Waterways of Holland and Belgium - Day 10

On our last full day in Holland we were scheduled to go to the Keukenhof Gardens, 70 acres of gorgeous gardens, showcasing the work of Holland's bulb gowers. Keukenhof bills itself as the world's most beautiful spring garden. I cannot compare Keukenhof with any of the other famous gardens, but it would be extremely difficult to exceed the beauty we saw. We had been assured that even though the fields were rather bare, there would be no shortage of tulips here. There were some tulips that had not opened, and the fritillarias were just starting, while the Dutch iris and crocuses were about done. But there were hyacynths, tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths nad crocuses blooming in profusion. There are about 15 kilometers of paths through the garden, all paved, and all easy walking. You can even walk on stepping stones in the lake, where the mute swans will meet you, hoping for a handout.

The Willem Alexander pavillion has the most amazing display of tulips and daffodils, plus other flowers such as lilacs, cyclamens and amaryllis. Most of the plantings throughout the garden are formal, but there are also areas of informal planting that are also beautiful. In my journal the only thing I could say about this garden is "!!!".

I've put a few picture up here. If you would like to see more photos from our entire trip, please go to http://gallery.me.com/harryiii. The section title is Tulip Cruise Highlights.

We had a very long flight home again. We discovered that our flight from Amsterdam was leaving 3 hours earlier than we had originally thought (glad we found out about that!). We expected an extremely long day based on the times of our flights to Texas from Newark. However, we were able to get on earlier flights from both Newark and Dallas. The airline assured us that our bags would be coming in on our original flight, so we planned to pick them up the following morning. Just in case, we checked the baggage carousel from our actual flight, and discovered that our bags had actually come on the correct flight! That was really nice, because it took us several days to recover from the jet lag.

Our final verdict is that this was a cruise very much worth doing, even if tulips aren't your thing. We had a wonderful education about both Holland and the Flemish part of Belgium, and ended up with an even greater respect for the Dutch people and what they have done to develop their country. We were told that while God may have created the world, the Dutch created Holland. When you see how much reclaimed land there is, the result of marvelous engineering feats, and how alive the country is, you can't help but admire the people. ( I just realized that I never wrote about the storm surge system they built in the southwestern part of the country. It is another amazing testimony to the Dutch ingenuity.) We are really glad we did this trip and highly recommend it.

Waterways of Holland and Belgium - Day 9

We woke up this morning in Amsterdam again. This was another day when our schedule was turned around. Originally this was the day for Keukenhof Garden, but instead we did the art museums. We had a choice of the Rijksmuseum, which is currently undergoing restoration, or the Van Gogh Museum. Harry & I chose the latter, even though I've never cared for Van Gogh's artwork, and I am glad we did. We saw the "Colors of the Night" special exhibit, and had headsets for explanations of what we were seeing. In that exhibition we saw "Starry Night" and "Cypresses", the one painting I had sort of liked. Both paintings were far more impressive in the original than in any copy I've seen of either of them. After that we went to the upper floors to see other paintings, and I discovered a couple that were very powerful, both portraits. The first was "Portrait of an Old Man", which portrayed so much emotion that he looked alive. The other was the portrait of Madam Ruillon. also full of life. She is the one character who is identifiable in the dance hall painting. I was surprised to see that Van Gogh painted in many styles. And one famous painting that I felt was really ugly in person was "Sunflowers" In the end I had to agree that this museum was a better choice than the Rijksmuseum, even though I had enjoyed that museum 40 years ago when I was last in Amsterdam. This museum visit was a good lesson in gaining appreciation with more in-depth knowledge. Maybe the Rijksmuseum will be the right choice next time we're in Amsterdam. One neat thing about this city is that it has built an underground bus garage which enables tourists to have easy access to both museums, without clogging parking lots or moving traffic.

Our bus took us on a tour of the city prior to dropping us off at the museums, and we went through other parts of the city on our way back to the ship. There is much in this city that is beautiful and unique. One of the unique things is the buildings that lean at odd angles because the wooden pilings they are built on have sunk. The example in the photo is an old synagogue.

Lunch was a wonderful buffet. What made it wonderful for me is that I had the choice of a couple of Indonesian dishes, which our eastern European chef did quite well.











In the afternoon we did the one optional excursion we had chosen, a cruise on the Amsterdam canals. We had been told that it would include wine and cheese, which it did. When we got on the boat, each table had three bottles of wine (one each of red, rose, and white), and a small plate of cheese and party mix. This experience with French wine proved that there can indeed be bad French wines, no matter what the old adage says. The other negative about this cruise is that it was very difficult to take good photos from the boat, unless you were sitting next to an open window, which meant only one person out of the four at a table could do so. These things aside, we definitely did enjoy seeing Amsterdam from the canals. One thing that had been notably missing from the Dutch countryside and cities was mobile homes. However, we did find several on the canals of Amsterdam. The difference between a land tour and a canal tour is not as marked here as it is in Venice.

The grand finale to this day was baked Alaska for desserhet, with the usual parade. The diffference was that this was the best I've ever had. We had local entertainment tonight, also - a Captains' Choir, which was passable musically, but of limited interest.

Waterways of Holland and Belgium - Day 8

We spent the night at Enkhuizen, and in the morning took the ferry over to the Zuiderzee Outdoor Museum. This is a collection of homes and businesses from the original shores of the Zuiderzee, and it is nicely put together. The first thing we saw was three lime kilns. The 'live' businesses were a laundry, a bakery and an apothecary. The re were two houses that were occupied, and we got to go into one. The lady was cooking a soup that smelled very good. She was living the old way in the old house - including the sleeping cupboard. They had a school, which was actually a reproduction (the only one), and a church. We saw a really neat demonstration by a rope maker, and were privileged to see the gorgeous tile work in the bakery's tea room. Besides the floor tiles, there were tile 'paintings' on the walls. This was a really fun experience. At the end, just before we went back to the ship we saw a couple of things on the water that looked like dumplings - turned out they were mute swans, apparently looking for food under water. Their heads would come up out of the water periodically, so we were able to see what they were.

While we were eating lunch the ship set sail for Hoorn. We went through a lock in a canal that is above the roadway, a very unusual kind of experience. After docking, we walked along a dike over to where our motor coaches were waiting to take us to Volendam. We were originally supposed to dock at Volendam, but that was the day of the Pieper (peeper) races, so there was no place for us. Pieper means potato, and this was a traditional, special annual sailboat race. The countryside was beautiful, and along the way we saw many swans, geese and grey herons. The frequent heron sightings were a pleasant surprise.

Our bus drove along the dike at Volendam, before letting us off to see the city. Our program manager gave us a walking tour of the area, and then turned us loose for a while. In Volendam Harry & I bought our only souvenirs for the trip - a book on Holland and some Delft ceramic miniature clogs. We spent some time walking and observing the gorgeous sail boats. I guess they'd more accurately be described as sailing yachts. They were quite a sight, littering the ocean with their presence, with many different rigging and sail configurations. There were thousands of people present, both for the races and for the Volendam vs. Rotterdam soccer game (Volendam won 2-10). When we were ready to leave we got held up in traffic. Someone had seen an ambulance and it turned out that a woman had fallen in the street. Fortunately the wait was not too long, and hopefully the woman's injuries weren't too bad. Cobblestone streets can do that to you.








Hoorn is another gorgeous Dutch town, with lots of sailboats moored in the harbor. Apparently they had had five days of cold and clouds, so the sunshine we found that day was very welcome. It was to us also, as our day in Friesland had been cold and somewhat rainy.

In the evening our entertainment was the crew show, which was hilarious. It ended with the crew grabbing people out of the audience to dance, and pretty soon everyone was in the dance line - except Harry who was videotaping the whole thing. It was a great evening, a great end to a great day. As we went to bed we had to realize that the criuse was winding down, because in the morning we would be back in Amsterdam.