The Odyssey: Holland, Belgium and Germany: Holland

Overview

Our trip for 2015 took us from Amsterdam through Holland, Belgium and Germany to Berlin. The trip took seven weeks. We saw castles, palaces, canals, windmills, unusual architecture and lots of museums; mostly art museums, but also archaeology museums, history museums and science museums. Sometimes a combination of all of these. Some of the museums are well known, others are less so. We traveled by train in Holland and Belgium and car and train in Germany.

I have broken the trip into four posts: Holland (below), Belgium (click here) and Germany in two parts: The Rhine and the Romantic Road (click here) and Munich and Berlin (click here).

In Holland, we visited Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft, the Hague and Leiden. In Belgium we visited Bruges / Brugge for about a week with a one-day trip to Brussels / Bruxelles. [Note: Belgium has two official languages: French and Flemish, which is really Dutch.]

There is a link at the end of each post which will bring you to the next post.

We spent a month in Germany, starting with two days in Cologne (renting a car when we left), then a two week road trip through southern Germany following the Rhine (for the castles) and the Romantic Road. On our road trip, we stayed in several walled cities (and one super hotel) and visited charming villages. The remainder of our month in Germany was divided between Munich (where we dropped off the car) and Berlin.

We took a short detour from our driving route to visit Ulm (the birthplace of Albert Einstein) and two nearby towns (the birthplace of Sarah and the town where she spent her first few years).

I have been paying more attention to art over the past decade or so. I have become proficient in distinguishing between portraits and landscapes. I am currently working on still-lifes (still-lives?). They are composed of things which don't move: Usually produce and, often, dead animals.

Still life

Portrait

Much of the art here is by the Old Masters, who painted portraits of people wearing uncomfortable clothing. Also, there are the Dutch Masters who made me consider smoking cigars again.

We bought annual museum passes for Holland which gave us unlimited free admission to all government museums. We used it in the five Dutch cities we visited.

NOTE: I have posted many photos to enhance the text. Most of them are small. if you'd like to see them better, click on them and they should enlarge. I have also attached links to some of the cities and museums. Clicking on them will bring you to better photos than I could have taken as well as more information than I am providing.

For the most part, I did not post photographs of the art. You already know what art looks like and it was difficult to choose because so many were spectacular. There will be some selected photos which will go along with the text.

HOLLAND

Quintessential Holland

Amsterdam

That's Sarah (right) with the umbrella.

We stayed in Haarlem and took the 15 minute commuter line into Amsterdam on five of the seven days we were there. The other days we toured Haarlem and its museums.

Amsterdam is where a dam was built on the Amster River. You cannot see the dam; it's been built over. But there is lot's more to see. There are many museums with art, history and science. We visited all three kinds. And historic homes, too. There is the Anne Frank house, which we also visited (no photographs allowed). And, of course, we took a boat tour through the canals.

Rijks Museum

The most popular museums are the Rijks Museum, a large art museum; the van Gogh Museum, which even had timed tickets in the off season; and the Anne Frank House.

Hermitage Museum, Amsterdam

Amsterdam has a branch of St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, displaying art objects from the Russian museum's vast collection. [Note: After WW II, the Americans and Russians took museum art which the Germans had hidden to protect it from bombings. After a decade, the Americans gave it back - the Russians not so much; they still hold thousands of pieces. The Germans display copies.]

Amsterdam sights:

Bridge

Building

House boats

Harbor

Now an upscale shopping mall

Canal boat traffic jam (left)

Sarah on our canal boat tour (right)

Once a private garden, now a house museum showing
how Amsterdamers lived in the 19th century.
Not typical of most.

The Royal Palace of Amsterdam.

The inside is a lot nicer than the outside.

Here is one inside photo of the Royal Palace.

Use the link above to see more.

The Jewish Cultural Quarter

The Synagogue Complex

The synagogue

The Portuguese Synagogue (above) survived the war, but its wooden interior was used for fuel during the war in the year that the Dutch ate their tulips. The interior (below) was replaced and it is now an active synagogue.

The Holocaust memorial is in a former Jewish theater

Holocaust Memorial

Maps are available showing which buildings in the Jewish Quarter had functioned as a school, orphanage, cultural center etc.

A hidden church.

When Catholicism was banned, Catholics practice their religion in secret. Churches such as this look like homes from the outside.

Our guide book said that tourists to Amsterdam find it strange to see people eating raw fish from carts and kiosks. I have been eating pickled herring for most of my life and I never gave any thought to the fact that it wasn't cooked. I have some for breakfast almost daily; here it is not considered breakfast food. Go figure.

Haarlem

We stayed in Haarlem and split our time with Amsterdam. There is much to do here, but with limited time we had to choose. In Haarlem we visited the art museum, science museum and archaeological museum as well as wandering around town.

One of the more interesting homes that we saw in Haarlem was the home of the Ten Boom family. Mr. Ten Boom, a watchmaker, built a false wall in one of the bedrooms in his home above his watch shop and used it to hide Jews and members of the Dutch underground. The guests lived comfortably in the home and ran to the hiding place when the alarm was triggered. One of those hidden was the cantor of the Great Synagogue of Amsterdam. The 'hiding place' was accessed through the bottom shelf of a closet. With practice, they could get from the living room to the hiding place in under 90 seconds.

The Ten Boom family was arrested when an inspector found too many ration cards in the home. Most of the members of the Ten Boom family did not survive prison; three of the four Jewish 'guests' survived the war with the assistance of other Dutch resistance members. "The Hiding Place" was the title of the book and movie. The family was recognized by Yad VaShem.

Who could pass up a quick piece of herring on a roll?

Delft

Local boy does well

Antony van Leeuwenhoek was a founder of modern biology with the discoveries he made with his microscope. He made 500+ microscopes, one of which is below. He is in the portrait above. He is the one holding the body part and has that distinguished hair.

Delft is know for porcelain and another local boy who did well, Johannes Vermeer. Delft has a Vermeer museum and a lot of porcelain in the town museum. We did not go to the Vermeer museum, but we saw his work at other museums.

There are also some porcelain lamp posts.

The synagogue (1861)
(above and below)
is still functioning,
but barely.

There's always a chance to pick up a piece of herring to help make it to dinner.

The Hague

Dutch Parliament

The Hague is more than just an international criminal court. It is the seat of Dutch government with its Parliament, Supreme Court and Royal Palace. It also has quite a few museums and a famous girl.

Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring is on the wall of the Mauritshius and on suitcases, playing cards, mugs, jigsaw puzzles, etc.

On the wall (left)

On the suitcase (right)

On a billboard at the Delft train station.

Mauritshius was a mansion, now it's an art museum.

The Royal Palace of HRH Willem-Alexander

International Peace Palace

World Peace Flame

The flame is very small.

Either they are saving fuel or peace is on the wane.

The flame is about the same size as the piece of herring we got as a snack.

Leiden

Leiden has an extensive ethnographic museum, a new natural history museum and lots of art. Old buildings, such as the Cloth Merchants Guild Hall (below), have been turned into art museums.