Wordless Wednesday: Rotterdam in the morning

 

Netherlands: the baby in the water

The first shore excursion we took on our Rhine cruise was one you could certainly have guessed ahead of time: the lovely panorama of windmills, canal, and sky that you see above. Specifically, we stopped at the World Heritage site of Kinderdijk, a lovingly preserved—but still completely functional—lineup of these marvels of engineering and symbols of Holland.

And they're not just picturesque (although they certainly are that!). You can see our informative volunteer guide, Steya, on the right. She's explaining some of the low-tech but very effective mechanisms for regulating the operation of the windmills. Really fascinating stuff, how these folks have been able to reclaim land from sea and marsh for hundreds of years.

(As any of you who remember my tales from 2017 might recall, the shore excursions on Viking tours are astoundingly good. All the guides are locals who are not only knowledgeable, but are also adorably fond of the architecture, scenery, and culture that they explain to the tourists. This trip kept up the high standard, with the additional endearing touch that they were all so glad to be back on the job after the covid hiatus...please let's not need to have one of those again!)

Here's a couple of shots, getting closer and closer to this iconic structure:

And although most of the windmills are actually lived in by their operators and attendant families (we saw laundry drying on a line), one of them was open for us to tour. Here's a glimpse of these unique living quarters...

...and a shot Henry took looking out one of the upper windows, giving you a different perspective on the vanes...

As you've probably noticed, we had gorgeous weather for this outing (and in spite of repetitive bad forecasts, we had good weather almost the whole trip!) and we came at just the right season not only to see lots of tulips, but also fruit trees in bloom all along our route:

Henry went for a further walk down the canal, along with some fellow Viking passengers, who kindly snapped this photo...

...while I ambled slowly back to our Alruna. In the canal close to the visitor center, there's a sculpture that "explains" how this area got its name (which means "child's dike"). A legend tells of a big flood that washed a baby in his/her cradle into the canal. It would have been swamped and the baby drowned, but a quick-thinking cat jumped onto the cradle and kept it balanced. Here's the illustration:

After getting a good look at the urban side of the Netherlands, it was nice to have this contrasting, rural perspective on the country, and its perpetual battle against the rising waters. A battle it's still winning, and possibly offering methods for other low-lying regions to use in order to survive waters that will surely be rising steadily this century. But I'm not worried about Holland in this regard, no matter how much further below sea level they might find themselves; I think they have matters well in hand.

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

This is one of the most famous buildings in Amsterdam and a must-see on every visitor's list: the Rijksmuseum. Our helpful Viking hotel host helped us get tickets online for our last morning in the city and, after a somewhat tense and rushed walk from the hotel (getting sleeted on as we went) we made it just before the entry time on our tickets had expired.

Overall, the museum didn't live up to our [admittedly quite high] expectations (for some of the reasons I'll explain). But we were still glad that we spent the time there. I mean, it's just a place you have to see when you're in Amsterdam!

Because it was so cold outside, we'd dressed up in several layers (we also knew we had to make our way to the boat later in the day without going back to the hotel, so we had to have warm gear with us), not knowing that the ambient temperature in the museum was going to be a little on the warm side. This unfortunately meant I had to make an extra visit to the cloakroom check desk, which was very crowded.

The crowds were one reason that we ended up being somewhat underwhelmed by our Rijksmuseum experience. Another was the fact that it was very hard to find your way around the place; the maps given out at the information desk you see above on the left told you where rooms were, but not what was in them! 

And of course the most famous paintings—especially the Night Watch, which is supposedly the high point of the whole place—were constantly surrounded by hordes of not always the most considerate visitors. 

A personal disappointment for me was probably my own fault: I was expecting more Vermeers than are on offer here, and spent quite a bit of time wandering from one unidentified room to another looking in vain for them. However, they do have one of my favorites...

But, as often happens in great museums, what one was not expecting turns out to be what is the most interesting. As I moved past the large central hall where most of the paintings (and the crowds) were, I found all kinds of delightful items, and I was reminded often of one of my favorite London museums, the Victoria and Albert. Like the V&A, there were all kinds of quirky things on view here, from silver elephants...

...to incredible ceramic constructions...

The jewelry didn't disappoint, either...

And there was a library to die for!

So my advice to Amsterdam tourists would be: you have to go to this museum, so go as early as you can (the crowds got worse as the morning wore on), be sure not to miss all the rooms full of odd non-paintings (the doll houses, which I didn't get a good picture of, were a definite highlight), and, finally, don't overdress!

Amsterdam: tulips!

 

If you ask anyone to free associate "The Netherlands," you'd probably get "windmills," and maybe "fingers in the dike." But I'll bet what would come up most often is "TULIPS!" And not without reason.

One of the reasons for the date we chose for this trip was a hope to see lots of these flowers in bloom.

And although I believe we might have been a week or so away from their peak, what we saw was still quite stupendous. And more than just tulips...there were several beds of gorgeous hyacinths, too, like the one on the right, and some other flowers I'll be showing you throughout this post.

The prime location for seeing as many flowers in one place as possible is the Keukenhof Gardens, outside of Amsterdam. Our helpful Viking hotel host made it super-easy to find the busses that take you there (about a half hour's drive, with the bonus of getting to see some of the cool modern architecture along the way that I showed you at the end of my last post).

There were a lot of people visiting the afternoon we were there, but it didn't ever feel crowded, the grounds are so spacious.

It's hard to say whether the massed beds of the same variety, or the beds that mixed types delightfully, were the more photogenic...

I still can't decide...what do you think?

The gardens have plenty of amenities, as well as all the flowers: ample bathrooms (an increasingly important item as I get older) and food options, too. We stopped for a light lunch of muffins and beverages by the lake you can see above.

Perking up the floral vistas are quirky artworks, like these "marshmallow drops" (the geese made a nice addition, too):

And there's even a windmill!

You can climb it, and here's what the adjoining tulip fields look like from up there (they would probably be more colorful in a week or two):

Here are what some of the other flowers on display looked like...

at first glance, I thought: bluebonnets!
but the helpful sign gave the correct name;
when they're white they're sometimes called "summer snowflakes"

narcissus and hyacinth...appropriately enough, the Ukrainian colors

narcissus, daffodils, tulips...I'm not sure what all's in this lovely display

We were in Europe at the perfect time to see all kinds of flowering trees in full bloom. But this big boy was the most spectacular...

In addition to the extensive outdoor gardens, they have a large conservatory that's simply packed with all kinds of tulips and other flowers. We spent a lot of time in there, taking many pictures of this incredible variety of colors and forms (the photo at the top of the post is one of the conservatory beds)...

I thought "spring break" was an appropriate name for these cheerful guys

there were a lot of amaryllis varieties on display, too

Such an amazing place! It was a highlight of our Amsterdam visit, and probably of the whole trip, too. But an important note for travelers: the gardens are only open in April and May!

We said goodbye to this wonderful place by noticing these sculpted tulips (outside the gift shop, of course)...they will never wilt or freeze:

Amsterdam: architecture

 

This was the view from our hotel room in Amsterdam, on our recent, very courageous, trip to Europe. 

Yes, I know I told you last time that we were on a Viking cruise. But we elected, this time, to take advantage of Viking's pre- and post-cruise extensions and spent two adventure-packed days in this wonderful city before boarding the boat. 

[Ideally, we would have done a hybrid vacation like we did in 2017, and spent some more time on our own before or after the cruise. But, given the uncertain health and foreign affairs situations, we thought being under Viking's protective umbrella the whole time was the better part of valor. And their extensions offered the bonus we wanted, making the long journey more worthwhile by adding an extra 4 or 5 days to our European stay.]

The extension gave us two nights in a very nice hotel right on a canal (in the picture at the left), a guided walk from the hotel to Rijksmuseum (more about the museum later!) on the edge of the old city, and help with getting around to see things on our own. The weather was not ideal, being cold and a bit rainy/sleety, but we were prepared with plenty of warm clothes and didn't let the cloudy skies deter us. 

The big museum (which we visited the next day) is definitely an architectural highlight of the city. Built about the same time as their gorgeous train station (which I showed you in my teaser post) it resembles that structure but is even more grand:

Not far from the museum is another building that's famous around the world, and also quite handsome:

And, as in any European city, the churches are just spectacular...

Basilica of St. Nicholas, seen from the train station

this *might* be the Oude Kerk (Old Church),
just glimpsed on our walk to the boat

Dazzling as these large community landmarks are, however, I found normal Amsterdam domestic architecture to be just as photo-worthy. Here are some examples:

just across the bridge from the Rijksmuseum

just a cafe...that looks like a castle

examples of Amsterdam's famous gabled houses

You can see one of the most interesting things about Amsterdam domestic architecture near the tops of the gables in the photo above. (We learned about this from our helpful Viking guide, in addition to very important lessons about watching out for bicycles—which were everywhere—and in astronomical numbers!) Every house has them: hooks for transporting furniture in and out of the apartments, when residents change. The stairs inside are apparently so narrow that it's the only way to move big items like beds and tables, not to mention pianos!

Here are some shots showing these essential appendages more closely...

In spite of the cold wind and occasional sleet, we loved walking around Amsterdam. As the first steps outside of my [admittedly quite privileged] constricted bubble in so long, it brought me a joy deeper than I was expecting: to be able to enjoy being in a new place, with wonderful things to see in every direction...Let's hope we can all experience this euphoria again soon!

happy tourists

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Architecture postscript:

Just so you don't believe Amsterdam is a city stuck in the past, its wonderful old buildings notwithstanding, here are a few examples I spied out of the bus windows on our trip to see what the Netherlands is mostly famous for—which I'll show you next time...