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April 17 to April 28, 2015
Holland Waterways
Grand Circle Cruise Line

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As usual, I’ll start my travelogue with a hello in the language of the country visited: Goedemorgen! That’s an easy one, because so close to both the German and English words from which they derive. However, that’s where my comfort with the Dutch language ends. Not only does it not sound the way it is written, but it is practically unpronounceable, an amalgam of many vowels lumped together – sometimes the same, sometimes not, and mixture of consonants which should never be placed together in the first place. Try saying “How are you?”, for instance: Hoe gaat het met u?, or “Please” : Alstublieft! It just wouldn’t roll off my tongue. So “Please” had to do.

The following itinerary will give you an idea of where we went and how.

As you can see, we went to two countries. The first thing we learned is that the first one we visited is officially called The Netherlands, though commonly referred to as Holland. Holland is really the name of the county where Amsterdam is located. The Dutch language, spoken in the Netherlands, is almost identical (except for expressions and accents) to the Flemish language spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, while French is spoken in Wallonia, the southern part. Both countries used to be one until 1831 when Belgium became independent, with a flag of its own. They now both use the euro as their currency.

We went straight to the ship after arriving at the Amsterdam airport. After sailing overnight, we arrived at our first port-of-call, Hoorn. As is the case in all river cruises, the excursions start right off the ship, and are always walking. For those who might have a difficult time doing so several hours a day, it can be a challenge. Especially when trying to follow a tour guide who addresses the group through a mike attached to his/her lapel while the group continues more or less at the same pace, AND tries to take photos. But the weather was splendid, sunny and cool. So rare for that part of the world, as we knew.

AMSTERDAM home with car and boat parked in front — AMSTERDAM home with car and boat parked in front

Founded in 716, and now with a population of 72,000, 24 miles north of Amsterdam, Hoorn is an idyllic and very active port, which obtained city rights in 1357. Cape Horn, the most southerly point of the Americas, was named after the town by Willem Schouten, who rounded it in 1616. Schouten’s other claim to fame is to have founded the city of Jakarta, leading to the colonization of Indonesia by the Dutch, all at the tender age of 27. While we were admiring his statue, we were treated to a slow procession of antique Mercedes, parading through the town streets to mark the meeting of a regional antique cars club.

It was like a stroll through a postcard, moving about from a 14th-century restaurant or pub or inn, to a port filled with sailing vessels of all ages, crossing narrow canals lined with streets with both a car and a boat parked in front of most houses, with myriad bridges, whether swing or typical Dutch lift-style, made of stone, brick or wood, all on traditional cobblestone streets bordered with trees timidly reaching out with their spring’s rebirth.

During Holland's 'Golden Age' (or 'Golden Century'), Hoorn was an important home base for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and a very prosperous center of trade. The Hoorn fleet plied the seven seas and returned laden with precious commodities. Exotic spices such as pepper, nutmeg, cloves and mace were sold at vast profits.

The façades of all the houses we saw – of the side-by-side townhouse variety – consisted of larger than usual glass windows, never covered by curtains or drapes. There seems to be two explanations for this: First because they need all the sunlight they can get in this rather dreary part of the world; also, their stern calvinist heritage instructed them to lead their lives to be read like an open book, thus their having nothing to hide, thus no curtains. Believe the one you prefer.

Trivia: Local government prescribes that all front doors in the historic center of town have to follow a given color code, and owners must choose one of the shades of green offered.

The following day, we stopped a very similar and just as enchanting port of Enkhuizen. With a population of 18,000, Enkhuizen was one of the harbor towns of the VOC, just like Hoorn and Amsterdam, from where overseas trade with the East Indies was conducted. It received city rights in 1355. In the mid-17th century, Enkhuizen was at the peak of its power and was one of the most important harbor cities in the Netherlands. However, due to a variety of reasons, notably the silting up of the harbors, Enkhuizen lost its position to Amsterdam.

After a comforting and sunny lunch on our own at the outside terrace of an old beer tavern overlooking a canal, we visited the tiny Flessenscheepjes Museum, said to hold the largest collection of ships in bottles in the world. In an old brick house sitting astride a canal, with sluice gates still visible inside the wall of the entry hall, it is a not-for-profit organization run by volunteers, which offers a fascinating video of the techniques used. An array of the necessary instruments and tools was also available to visitors, as well as tightly managed displays of about 750 such marvels of craftsmanship and creativity, all from private collections.

Trivia: Front doors all display two signs, to be checked by the resident with a Ya or Nee. Those signs indicate what kind of mail you want delivered in your box: first class only, or everything. Wouldn’t we love that? But what would the USPS say?!

That evening on board, we were treated to a folk dancing show by one of the traditional local groups, whose elders try their best to preserve the ancient customs and music. The stiffness and sternness of their steps and countenances betrayed their calvinist heritage. In other words, no barrel of laughs there!

The next day was the day we were waiting for, and the reason we took the cruise: Keukenhof Flower Park. The weather was perfect, sunny, mild, in other words totally unusual for that part of the world. As I always say, you want good weather when you travel, go with us!

What a treat! It was all we expected, in spades. I didn’t care how far or how much I had to walk to see it all. I adore flowers, and I was in heaven. It’s really impossible to do it justice with words, so you’ll have to check out the photos on my website. Tulips, of all colors and shades and designs, exploding right and left as you walk through the various alleys between dizzying borders gorged with a visual feast. But that's not the only flower cultivated there, as evidenced in two buildings with separate exhibits, one in honor of Van Gogh, and the other one with orchids. My, my, where to start… Again, I refer you to the photos in the photo gallery. The former combined some of the artist’s masterpieces with a multitude of complementary flower arrangements. Absolutely and totally satisfying.

Tulip farm near the keukenhof flower park

To complete this marvelous experience, we made a stop on the way back to the ship at a tulip farm, owned and managed by a young woman and her husband. A former therapist, she started the farm as a means to direct troubled youth to a creative, and fulfilling activity while going through treatment. We got to witness the whole process of growing flowers (there are flower growers, and bulb growers), and how to put them out to sell them.

aalsmeer auction warehouse in full activity

The following day, we got to see where all their tulips were headed: the Aalsmeer Flower Auction, the world’s largest flower auction. Holland produces more than nine billion flower bulbs annually, and throughout the country more than 23,000 acres of land are dedicated to greenhouse production. Housed in a structure the size of nine football fields covering over 160 acres, the Aalsmeer Flower Auction processes more than 19 million fresh flowers, streaming in and out every weekday between 6AM and 9AM, in computerized transactions with buyers from all over the world making deals at the speed of lightning.

aalsmeer auction's nerve center in action

The action takes place in an auditorium-style nerve center, surrounded by soundproof glass, with a giant computer on one wall, showing every detail of the current transaction, and a huge clock ticking constantly on another. The people sitting at the computers are connected by phone and/or internet with the bidders who have seconds to decide whether and what to bid, with the price going down as the clock continues ticking. When the brokers hear the decision to purchase, they press the required button (linked to the main computer) to close the deal, and up comes the data for the next offering. The first broker to press the required button becomes the buyer, and the clock stops ticking until the next offering comes up. Voila! The chart below will give you an idea of what the bidding brokers are looking at on the wall screen.

It is absolutely mind-boggling to watch. Visitors walk around the whole perimeter of the cavernous structure, from a catwalk about 20’ up, overlooking the frenzy of activity down below. The flowers are moved in crates and stacked on motorized carts, which, driven by men in orange uniforms, zig-zag around without ever colliding (a miracle in itself), to act upon the transaction just completed. From up above, the whole orchestrated dance looks like a ballet in an anthill. Quite an experience!

Trivia: Bikers are not required to wear helmets, nor are motorcyclists. They don’t seem any worse for it, even if this is a country where bicycles are the main source of transportation, with bikes parked literally everywhere.

arch on bridges on the Amstel river, amsterdam

Back in Amsterdam, we were treated to a boat ride on its river, the Amstel (thus the city’s name), and through its famous maze of canals. The many bridges, shady streets bordering the canals, and different architectures, were perfect targets for my hungry camera. We noticed again the hooks, present near the roof in all buildings, used to attach the pulleys needed to bring up the furniture which, in those days, had to be moved in and out from the outside due to narrow stairs and the lack of elevators. As well as the step-like gables so characteristic of Dutch architecture.

Amsterdam is the capital and cultural center of the Netherlands. The Hague is its administrative center, and Rotterdam its second biggest city and one of the largest ports in the world. There is a tunnel for a road meant for cars which goes under canals and rivers, and, conversely, overpasses where the waters flow way above the roads. Quite a sight. They certainly know how to deal with water!

When we saw the lines for the Anne Frank House, we decided against it, and chose instead to attempt the Van Gogh Museum -- after briefly dreaming of the Rijks Museum (this choice of words indicates the horrendous mobs everywhere we went. And it was only April… I shudder at the thought of what it's like “in season”). The line was also around the block. As in all large cities and well-known venues or events, a traveler really has to reserve tickets for a specific day and time online ahead of time before they leave home. As in airports, it was another instance when I am grateful for walking with a cane. A staff member, surveying the line snaking around the building, saw my cane and ushered us both to the disabled entrance, ahead of what would have been a two-hour wait (if we had, indeed, made it at all that day). We felt very lucky, because the Museum was spectacular, and I got to take photos of the originals of my three favorites of his work: “Wheatfields with crows,” one of his many “Irises”, and his well-known “Bedroom”.

Trivia: There are three ways to get killed crossing a street in a Dutch city: by a car, by a tram, or by a bicycle. Take your pick. I suggest the surest way is bikes.

The next day, we became familiar with the second reason we wanted to take that cruise: the famous Dutch windmills. Visiting the site of Kinderdijk was a delightful step into a past we knew hardly anything about. Eight miles east of Rotterdam, this village is located in a polder (a low-lying tract of land enclosed by dikes that forms an artificial entity with no connection with outside water other than through manually operated devices.) To drain the polder, a system of 19 windmills were built around 1740. This group of mills is the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands. They are one of the best-known Dutch tourist sites, having become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Please refer to photo gallery to see more photos.

One of these mills was turned into a museum, displaying the way of life of families comprising 10 or 15 people (they had a lot of children) whose livelihood depended on their manually working the windmill. This was rugged living, in a narrow and high building with no conveniences in the main quarters on the ground floor, and different levels of sleeping spaces occupied by the various generations of children. The windmills were run by the local Water Boards long before Holland became a country 200 years ago, and were used to pump the water out of the lowlands into the canals. Nowadays, massive Archimedes screws draw the water from the canals into the rivers, which flow into the Zuider Zee, and finally end up in the North Sea. They had neither water, nor gas, nor electricity until the 70’s. Nowadays, millers are paid a stipend and have other jobs. But I couldn’t help thinking that one must really have dikes and dams in one’s blood to compete for the honor of living in such a compact space, in such an isolated environment.

The town’s name came from the Dutch legend, translated into The Cat And The Cradle in English, about a terrible storm in 1421 during which that polder had been spared by the miracle of a cat keeping an infant alive – and dry – in a basket floating on the water by rocking it. Thus the name of Kinderdijk. It has a nice sound as legends go, though its scientific and historical veracity remains to be proven.

Trivia: The traditional Dutch wooden shoes originated as a way to protect feet from being constantly wet from walking into permanently soggy ground.

Our next discovery was the city of Rotterdam. Whereas Amsterdam, Hoorn and Enghuizen were like moving through postcards of past centuries, Rotterdam is a modern, industrial and vibrant city, full of all the high-tech attributes of the time (for good or bad). Because it refused to compromise with the Germans, it was the only Dutch city which was bombed during WWII, thus having to be rebuilt and looking modern.

hotel new york, former headquarters of the Holland America cruise line

We shunned the guided city tour, and walked off on our own from the pier where we were docked. One peculiarity of river cruise boats, unknown to ocean-going vessels: when there are several at the same port at the same time, they are parked side by side, parallel to the pier. So the passengers of the boat in second and third positions must walk through one or two other boats to reach the pier on their way out.

A lot of walking, yes, but we spent a lovely day on our own.The weather was gorgeous (again! What did I tell you?). We first went to the Nederlands Foto Museum, for a special exhibition about the history of Rotterdam during WWII, and saw many works by the most famous Dutch photographer, Vincent Mentzel. His work reminded me very much of that of the French photographer Robert Doisneau.

After a lunch outside, in the sunshine, at the Hotel New York, housed in the former and original headquarters of the Holland America Cruise Line, we went to visit what is called the “cube houses.” The Cubic Houses are a curious and magnificent architectural wonder. They were conceived and constructed by architect Piet Blom in the 1970s. Blom was asked by Rotterdam town planners to solve the dilemma of building houses on top of a pedestrian bridge. Please see the photo gallery to see more.

Having built similar houses earlier in another town, Blom chose to repeat the design in Rotterdam. The architect considered a single unit as an abstract tree, the lot as a forest, or, in a broader sense, as a village. A cube house has three floors in the cube, and storage space and the entrance hall in the pole underneath. The total floor space amounts to 100 m2 (1,077 sq2). I suspect their main marketing target is newlyweds and singles, because of the requirement of their vertical approach inside. Middle-age and older people would be reluctant to attempt it. As well as young parents having to haul groceries, laundry and babies up the spiral staircase. They reminded us of the cone-shaped interiors of the windmills of old.

Next wonder was Veere. A small and quaint village with a current population of 5,000, it is now a week-end haven for wealthy people from both Rotterdam and Amsterdam, which used to be a staple port for Scotland between 1541 and 1799. Mary Stuart of Scotland’s marriage to Wolfert van Borselen in Veere in 1444 stimulated commercial relations between Scotland and the Low Countries of the Netherlands. As a sign of their newly acquired wealth, Mary Stuart and her husband built a cathedral-size church which now dwarfs the small village. Even if the population was ten times what it is today at the time they lived in Veere, it must still have towered over the town.

Trivia: The Dutch have the same concept of time and timeliness as the Germans. For example, if you leave the coach for a rest stop at 10:22, and the group leaves at 10:45, it means that you have exactly 23 minutes to answer the call of nature. Not 25, not 28.

The next adventure was the exploration of the famous Delta Project. Nearly half of this small country measuring just over 16,000 square miles is below sea level. As early as 100 years ago, as much as 1,000 square miles of the Netherlands were still under water. Over the 20th century, it was a never-ending Dutch pursuit to extract more and more land from the sea. With the completion of ingenious water-control designs such as the Zeeland Delta Project (a massive system of dykes, storm-surge barriers and sluice gates in Zeeland County), the Netherlands now has working solutions to its centuries-old problem of recurrent flooding by the North Sea.

Even for non-mechanically-inclined people like myself, it was a fascinating learning experience. The great flood of February 1,1953 destroyed all the existing dikes, which signaled the conception of the Delta Project to solve the recurring flooding problems once and for all. The project was developed over the next 40 years, and cost a total of € 900 billion, funded by the sale of oil from the Netherlands' North Sea sector. This complex plan led to the damming of four major estuaries, and the coordination of an extensive network of locks, sluices, channels, bridges and gates. It resulted in the final Storm Surge Barrier, comprising two huge doors which can close off the New Waterway in times of extreme weather.

Speaking of which, we encountered many locks on the various waterways we traveled in the Netherlands. They are such an integral part of the Dutch landscape that we almost missed them while sailing through Belgium!

Wisely enough, the government scattered on the beach all the extra rocks they had left after the necessary excavations to build the project, and they now serve as a children’s playground. Just as resourcefully, the machines and ships that were built solely for this project were sold for scrap metal after its completion, and the money used to build the road which now runs across the top of the enormous storm surge barrier.

And it was good-bye to the Netherlands, and hello to BELGIUM.

It was clear from the friendly rivalry between our one Belgian Program Director (a girl from Flanders, thus speaking Flemish), and the other two (men who were Dutch), that the Dutch undoubtedly have a superiority complex towards the Flemish-speaking Belgians. There is no love lost between the Dutch and the Belgians, the latter being the target of the traditional dumb jokes that the Dutch like to pass around (as the French do, by the way. Don’t ask me why.) The same seemed to apply to the relationship between the French-speaking southern Walloons, and their Flemish-speaking northern counterparts living in Flanders. These cultural subtleties are what makes travel so fascinating to me, and give it its taste of human-ness, while enabling an understanding of some subtleties that would otherwise go unnoticed.

There are also several other differences between Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgians don’t use bicycles as much as the Dutch, even though the government tries to entice its citizens to do so with several incentives. The main one is a system of bicycles-for-rent-as-you-go, which works with coins and the bikes can be dropped off and picked up along a whole network of “parking” stations. This system exists in other major European cities, such as Paris. Catholicism is the predominant religion in Belgium, while half of the Dutch claim no affiliation. The other half is split between Catholics and Protestants, with now an ever-increasing percentage of Muslims. As the capital of the European Union, Brussels, located in Flanders, is bilingual.

When we crossed over into Belgium, our first stop was the magnificent city of Ghent. Ghent was part of the Netherlands until Belgium’s independence in 1831. Archaeological evidence shows human presence going back as far as the Stone Age and the Iron Age. Its size and position allow the inhabitants to enjoy a city with an interesting crossover between open cosmopolitanism and the quiet atmosphere of a provincial town. Ghent is thriving as many young people choose to live here instead of in the countryside or the crowded city centers of Brussels and Antwerp.

With a busy port and a lively university, Ghent has a current population of about 250,000, while it already had 175,000 after 1,500 AD. It thrived on the cloth industry, which gave rise to the guilds in the 14th century. The guild houses display the same gables characteristic of Dutch architecture. These were the first form of government, the first taste in Europe of an alternative to feudal rule.

Our walking tour also took us to the Great Butchers’ Hall, with huge hams hanging from the ceiling in a typical open market setting with a multitude of food stalls; the Castle, built by Count Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, soon after he returned from the Crusades in 1180 with images of similar crusader castles in the Holy Land. If its walls (2m thick), battlements, and turrets failed to intimidate attackers, the count could always turn to a well-equipped torture chamber inside; and the 14th-century Belfry and Cloth Hall, housing the celebrated bells which are the pride and joy of Ghent’s residents.

Antwerp  - rubens' statue on the cathedral square — Antwerp - rubens' statue on the cathedral square

Our last stop in Belgium, signaling the end of our cruise, was Antwerp. In glorious sunshine, we set out to discover on foot (of course) this second largest port in Europe after Rotterdam, which is also one of the world centers for diamond trading. In spite of damage caused by both World Wars, Antwerp remains a city of beautiful historic architecture dating to the 16th century. It is the birth city of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens in 1577, and his statue presides in the middle of the main square in front of the Cathedral.

The 16th-century City Hall is still intact, and still functions as such, with a parade of the flags of all the nations that do trade with Antwerp adorning its front façade. After a delightful lunch outside at the terrace of one of the local squares' neighborhood restaurants, a ride in the local city tour train gave us a more complete idea of the lay of the land. And so ended the last day of our cruise.

That night after dinner, we were treated to the best cruise show of our traveling life! This tradition of most cruise lines provides entertainment while giving the crew an opportunity to explore, develop and practice their comic talents. No doubt their scripts are provided by professional sources, but their rendition of them was mostly hysterically funny.

Vaarwell, as they say in Flemish. And on to our back-to-back cruise up the Danube, from Budapest to Prague (see appropriate travelogue).

Travelogues

Travelogues

HOLLAND and BELGIUM

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