(Haarlem, the Netherlands)

On August 21, we finally made it beyond the airport and experienced the actual city of Amsterdam.

Our initial impression was mixed. It was undoubtedly a beautiful city, with the same 17th century prosperity that we saw in other old Dutch cities…just on a larger scale. However, Amsterdam is definitely on the beaten path and we only lasted about 2 blocks on the Damrak before veering off course to avoid the crushing throngs. The situation was made worse by the large number of tourists toting suitcases down narrow sidewalks and the extensive construction/renovation work being done in the same area.

We saw many key sights: the Koninklijk Paleis (Royal Palace), the Begijnhof, the Bloemenmarkt (floating flower market), the Albert Cuypmarkt…and found that the tourist crush eased considerably once we crossed the Keizersgracht canal. Here, we found neighbourhoods where locals still worked, shopped and relaxed. We had a nice lunch, found some appealing specialty shops, and generally just experienced the vibe of an energetic but not frenetic cosmopolitan city. This is the part of Amsterdam that I would like to see again.

There are many renowned Amsterdam sights that we did not see. It would have been nice to see the Rijksmuseum where legendary paintings such as Vermeer’s “Kitchen Maid” and Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” hang, but this had to be weighed against our tolerance for line-ups and crowds. I’m convinced that the major sights in Amsterdam are best seen in the off-season; it was so busy now that the line to see a franchise of Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum (something that is not even Dutch) went all the way down the block and around the corner.

We knew that August 22 would be a rainy day, so we decided to remain in Haarlem and do some indoor tourism. Museums are great for rainy days and we managed to find one that was particularly special.

Teylers Museum was established in 1778 and is the oldest museum in the Netherlands.  It is housed in a custom-built building; it is fascinating to see what the museum founders thought was most important at the time.  The end result is multi-dimensional, as both the exhibits and the museum itself are on display.  I particularly enjoyed looking at the embryonic record players from the 19th century as well as the hoaxes that at one time were accepted as real by the museum.

As the goal of the museum was to capture “all knowledge”, there were also a couple of rooms devoted to art.  It was strange to see Dutch scenes that we ourselves had seen in the past two weeks, except that the paintings were made 200 years ago.  There was also another “synchronicity” moment:  the special exhibition featured 18th century prints from Rome.   My wife and I greatly enjoyed picking out all of the sights that we had seen during our Roman trip in March of this year.

We ended our indoor day by visiting a genuine working windmill.  The Adriaan mill (see photo at the top of this post) was an iconic symbol of Haarlem before it tragically burned down in 1932.   (Family note:  “Adriaan” was also the name of the first recorded van der Hout, in the early 1500s.)  It was eventually rebuilt and now is back in working order.  My wife and I had the same initial reaction:  it’s huge!   And then, once we saw how the complex parts inside worked:  this is an incredible piece of engineering!  We were permitted to climb quite high into the structure and walk around the balcony that surrounded it several floors above the ground.

We quite enjoyed being tourists in Haarlem; it won’t be a tragedy if we spend another day here before returning to Canada!

(Haarlem, the Netherlands)

Our original plans for this trip were to spend a number of days in Amsterdam.  Neither one of us had ever been here (other than at Schiphol Airport) and most Dutch travel guides devote a huge amount of space to the city. It didn’t take much research for us to discover that Amsterdam is both crowded and expensive in the summer, so we decided to stay in a nearby city and commute into Amsterdam instead.

Haarlem was our choice. It is only 15 minutes away by train and has a substantial population of 150,000, so there are plenty of things to see and do.  Some consider it to be Amsterdam in miniature…but without the oppressive crowds that plague the capital in summer. And yes, this is where the name for New York’s Harlem comes from.  New York City was originally known as New Amsterdam and many of the boroughs and neighbourhoods have Dutch names (Brooklyn, Coney Island, the Bronx, Yonkers, etc.).

Our first major stop was at the Corrie ten Boom House, also known as “the Hiding Place”.  This house, located behind a jeweller’s store (still operating today), was used as both a meeting place and a hiding place during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.  While only 4-6 people would be hiding there at any one time, the ten Boom House was often used as a temporary sanctuary until a safe house could be found in the rural areas surrounding Haarlem.

During the tour, we learned about the various codes that were used to avoid detection by the Nazis.  We also saw the clever extra brick wall that was built in Corrie ten Boom’s bedroom.  The linen closet had a hidden door just above the floor that would permit access to the narrow (60 cm deep) space behind the extra wall.  Because the wall was made of bricks, three days of Nazi searching failed to uncover the hiding spot that they believed was in the ten Boom house.

The ten Boom family protected both Dutch resistors and Jews who were wanted by the Nazis.  It is estimated that somewhere between 80 and 800 lives were saved because of the Corrie ten Boom House:  it is not possible to be more precise because it would have been extremely risky to keep records detailing who had been helped.  The ten Booms were eventually betrayed by an informant, however, and in 1944 they were sent off to camps in Germany.  Three family members died but Corrie ten Boom managed to survive the ordeal.  She later became an author and public speaker, focusing on a message of reconciliation instead of revenge.

We’ll be in Haarlem for a few days before returning home to Canada, so I will be posting some more about both Haarlem and Amsterdam shortly.

You may be wondering about the cover photo at the very top of this post.  This is my cousin’s Labrador Retriever named Bente (for short) and the photo was taken while we were driving through the countryside north of Groningen.   Bente was sitting on the floor by the front  passenger seat and sleepily looked at me in the back seat.  While travelling is great fun, it is also nice to have reminders of a more settled life.  Bente and her Dachshund friend Frits did a great job making us feel like we were at home in Groningen.