Tulips and Windmills

 It is 7 a.m. and I'm sitting in the Schipol airport, nearly 3 hours before our flight leaves for Detroit.  Oh those Dutch and their desire for promptness!  But, waiting at the end of today's saga is my own bed and I'm really looking forward to that.  First Detroit then Columbus around 5:30 p.m. Yesterday was a ton of fun and spent entirely with the kids.  We met Jenny, Dave, Ava G., and Niamh (Gigi) at 9:15 a.m. and did "stuff" all day long until retiring about 9:30 p.m.  First, we had tickets to the Rijksmuseum (Rikes-museum) for 11:30 a.m., and walked the few blocks to the Dutch national museum and home to the Dutch masters, particularly Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Van Gogh.  What a magnificent building the Rijksmuseum is, both inside and out.  It reminds me a lot of the Louvre in Paris in that you could easily spent several days exploring its contents.  We, however, were on a bit of a timeline as we had tickets to follow for the Van Gogh Muse...

We disembarked from the Viking Freya in the morning after 9 days of sailing on various rivers.  A nice ride from a charming Dutch man took us in private Mercedes over to our hotel, the Amsterdam Pulitzer.  It is an interesting amalgm of canal houses, 4 or 5, that were gradually purchased by the Pulitzer magnate over time and joined together into a hotel.  Its origins are obviously quite old but it is a lovely five-star hotel so we are enjoying the amenities while we stay here until Wednesday morning when we head to Schiphol Airport for our return home. The morning consisted of a 90-minute walk around Amsterdam with a very knowledgeable guide who pointed out the differences in the architecture - again, most buildings along the canals date to the 16th. or 17th. century - in this city of 800,000 who see 8 M visitors a year.  There are more than 1.2 M bikes in Amsterdam and they are the bane of a walker's existence.  You have to be constantly on the lookout because,...

We spent the night docked near to Amsterdam in Zaandam, largely because of the backlog of ships trying to get into Amsterdam.  We didn't miss a beat, though, with a short bus ride into the Amsterdam city center for our first half of the day - a canal boat ride on the very old canal structure. The weather was beautiful and the ride was very pleasant.  Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and pointed out the many things to be seen only from the canal system.  There are many 15th. and 16th. century structures left standing and a mixture of beautiful new architecture.  One particularly interesting structure was a set of houses called the "Dancing Houses" who are unsettled in their mooring and appear to be leaning into each other.  It was a morning well spent. In the afternoon, we went to Kukenhof Gardens which is in the height of bloom for the tulip season.  About an hour away from Amsterdam, it is an annual event that runs for 8 weeks through late spring, and...

Perhaps the most beautiful day weather-wise was the one we enjoyed today in Hoorne, The Netherlands.  It was nothing but blue skies and sunshine and actually got up to about 60 degrees. Hoorn is a harbor town founded in 716 AD, and was a prosperous trade center as recently as the 17th. century.  Here they traded in exotic spices like pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and mace - yes, mace - from Indonesia.  It was in 1602 that the famous Dutch East India Company (DEIC) was established to manage this trade.  The world's first mega corporation, they were endowed with powers including the ability to wage war, mint currency, and establish colonies.  Hometown hero Willem Schouten was the first to sail around the tip of South America, naming it "Cape Horn". We spent the morning walking around town and seeing the old structures and obvious wealth that the Dutch East India Company brought.  Several of the buildings were slanted  which we initially mistook for collapsing....

Kinderdijk is the location of a UNESCO World Heritage site with its beautiful windmills dating to the 1730s.  Think about that!  These windmills were operating to pump water from high marshy ground to low ground in the nearby river since before the American Revolution! When I think of "mills", in general, my first thought is of milling of grain as we see in America.  Here, though, the mills were built to pump water that rose daily out of the soggy, peat-based ground into the nearby river when it was at low tide.  To do this, a "millwright" and his family called these places home and accomplished their task by harnessing wind power . Around since the first century, windmills were invented in Persia but perfected by the Dutch who needed them with 1/3 of their country below sea-level (100% in the area of Amsterdam).  They didn't catch on in Europe, thought, until the 17th. century.  Amazingly, the head of the windmill can turn 360 degrees to catch the wind in ...

Today was a twofer - Dordrecht and Rotterdam - consisting of two Dutch cities that couldn't have been more different than each other, and in a good way, I guess.  They're about 10 miles apart.  Today was King's Day celebrating the ruling Dutch monarch with revelry everywhere in both towns, marked by the color orange (as the original monarch came from Orange, France). In World War II, the story was very different for the two cities.  The Germans gave each town 48 hours to clear out or face utter destruction.  Those in Dordrecht were in despair over their beautiful city being destroyed and agreed to leave quickly.  Those in Rotterdam, a key port on the Rotte River, debated a bit too long and the Luftwaffe bombers were flying with death and destruction before they had finally agreed.  Too late for Rotterdam.  It was totally destroyed while Dordrecht's medieval streets and beautiful canals survived. Dordrecht is one of the oldest cities in The Netherlands,...