The Netherlands

HOLLAND - PART 1

Two Days to Amsterdam -  Thursday & Friday 18th & 19th May

 

Lucy was still sitting up looking out of the port hole when we arrived at  Hoek van Holland. She was very excited as this is her first time out of the UK. After we docked it was easy to find the cycle path (The Noordzee Fietspad) that would take us North following the coast through Den Haag and on to Amsterdam. 

 

While we were on the ferry leaving England behind us, Nathan was on a plane flying back from visiting the family and his new grandson, Alex, in Australia. I was tracking his planes on my phone and when I stopped for a picnic lunch amongst the sand dunes, I saw that he was almost overhead. 

 

I stopped for the night at the seaside town of Noordwijk  and in the morning there was a strong wind so I had to hold Lucy's hand to stop her blowing away when she went to look at the rough, wild sea. 

By the second day I had got used to riding on the right hand side of the road again. The last long trip I did was in 1994, although I also did the 3 day hospice ride to Paris in 2014. I am really enjoying riding on the fabulous Dutch cycle paths which take you on well marked routes away from the traffic. Fabulous. There are hundreds of people of all ages riding a wonderful selection of cycles. It is just so good to see.

 

At one point there were several deer and later a fox was standing in the middle of the cycle path and was reluctant to move and let me through. The cycle path led me straight to the hotel in Amsterdam. Brilliant. At one point I thought, "Those are strange flowers at the back of the flower bed". Then it dawned on me that they were parked bicycles.

 

 A weekend in Amsterdam - 20th & 21st May

 

I bought a two day travel pass which was brilliant as I could hop on and off buses and the tram, and also use the train to get into the centre. I spent my first day getting a feel for the city and soaking up the atmosphere. I went to Mass in St Nicolaskerk, sat in cafes and bars, strolled around the streets and canals, visited the Oude Kerk, stumbled upon a Brompton Pop-Up shop and finished up in Cafe Saarein. It was a brilliant day. As usual Lucy took a while to adjust to a new place and didn't make many appearances.

 The 800 year Oude Kerk is Amsterdam's oldest building and the roof  has the largest medieval wooden vault in Europe. At one time there were 39  altars belonging to different guilds, each with their own priest, pulpit and pews. There are about 2,500 graves under the floor of the church each marked with a floor plaque.

 

Saskia van Uylenburg, Rembrandt’s  wife is among those buried there, but when I visited you were unable to see many of the tombs because the whole floor was covered with yellow thermal blankets.

 

Lucy was very puzzled by these as she had read about some of the people buried there and wanted to find them. The blankets formed part of an art installation by  Sarah van Sonsbeeck. She has used the blankets to to focus on their use as rescue blankets for refugees, to protect those buried beneath them in the church, and to symbolise the fact that the Oude Kerk originally offered protection and shelter.

 

The Brompton shop was interesting and had a huge stock of  Bromptons, including a brightly coloured special for Amsterdam. They are trying to launch them onto the Dutch market. I finished my day chatting to several people at cafe Saarein, an original brown cafe, that is now mainly a woman's bar.

 

 

I made a very leisurely start on Sunday and then spent the rest of the day in the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum devoted to Dutch history and art. It was great to see the actual paintings of works that I knew about such as Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch'. I also loved the gallery devoted to Holland's seafaring history, the Hague School of painters, the stained glass section, and the modern art gallery. (I will write more about The Hague School in the next blog that I post.) 

 

Willems Van der Velde's pen and ink drawings on canvass were fascinating. He drew in the 1600s and depicted different naval battles. I can't imagine how long it took to draw on such large canvasses, they are huge. Below is one of the stained glass windows showing Nebuchadnezzar eating grass among the cows. (c.1560)

 

Once again I finished the day in Cafe Saarein where the woman behind the bar gave  me a couple of free pilsners. As usual, I will donate the equivalent price to my Hospice Charity Appeal page in memory of Ann. The fund now stands at well over £1 for every mile Lucy and I have cycled. 

www.birminghamhospice.org/fundraisers/susan-thorne 

Before I left home I visited the hospice 'Forget Me Not' installation in Brindley Place where Lucy sat by her flower and thought about Ann.