Amsterdam/Belgium/London Day 4 - Van Gogh and Other Crazies

Mandy was smart enough to prepurchase tickets for the Van Gogh museum months in advance.  Good thing as the line is crazy to buy tickets.  We have breakfast at the Café Small Talk, a diminutive two-story corner place that allows us a perch to watch the city come to life.  Amsterdam is a bike town, with what appears to be 10 bicycles for every car.  Every block is crammed with bike parking racks, every one jammed full, then bikes locked to any other stationary object.  Bikes lanes are way more busy then sidewalks or car lanes and have their own set of traffic control, so it’s funny to see the crush of rolling stock out of the gates each time the light changes.  The bikes themselves are mostly tall, upright standards with 3-speed hubs, but the purpose-built variations are fascinating.  There are family bikes with wheelbarrow-like buckets in front with seats for 2, 3 or even 4 kids.  Working bikes with heavy toolboxes and rigged with trailers.  Single bikes with multiple friends riding at once Bears On Wheels style.

We have 9am tickets so the museum is not crowded when we go in.  Van Gogh’s career only spans about 10 years and the museum is arranged as a sort of timeline by floor.  Going up in order lets you see the experimentation and evolution of the artist as he tries on various styles, studies diverse influences.  I’m more taken with his odd stuff than the more popular pieces, like the Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette or his Asian influenced work like Almond Blossom.  We get the impression that if his brother Theo didn’t save his letters, Vincent would have been lost to history as just another tortured soul.  We normally have a 90-minute tolerance for any museum, but this one is enthralling, and we stay much longer to take in every gallery.

A few minutes stop at a sidewalk café and we’re recharged.  We try to visit a Marc Chagall gallery we past on our first walk in town, but we’re rejected by the owner who asks us to make an appointment despite the posted hours.  Guess Chagall isn’t meant to come home with us.  As this is our last day in town we just wander, exploring, enjoying.  We take increasing notice of the leaning houses.  Not one or two, but 8 or 10 on every block.  Four story or taller townhouses tilting on their neighbors at crazy angles.  It seems that after a few hundred years, the underground water has eroded the foundations so extensively that only the will of god and some support of their neighbors is the only thing keeping these tall structures standing.  We think of Pisa, Italy, where one leaning tower made the place world famous, and wonder why there aren’t organized tours of these structures.  I’d certainly pay 5€ to roll marbles down some of those living room floors. 

We're always in for local fare, so we make a mandatory street food stop at a little kiosk specializing in local fish.  The pickled herring is delish, served simply with a few pickles on a soft roll, and the mackerel is just as yummy.  Looping through the red-light district we notice the Thursday afternoon crowds growing and understand why.  Saturday is Kings day, the annual celebration King Williem-Alexander’s birthday, a kingdom wide party on scale with Marti Gras and just as wild.  As the rain starts, we duck into a welcoming cheese shop (ain’t they all? 😊).  Poking toothpicks into the many samples, one type better than the next.  They offer a cheese and tea tasting, explaining that the tannins in the tea work just like the ones in wine, so parings have become very popular.  It’s warm and cozy watching the rain on the canal through the shop’s back window, the steaming liquid and savory kaas mellowing us despite the growing throngs outside.  We leave to find the closest grocery with a liquor store.  It’s an adventure buying a good bottle of wine in a beer town, but we get the job done.  Now in full downpour, it’s a cab back to the hotel for a predinner nap.

Our hotelman has made a reservation for us at John Dory, a Michelin Star restaurant famous for their local fish dishes.  The chef offers a mesmerizing 10 course surprise tasting menu they call Fishtronomy, but we opt for the (slightly) saner 6 and 8 course options.  Each artfully plated dish pairs the fish with local seasonal vegetables and is expertly presented with a nice description from the very professional and lively staff.  All-in-all a great last night’s dinner experience in Amsterdam.

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Amsterdam/Belgium/London Day 3 - Tulips to the Horizon

It’s strange for us to not have a car during vacation, but there’s no sense having one in the city.  So Tuesday night when we decide to explore the Dutch countryside, we scramble to rent a car for the next morning.  Fortunately, Sixt has an office just a short walk from our hotel and we’re motoring by 9 AM.  First stop is Zaanse Schans, about 30 minutes and home to some historic working windmills.  If you’ve read our blog before, you know of my predilection to 1960s roadside attractions, and this stop has more promise than a billboard that starts “World’s Largest…”

We pull into town and pass the historical village with the museum and four working windmills.  We pull into the actual historic working village, the place where normal folks live and work.  Like any old town, it’s a layered affair, new built next to old, but this one with a decidedly Holland flair.  The main part of town consists of a tight knot of looping avenues ringed by canals.  This is spring so doors and windows are left open while families bike and walk and communally enjoy.  There are quaint, compact homes of the traditional designs and colors right next door to 70s apartment blocks and modern townhouses as if to map progress through the centuries.  The most striking of these contrasts is the functioning 1800s windmill directly in front of the huge modern factory.  We land in the Wolfsend Café to repair our caffeine deficiency.   My breakfast of local sausage and local honey mustard on farmers bread was wonderful, but we still can’t figure out what was going on with Mandy’s “omelet”.

Walking over the bridge to the main attraction we see the picturesque waterfront of the town, reminiscent of a New England fishing village.  The four big windmills are lined up to create the forced perspective photo we tried to master in Photography 101.  The lovely village is a precise recreation of life in the 1850s, accurate down to the 1€ pay toilets and big museum at one end.  Our first stop is the small windmill, separate from the others.  This one is actively milling spices and selling them in various preparations in the shop.  Next stop is the flour mill, larger then the first with access to the upper floor gearworks and upper deck outside.  The inner workings are pure steampunk fascination, finely engineered wood gears turning each other and operating all sorts of levers and ratchets, ultimately convincing a huge stone wheel to bully grain into flour.

Next stop is the oil mill, this one mashing peanuts into dust and including another wind powered pressure contraption to force the oil out.  It’s the first time we notice how different and purpose built each mill is from each other, evolving out of opportunity when this was a major trading port with sailing ships from Asia.  On the outer deck, we figure out the huge spoked ship’s wheel with the ropes and anchors allows the miller to spin the top of the windmill into the wind to keep the blades at maximum production – another amazing engineering feat centuries before computers were invented.  It’s very windy today and we stand so close to the massive fast-spinning blades that we feel their raw power with each SWOOOOSH.

The saw mill is very different again, starting with the construction video.  This mill was built new from the ground up in 2007 using the ancient techniques.  We go into the works and my carpenter heritage and engineering geek ooze from my pores.  I’m expecting a big spinning blade but instead see a set of precisely spaced vertical blades cutting logs into several same-thickness boards all at once, a ratchet system auto feeding the timber into the blades.  I don’t notice when Mandy strikes up a conversation with a woman who volunteers at the mill, but I’m drawn in when I hear the woman say “my husband built this mill”.  We chat for another minute or two when the millbuilder shows up too.  Both gentile, humble people, proud of their work and heritage, happy to joke with us and show us more details.  It’s one of those moments that you can just feel your day getting better.  The millbuilder’s wife suggests a drive from Alkmaar to Haemskerke to see the fields of tulips and adds a restaurant recommendation for “really goot paankakes”.  We head directly to the car.

The route is everything promised.  Charming villages in between big, sweeping tracts of fertile farm land.  About half the fields are in full bloom, massive canvases painted with broad brush strokes in bright, happy colors.  Mandy is home here in her dream garden.  We stop in lots of fields for pictures, neon pinks, deep reds, shocking purples.  We keep thinking this will be the last stop, but then we see the next field is even more beautiful than the last.  To our surprise, one of the most stunning was the simple white tulip fields.  We meet the lone farmer, patiently working his field, the stuff of museum paintings.  The abundance of pictures below speak for themselves.

We finally reach the next GPS destination, Johanna’s Hof, for a late lunch.  At first glance, we think it’s a tourist trap, a huge restaurant with 200+ indoor seats, the same or more outdoor seats, a playground and a pen full of goats and hens.  Turns out Johanna’s is a local’s hangout, known for its great food and relaxed atmosphere.  We order a pancake dish and, on the waiter’s suggestion a local fish served with Zeekraal, a local delicacy grown in the salt marshes near the beach, a thin delicate succulent which tastes like a tiny, salty asparagus.  Add a few beers and it’s a near perfect Dutch spring afternoon.

Tired, full and getting late, we head to Haarlem, about 15 minutes away.  No sooner do we park then the skies turn dark, the wind kicks mightily, a mini sandstorm preceding the torrential rain.  Decision made we beat feet back to Amsterdam.  The nice folks at Sixt stay open late giving us time to gas up before dropping off our little Renault SUV.  After regrouping at the hotel, we wander to the Luxemburg Café, a typical in/outdoor café on the corner of a busy square.  We sip and munch, watching watch through the glass as people on foot and on bikes hustle to and fro into the rainy Amsterdam night.

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Amsterdam/Belgium/London Day 2: Tulips and Other Surrealism

While we planned this trip around seeing some friends in Belgium, we timed this trip to see Holland’s storied tulips, in bloom for just six short weeks a year.  With a favorable weather forecast, we take the bus to Kukkenhof, one of the largest flower gardens in the world.  With about 80 acres in full bloom, it’s difficult to judge the number of times we literally said “Oooohhhh!” or “Pretty!” or “Wow!”  We wander the crisscrossing paths, understanding how hummingbirds are attracted from one intense color to the next with no regard for order.  We pollinate the gardens for several hours, taking far too many pictures and helpless not to take more.  I make no apologies for the number of those pictures included here.  To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the only line from the only poem I remember from high school (sorry Mr. Delany, wherever you are), “beauty is its own excuse for being”. 

We get back for a late lunch on Leidseplein, a square ringed with an international array of outdoor cafes such as Dan Murphy’s and the Chicago Social Club. We choose Le Pub based partly on the front corner location but mostly on the availability of an Aperol spritz.  A delicious sandwich of Parma ham, pesto, fresh mozzarella and big basil leaves was an unexpected surprise.  Afternoon drinks accomplished, we head to the room for regrouping before the next leg of our adventure.

De Wallen is Amsterdam’s famous red-light district, with scantily clad women of all sizes, shapes and ethnicities displaying their wares from inside tiny glass brothel booths.  It’s also home to countless bars, weed fueled coffee shops, loud music of every genre and restaurants of all sizes, shapes and ethnicities displaying their wares from inside tiny glass windows.  In the middle of all that is Dabka, a well-reviewed Lebanese restaurant with small dining spaces upstairs, downstairs and out front.   The baba ganoush appetizer is served with a freshly baked loaf of bread the size of a throw pillow, which when pierced, reveals its steamy hollow center.  The hot, thin crust is perfect for scooping the garlicky roasted eggplant dish.  Falafel and a mixed grill platter rounds out our middle eastern dinner, letting us sample a good portion of the authentic, well executed menu.  A nightcap at the Old Sailor, a fun but well used pirate themed party bar playing tired mellow classic rock streamed through an Xbox in the heart of it all.  It’s like a fraternity party that’s been going on since 1972, but just not as clean.  Mandy tells me how much the bar is doing to be ecologically friendly, foregoing wasteful paper napkins in the ladies’ room for a single dish towel.  We wander back through the district.  It’s more side show then sexy, the women pouting and posing against the glass, but we have fun watching the whole scene, a scene that’s been going on since the middle ages.

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