) when many of the beautiful gabled town houses were built along the canals. In 1795 Napoleon conquered Holland and set up his brother as ruler. The Netherlands gained their independence in 1813.

     The Dutch seem to love to create dikes and canals, and this city is a beautiful example of how that was done. They made the Amstel into a canal and the dike became Damrak, a busy wide street that goes from the Central Railroad Station (built over where the Amstel enters the Ij) to Dam Square (the site of the original dam) and further south. Concentric canals were created encircling south of the railroad station and crossing Damrak. There are 4 major ones that do this. Then there are many smaller canals going between these. It is all very confusing, but beautiful.

     After our canal cruise we were given a quick tour of the Rijksmuseum before returning to the ship for our last day on board. The people of Holland are getting ready to celebrate Kings Day next week, plus it is spring break for many students, so the city is extremely crowded. We could hardly see the paintings at the museum which was very disappointing. But we will carry on!

Enkuizen The Netherlands

     We had another long overnight sail via canal to the Ijsselmeer. This is a lake formed when a branch of the North Sea called the Zuiderzee was closed in by a dam. They did this because Amsterdam was getting flooded. When the water became stable and fresh they started making polders which made the lake smaller. Finally the people said that was enough! Now they have a smaller lake but more land to farm. The Dutch are pretty amazing!

     The town we sailed to is called Enkhuizen. Again we were not there to visit the town, but to learn more about tulip growing. In the morning we had a lecture on the history of the tulip. It first appeared in the wild in the Far East and Caucasus Mountains in the 11^th and 12^th centuries. In 1540 the Turkish sultan developed a strong interest in the plant. It started to appear as a decoration on ceramics, embroidered on clothing, and even in the shape of the Sultan’s turban. The plant came to the attention of a Dutch horticulturist who started to study them for their medicinal value. He brought them to Holland and they were stolen and ended up being propagated in Harlem. For some reason speculation in bulbs was started and fortunes were spent on acquiring them. The bubble lasted from 1634 to 1637 before the whole thing burst and fortunes were lost.  

     However, the tulip is still big business in Holland. We visited a bulb growing farm and learned all about the propagation of the tulip. The bulbs are planted in the fall and the flowers come up in April. When they bloom they are beheaded so that all the energy will go back into the bulb. Then the bulbs are dug up and processed and sent to another grower who raises them in a green house for their flowers. So, it is basically a two year cycle. Baby bulbs from the first growth can be used to continue the cycle. Everything was mechanized, computerized, and very methodical. The main pleasure for us was to see the beauty of the fields with their colorful, straight rows of flowers.

Don and Suzanne at the bulb growing farm

     In the afternoon we visited a typical Dutch family – who it turned out was just like us and probably had spent more time traveling in the US than we have! People all over the world are the same – she was a social worker, her husband owned a roofing company, there were 2 teen age daughters, they lived in a 2 story modern duplex on one of the canals and they grew some of their own food.

Arnhem The Netherlands

     Monday, April 17, found us in Arnhem. It was a long sail from Rotterdam, east on the Rhine to a junction with the Neder Rhine and a turn back to Arnhem. We are learning a lot of WWII history on this trip. This town was the site of another famous battle, the battle for the “Bridge Too Far,” which was the bridge over the Rhine River and also a movie you could watch.

     However, we were not here to look at the town, but to visit the Kroller-Muller Museum and Sculpture Garden. It was about an hour bus ride from Arnhem and located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park. The museum contains the art collection of a wealthy couple who purchased art in the early 1900’s. They collected “modern” art which includes the second largest collection of paintings and drawings by Van Gogh. Also, Claude Monet, Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondriaan, along with many others are featured.   We could have spent hours – but we only had a couple to take it all in. Even riding through the lovely Dutch countryside into the park was a delight. We saw beech and oak trees and a small herd of red deer. There are three buildings plus a huge sculpture garden in the beautiful gardens outside. Sculptures by Rodin, Moore, Lipchitz, and Oldenberg plus the art piece called Jardin d ‘Email by Dubuffett can be found here.

   

Don and Suzanne at the museum

 Later in the day we did have some time to explore Arnhem. It was very typical to many of the towns we have seen. The original wall was demolished in the late 1800’s, but the city still has the circular shape of so many other cities. We admired the original town gate; the church of St. Eusebius; the old Town Hall and the new City Hall built on a large modern square which has been recently refurbished; and the Weighing House with statues of Justice and Strength over the doors. We also spent some time shopping along the walk streets in the middle of the city.

Rotterdam The Netherlands

     Our Easter week end was taken up with two very Dutch activities. On Holy Saturday we spent the day in the Keukenhof Gardens, the premier place to see tulips and other spring bulbs. On Easter Sunday we went to visit one of the few places in Holland where the windmills have been preserved as they were in 1740 and where they are still working.

     These places are close to Rotterdam. We reached Rotterdam from Middleburg via a zigzag course of canals, traversing the Oosterschelde, and entering the Rhine River. Rotterdam lies at the mouth of the Rhine and Maas Rivers. It was named for the 13^th Century dam built on the Rotte River. Rotterdam is an amazingly modern city. It was almost totally destroyed during WWII. When it came time to rebuild the city the Dutch decided to make modern buildings and use many different styles of architecture. The strangest was the cube apartment building where each apartment was a cube on end. I have no idea how they put it all together and what it would be like to live in one of those units with the slanty walls.

Don at the Keukenhof Gardens

     We went by bus to the Keukenhof Gardens. These were the kitchen gardens for a castle in the 15^th century. They evolved into a park with large trees and other plants. In 1949 twenty bulb growers decided to use it to showcase their spring flower bulbs. It is open to the public 8 weeks a year when the bulbs are blooming and is really quite spectacular. We saw fields of tulips, hibiscus, daffodils, crocus, lilies, and iris. Five pavilions showcased these flowers in addition to orchids and roses.
     The Kinderdijk was very interesting. About 1/3 of The Netherlands is below sea level. The windmills were used to pump water from the land into the rivers. As the land sank, they needed to use more than one windmill to lift the water into boezems (water storage basins) from one height to another. The land reclaimed by this process is called a polder. At Kinderdijk they had 19 windmills preserved to carry this out. We were able to go into one windmill to see how the family lived in the one small room at the base of the windmill. We saw how the “sails” were moved and that the position of the sails was used to communicate among the millers.

Middelburg The Netherlands

     We left Ghent during the night and arrived in Middelburg early in the morning on Friday, April 14. Overnight we had left Belgium and we were now in The Netherlands. We sailed down the Ghent Canal into the Westerschelde (estuary of the Schelde River) and up another canal to Middelburg. Middelburg is the capital of Zeeland (the settlers of New Zealand came from here), and is one of the oldest cities in The Netherlands. It was an important trading city for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and very wealthy during the Middle Ages and into the 1500’s. It is located in the middle of the island of Walcheren (since drained and diked to become a peninsula) and was the middle of three cities built to fortify the island. After the island was flooded in the 1950’s they began the Delta Project to build watergates, dikes, locks, and other special formations to close off the rivers and inlets from the sea and to control the water flow over the land.

     We walked with our guide into the city through the east gate. Everything in the city is circular – it is surrounded by a canal and dikes and the streets circle around the main square which is basically the site of a tenth century abbey. The church has a tall spire which has been nicknamed Long John and is a landmark. We walked by row houses which were clean and beautifully kept. Most of them have been designated historical landmarks and the owners are subsidized for taking care of them. They have a special plaque indicating this and the name of the original owner is often attached to the house.  The current owners may have their name over the doorbell, but not on the house! Another fun thing is that they have a sign for their mail box which says what kind of mail they want and do not want i.e. No junk mail, please! Wouldn’t we love to have that privilege?

     The town square was dominated by an extremely ornate, 15^th century Gothic town hall.

It was covered with statues of counts and countesses of Zeeland. The building was completely destroyed in WWII and rebuilt using the existing brick and stone. What a marvel!