Tarra's Travels: The Netherlands - Week One -Amsterdam, The Hague, Keukenhof & Leiden

Friday, April 19th - Friday, April 26th

We flew out of Helena at 6:00 PM on Friday, changed planes in Salt Lake City and arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam about noon on Saturday. We took the train to Centraal Station and the tram from there to the apartment John had booked for us and got settled in. Dawn came in on a later flight and joined us later in the evening.

Sunday we took the train to The Hague where we happened upon an outdoor market in a park.

This was an adult swing style carousel at the park.

Little three-wheeled food truck that was serving tostini or panini type sandwiches.

Dawn and I opted for the vegetarian burritos which were delicious. John, of course, headed right to the sausage and beer wagon.

Street scenes in the neighborhood around the park.

This little 10" sign was on the side of the building above.

Some war hero from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Knights Hall inner plaza. John sitting on bench looking at the gold statue of King Willem II (William of Orange).

One side of Knights Hall facing the canal. I guess the King's knights needed a lot of space or there were an awful lot of them.

Interesting door we walked by.

Just next to the outdoor market in the park happened to be the Escher in the Palace Art Gallery, so Dawn and I decided to check it out. It was in the Palais Noordiende, the palace where Queen Wilhelmina lived as a princess before she was Queen.

Each room had a very different and unusual chandelier. Some of the others were a whale, a seahorse, a bird, a cello, an upside down umbrella, a bottle and a man.

This bizarre painting was called Bond of Union. 1956.

I don't remember the name of this one, but I thought it was rather cool.

This chandelier was about 4 stories long.

It was finally time to go and see what we really came to The Hague to see, the Palais de la Paix. There is a little museum, film and gift shop, but you have to have an appointment for a tour of the palace to prevent overcrowding.

This picture was in the museum of Big Chief White Horse Eagle from South Dakota who visited here. The caption said "Honorable Chief White Horse Eagle (world famous chief) - age 108, born 1822, taken June 23, 1930."

John and Dawn sitting outside. No pictures allowed inside on the tour. Millions of soldiers lost their lives in WWI which all parties came to see as senseless and led to the creation of the Peace Palace and an International Court of Justice and Arbitration. Unfortunately they were unable to stop WWII. The palace opened its gates in 1913 and was managed by the Carnegie Foundation. Andrew Carnegie paid for the library here plus more than 3,000 other libraries worldwide, as books led to his success and he wanted everyone to have access to the same resources he had. He said, "If a man dies rich, he dies disgraced." He felt everyone should use their wealth and good fortune to help others.

Restaurant where we had lunch after our tour.

Statue of Willem Den Eerste, Vader of the Vaderlands (Father of the Fatherlands) 1848.

Monday we took the tram back to Centraal Station in Amsterdam. This is just overflow bike parking in front of station. There are several two-and-three-tier bike parking garages beside and behind the building.

They estimate that there are 350,000 bikes in use everyday in Amsterdam.

This is on the back side of the station where bikers are boarding the free ferry to cross the IJ (eye) Harbor to North Amsterdam. Centraal Station opened in 1889 and was built on three artificial islands on the River IJ. The North Sea Canal opened in 1876.

There is a long outdoor corridor at the end of Centraal Station where you can walk from the front to the back of the station and the wall is covered with seagoing scenes made from blue Delft tiles.

This is a three deck bike parking lot on the other side of the tunnel and boats across the canal where we took a cruise later in the day. Also, the high-rise tower to the left is for bike parking only. It is free courtesy of the government to encourage the green and ultra-efficient mode of transportation.

Another interesting door.

This is the Magna Shopping Plaza. It was built in 1899 as the main post office. In the 1980s it was converted to a fashionable shopping mall.

Across the street is the Royal Palace that is no longer used as a residence by the royal family, but is still used for official state functions and receptions.

Nieuw Kerk (New Church) on Dam Square is right next to the Royal Palace. We walked past all of these on our way to the Amsterdam Museum. Dam Square is the heart of the city, where the original walled city was located in 1540. In 1578 Amsterdam joined the revolt against Spanish rule. The Protestants joined the militia and large numbers of Catholics were sent packing and transported out of the city from here, a completely bloodless revolution.

At the Amsterdam Museum this is a pair of carved ivory elephant tusks presented by a Chinese magnate from Sumatra to Jacob and Annie Cremer, who are portrayed in the carving. They made a fortune with their tobacco plantations on Sumatra employing Chinese and Javanese day laborers. In 1897 he was appointed Colonial Minister. The Dutch had over 400 plantations in Surinam. The city owned the colony jointly with the Dutch West India Company. Around 1700 they had as many as 10,000 African slaves.

The floor in one room of the museum was covered in glass Old World maps. It was in Amsterdam where the first attempts were made to introduce a welfare state, for which they became famous in the second half of the 20th century. They thought if you look after each other, the city will stay healthy. The city has been looking after its inhabitants for centuries. Around 1600 they began planting trees along the canals. It's a very green city. They have 40 parks. The city has been growing for over 800 years and 600 years ago there was a monastery here. From 1578 the museum was the city orphanage that housed tens of thousands of orphans who lived, worked, played and were educated here until 1975 when the orphanage was moved elsewhere. There were about 1,000 orphans living here at a time. In 1544 the city population was 12,000. The metro area is now over 854,000. As of 2014 there were 178 different nationalities living in the city. The first gay and lesbian wedding in the world was held in the city in 2001. That same year there were 1,300 gay weddings and 1,100 lesbian weddings in the Netherlands. In 2012 there were 540 gay weddings and 740 lesbian weddings.

The Fahrenheit thermometer, considered the first modern thermometer, was invented in 1724 by German-Dutch scientist Daniel G. Fahrenheit. He devoted much of his life's work to the measurement of temperature and also invented the alcohol and mercury thermometers. The Fahrenheit thermometer was the primary temperature standard for climactic, industrial and medicinal purposes in English speaking countries until the 1970s. The Celsius scale was invented in 1742 by Swedish astronomer Andre Celsius. Long used in the rest of the world, it is a less unwieldy system based on multiples of ten, and is used today in most of the world.

A protest movement emerged in Amsterdam among young people, students and artists in 1965. Known as Provo, their target was the establishment. One of the schemes they initiated was the white bike and white car plan, based on the ideal that sharing is better than owning and that a way should be found to reduce pollution caused by the growing number of cars in the city. Parking places were installed around the city where white electric cars could recharge their battery. You could pay to become a member and a small fee was paid for each ride. Because of the limited number of parking places, the project failed to attract the support it needed to succeed. After 1978, these cars gradually disappeared from the streets. Decades later, however, the goal is for the city to be completely free of gas powered vehicles by 2030. Buses, cars, etc. will all be electric.

This is a room in the orphanage where the generous benefactors hung their own portraits to pat themselves on the back for their generosity. The orphan's daily diet consisted of beans or bread and buttermilk, peas and lard or bread porridge with fresh milk. On Wednesdays the orphans would receive a piece of meat or fish.

There was a fashion exhibit from 18th and 19th century...

opposite six leading modern day designers.

I thought some were a little strange...

but this one really baffled me. Just what sort of an occasion would one wear this to?

This huge wooden statue of Goliath, his shield bearer and David are from an old maze in a pleasure garden with statues, fountains and a labyrinth. Some of the figures had mechanical movements. Goliath can roll his eyes and nod his head back and forth. They are from 1648 to 1650.

This is the interior plaza of the orphanage/museum. 1920 was the 400th anniversary of the orphanage. Four would eat from the same bowl and they learn to use a quill pen. Most of the orphans worked in the huge textile industries they had here.

Local constabulary keeping an eye on things.

La Pampa Argentinian Grill and Steak House where we stopped for lunch. I had vegetarian pasta and tomato soup. Dawn had salmon, rice, salad and French onion soup. John had Argentinian Sausage and ribs, salad, Belgian frites and two beers.

Me before boarding the Lovers Canal Cruise. It was enclosed and it was a nice day. I kind of wished we had picked a more open cruise, but it would have been perfect for a day that was not so nice.

One of the cruise boats going by another museum which we did not get around to.

Boat we passed on our cruise.

If you look closely on this picture, you can see two or three bridges ahead of us that we will be going under.

Notice the legs showing beneath the little green cylinder? Yes, public urinals can be seen along the sidewalks occasionally. Very convenient for the guys. Once again us girls are left without.

After our cruise we decided to take the free ferry across the IJ to check out North Amsterdam. The funny white flat building is called The Eye and is a theater and film museum.

The A'dam Tower next to it has a restaurant and observation deck on top plus swings that you can ride out over the edge for a great view. We didn't feel the need.

Tuesday, April 23rd we caught the tram again to Centraal Station and another to go see the Van Gogh Museum. Above is a concert hall next to the museum.

This is a WWII Memorial.

This is the Rijks Museum, as in Rembrandt van Rijk.

And this is the Van Gogh Museum where we spent most of the day. It is four floors and you had to have a reservation time to enter to control overcrowding.

There was a backdrop of Van Gogh's legendary sunflowers where you could take your picture. No other photos allowed.

Moco Museum across the street was showing an exhibition by Banksy, the street art legend. A couple buildings down was a diamond museum. There are several in the city.

We saw a lot of these little Canta LX cars and several had the club on the steering wheel. I hardly think that would keep it from getting stolen. I think a big, strong guy could just lift it up and throw it in the back of his pickup and drive away. We saw one by our apartment where two ladies and a small child just got out and they were unloading a bunch of grocery bags. I don't know how they all fit in there with only two seats.

The I Amsterdam sign has recently been moved from in front of Centraal Station across the harbor to here because it was creating a traffic jam with so many people trying to take pictures of it as they left or boarded the trains, trams and buses.

Looking back toward the Centraal Station, these are the free ferries. We walked to supper at a rather fancy Asian place called Tjay Tpap near the grocery store in the Steigerland neighborhood where we were staying. Very yummy!

Wednesday we took the same route and went back to spend the day at the Rijks Museum. This is Mary Magdalene by Jan van Scorel (1495 - 1562).

Aguamanilla from Latin words for water and hands (manus). These jugs or ewers pour water over the hands of priests before celebrating mass and of diners at a table. Most are made in the form of a lion with a small dragon on its back for the handle, often shone biting the lion's head.

Room full of ship replicas.

Copper model of a submarine designed in 1835 to be 8 meters long with a crew of four plus a commander.

The Netherlands was once a leading center for production and trade of arms.

Dueling pistols and cannon. Some were just made as elaborate gifts for heads of state or other dignitaries.

They had lots of furniture and beautiful cabinets like these throughout the museum and a huge room full of beautiful porcelain china, lots of it made in The Hague where they specialized in complete services of more than 300 pieces. The clock plays four melodies, shows the date, day of week, month, phases of the moon and time of high tide.

William II Prince of Orange and his bride Mary Stuart by Anthony Van Dyck (1599 -1641) on the occasion of their marriage in London. He was 14. She was 9.

Rembrandt's famous Night Watchmen. Sort of like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris. So many people crowded around it that it's hard to get a good look at it or take a picture.

Doll Cabinet ca. 1700.

A couple close-ups of the rooms.

We ate a late lunch at an Indonesian place called Sie Joe in the alley next to the Royal Palace.

Thursday we caught a bus from Centraal Station to Keukenhof to see the tulip fields and gardens. We started our day with a very nice bike ride of about 14 miles through the countryside. Dawn and John taking a short picture break.

Break to enjoy a view of the North Sea.

A few deer along the bike path.

Restaurant we stopped at for a light lunch of omelets and carpaccio.

Fields upon fields of tulips. Also, several field of peonies and daffodils.

Thatch-roofed house.

Our bike ride is over and this is the entrance to the 80-acre Keukenhof Gardens that are only open about two months while the tulips are in bloom with 50,000 visitors a day.

Tulips were first introduced to The Netherlands from Turkey in 1593. Ever since 1594 Dutch bulb growers have continued to seek out new tulip varieties, which has led to ever more colors, shapes, etc. This over 400 years of plant breeding has produced 15 tulip groups and some 3,000 different varieties.

Some of the tulips were on their last day with their petals about to fall off, but they were almost more gorgeous than the others in their own way.

Does anyone know what this very unusual flower in the center is? I meant to ask before we left, but I forgot.

My smiling and patient travel mates. I know they are not as into flowers as I am, but they allowed me to wander as long as I wished.

Hyacinths.

Believe it or not, these rose-like flowers are tulips and so are the green and white ones below. I think the little blue flowers are called muscari.

90% of the flowers here are tulips, but there are a few others for accent.

These are called ice cream tulips.

This calliope was playing modern rock and roll tunes. Very fun!

I finally found shoes big enough to fit me.

They had a little petting zoo for kids with sheep, rabbits, pot-bellied pigs, ducks and this lovely long-tailed peacock.

Yes, these are all tulips.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but a lot of these tulips are as big as a good-sized coffee mug.

We had supper at a Thai/Korean place. Shrimp dumplings, coconut fried prawns, lettuce wraps, Korean bulgogi, lamb and vegetables, stew and veggies with tofu. So goooood!

Friday, April 26th, we traveled to Leiden, Rembrandt's birth place and the final European home of the Pilgrims.

Our first stop was a tour of this Windmill Museum. Windmills were often built on top of the town walls to catch the wind. This is a platform mill where the miller lived in the house below and could rotate only the windmill's head (with the wings) to face the wind.

Rembrandt's father was a miller and owned a windmill that was built in 1574 and demolished in 1730. The Leiden Windmill Museum was born in 1965 when the last miller died. The trunk is 94' high. Height above the reefing stage is 45". The span or length of two sails is 88". With a wind speed of 6 to 8 meters per second the mill's capacity is 50 HP. Enough flour for 1,600 loaves can be ground in a day, enough for 8,000 people. Today Leiden Flour Factory can mill 32,000 kilograms of flour in one hour, enough for several million people.

This is a subsidized senior living center with no elevators. Their seniors must be in better shape than ours are. Below is the enclosed courtyard.

This quintessentially Dutch house: stripes of red and white bricks, shutters with the town colors of red and white and a classic stepped-gable design was originally Carpenters House. Built in 1612, as Leiden was booming, it housed architects, carpenters and bricklayers who were hard at work expanding the city. The former warehouse along the back of the courtyard once held building supplies.

Typical street scene with sidewalks totally unavailable to pedestrians.

Pieters Kerk Leiden (St. Peter's Church). A Count of Holland built a chapel at this location in 1121. It was the first church in Leiden and has been extended, demolished and rebuilt repeatedly. Until 1512 a tower that was more than 100 meters tall stood in the square in front of the church. There are countless gravestones inside the church.

Gerecht (justice) Square adjacent to St. Peter's Church housed the 17th century prison and court of justice. Parts of the building are from the 12th century and the justice meted out here was medieval in every sense. Many were tortured and executed right on the square. They'd be drawn and quartered, or their bones crushed on a wheel. Their corpses were taken out to display at the park at the end of Galgewaterstraat (Gallows Water Street). Kitty corner from here was the building where young Rembrandt attended Latin school. His family owned a lot of property and was well-to-do enough to send him to prep school and later Leiden University at age 14. But all he wanted to do was paint and at 17 he decided he would make more money in Amsterdam and he was gone.

The wagon handle is the handle bar for this 3-wheeled bike.

Pedestrian alleyway.

John reading the sign over the archway that was the site of the Pilgrim Press on Pieters Kerk Alley in the 1609-1620 home of Separatist Pilgrim Father, Elder William Brewster, of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, England, the spiritual leader of Plymouth in England until his death in 1643.

Little notches running down the center of the sidewalk to guide blind people are everywhere.

Citadel of Leiden erected by the citizens as a defense against the water of the Rhine and the confluence of the Old and New Rhine. The burcht (artificial mound) was built in the 8th or 9th century. The citadel was built around 1159 and the city expanded around the fortress. Romans built a settlement here as early as the 5th century. Throughout the Middle Ages, Leiden steadily produced cloth that was sold across Europe, as well as beer and pewter. By 1500, it was Holland's biggest and most important city. William of Orange founded the Netherland's first university here in 1575. A Flemish professor recently returned from Turkey planted the first tulip bulb here in the University Botanic Gardens. Albert Einstein taught here and it's students included U.S. President John Quincy Adams. Today one in every six residents is a student.

Inside the citadel at the top of the hill. The city magistrate bought the location in 1651 and turned it into the city park that it still is today.

The church in the background is the second parish church of Leiden. It started as a simple wood building in 1314 and expanded until the 16th century.

A closer view of the present 67 meter imposing edifice. The transept of St. Pancras or Hooglandse (Highland) Kerk is the longest in the Netherlands. The church was never finished because around 1500 the wool industry began to decline and there was no more money. The Catholic Church was in crisis due to the Reformation and in 1535 all activity stopped. In 1572 the church passed to Protestant hands.

We stopped at this little bakery Bakker Van Maanen for a broodjes (bread) and tosties (toasted) sandwiches for lunch.

Sometimes I wonder why they bother to plant trees when they just keep them trimmed down to the trunk.

American Pilgrim Museum. Leiden was the final European home of the Pilgrims. In 1609 they fled religious persecution in England to Amsterdam, finally settling in Leiden for a decade in the area around St. Peter's Church, before sailing in the Speedwell back to England and the Mayflower from there to America in 1620. Inspired by the tolerant policies of William of Orange, they wrote the Mayflower Compact while at sea, which later formed the basis for the U.S. Constitution.

Two small rooms in the oldest house in town (late 1360s with original fireplace and floors) filled with unique and priceless items from the time period that the Pilgrims lived here. A very well-informed curator demonstrated how some of the items were used and gave a very interesting presentation.

Everything was very laid back and hands on. It was very good and only cost $5.00.

Dawn sitting in a chair made in the 1400s.

A 17th century Lutheran Church that lay hidden behind houses for over 200 years. The official Calvinist state church did not allow people with a different faith to build prayer houses on a public highway. That is why it is set back so far from the street. The houses were pulled down in 1866.

Couple taking wedding photos in the entrance to the orphanage courtyard. There is an orphan boy and girl statue along the top of the gate

Courtyard of the Holy Ghost Orphanage of 1583. Now a museum and an art gallery. The orphans supplied labor for the cloth industry in the 17th century. When demand was high, orphans were even imported from other countries. 700 orphans were housed here at a time and were living here until 1961.

John and Dawn crossing bridge over Rapenburg Canal dug out not long after 1200 for defense. In the 1600s rich merchants and celebrated professors lived along here in imposing mansions.

Keeping the kids and groceries in front of you while you are biking seems like a good idea.

Rembrandt commemorative garden near where he was born and lived.

Portrait of Rembrandt on the left wall and on the mound a statue of a young Rembrandt appreciates his later self-portrait. Rembrandt's birthplace was along this alley. He was born in 1606 and lived here until 1631. His father owned several houses in this neighborhood. The west side of the alley had a heavy city wall topped by two windmills, one owned by Rembrandt's grandmother. His home was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century and there is a plaque on the side of the current building to mark where it stood.