April 17 – 28, 2024

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

– Vincent Van Gogh

To put it simply – I like Europe. I like the food, the culture, the history, the transportation, the geography, and, for the most part, the weather. I have long been interested in the tulip history in the Netherlands, and the timing of this trip was centered on trying to hit dead center of the Netherlands tulip season. We drafted up a list of places we would like to see and started planning what became a 25-day sojourn to the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. This post will cover the first leg of the trip.

First things first – if it is called the Netherlands, what is Holland? Is that a historical name, now out of fashion? And why are they called Dutch? How does that fit in? I certainly didn’t know. Here’s the scoop. There are twelve provinces in the Netherlands, two of which are North and South Holland. These are also home to the three largest cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. During the Dutch heyday, English traders typically dealt with merchants from these areas, hence, they were dealing with Holland. People will still respond to that term, but it is no longer in common use when referring to the country.  The Brits are likewise responsible for the Dutch label. Brits calling the people from the Netherlands “Dutch” comes from the fact that the German word for the German language is “Deutsch”.  Dutch is a Germanic language, so the British, thinking that the language in the Netherlands was the same, or similar, considered the language Deutsch, which soon became Dutch.

The Netherlands is fascinating to me for many reasons. Consider a few facts about the country:

• With a geographic size that would rank 42^nd among the US states, the Netherlands still has the world’s 17^th largest Gross Domestic Product.
• The seventeenth century was the zenith of Dutch power and influence, a period known as the Golden Age. During this period, Dutch trading companies had colonies and trading posts around the world.
• The Dutch East India Company was the first company to publicly sell shares of stock in 1602; the modern stock market was created in Amsterdam in 1611.
• Wealth created from international trade in the 17^th century led to the import of tulips from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). The Dutch embraced the tulip, leading to tulip mania shortly thereafter when a single bulb sold for more than common laborers earned in a year. In 2014, the Netherlands exported over 2 billion tulip bulbs.
• Netherlands literally means “lower countries” in reference to its low elevation. Land reclamation began in the 14^th century. Today, approximately 26% of the country is below sea level through a system of dikes, canals, sand dunes. and pumping stations.
• Despite having one of the highest population densities in Europe, over half of the land is devoted to agriculture.
• Social tolerance includes legalized euthanasia, prostitution, abortion, and liberal drug policies.
• According to the 2024 Gallup World Poll, The Netherlands are the 6^th happiest country. Contributing to this is the practice of “Niksen” – doing nothing as part of your daily routine. Example: Have a cup of coffee at a sidewalk cafe, leaving your phone in your pocket.

We stayed at Wittenberg by Cove for our Amsterdam stay. One of the ways we economize is by looking for lodging with a kitchen or kitchen access. With a central location close to public transportation, groceries, and overlooking a canal, this was perfect. The network of trains, buses, trams, and subway lines – virtually all electric – made getting around a snap, especially with the recent advent of credit card tap in – tap out payment.

You can’t see a country in a couple of weeks, and we don’t press ourselves trying. But with a bit of prior planning, you can get a flavor. We spent most of our time in the Netherlands in Amsterdam, making a few day trips to the surrounding area. Here are a few of the highlights for the Netherlands portion of our trek.

Food

We didn’t go hungry on this trip, but we also walked lots of miles to offset our meals. A few Dutch specialties we enjoyed on this trip were stroopwafels (a thin, round waffle cookie native to the South Holland province), fresh fish at small island kiosks around town, friets, a variety of fine restaurants, and of course beer. Early in the history of the city, beer was more reliably cleaner than the water and was often substituted.

Bloemenmarkt (Floating Flower Market)

This is advertised as the world’s only floating flower market, and dates to 1862. The floating booths sell at street level and in their early days were resupplied on the canal side. It caters to tourists, with lots of blooming flowers plus bulbs as well as other popular Dutch souvenirs.

The Albert Cuyp Market

The Albert Cuyp is a rollicking street market dating back to 1905 in the Latin Quarter of the city. Over a half mile long, the 260 stalls are food-centric but sell everything from fresh fish to flip-flops, chicken to cheese, herring to hairspray, pastry to pizza, shallots to stroopwafels.

Auschwitz Monument

Tucked in a quiet corner of a small public park called Wertheimpark is a unique memorial to the Dutch holocaust victims. An urn containing the ashes of some of the 102,000 Dutch victims of Nazi concentration camps is buried beneath a cracked mirrored glass surface with an etched glass sign with the inscription “Nooit Meer Auschwitz” (Never Again Auschwitz). The cracked glass symbolizes that heaven remains damaged forever.

Zaanse Schans

As the oldest industrial area in western Europe, the Zaan district of the Netherlands has a lot of history. In its heyday, the area had 600 windmills producing grain, lumber, paint dyes, spices, and other products. The highly efficient lumber mills also fueled the leading shipbuilding center in Europe in the 17^th century, with 26 shipyards producing 100-150 ships per year.

The current tourist attraction is the result of the vision of architect Jaap Schipper. In 1946, he created a plan to relocate some of the remaining windmills and other historical Dutch industries to one location. Today, Zaanse Schans has functioning windmills, cheese production, wood clog manufacturing, barrel making, pewter casting and other businesses. Millions of tourists from around the world visit each year – a day like this now and again is okay, this would be too many tourists for us to deal with every day.

National Holocaust Name Monument

This wasn’t on our radar originally, we just happened to walk by it enroute to our hotel. This was only unveiled in September 2021, illustrating the memory of the horrors of World War II is still fresh in the minds of the Dutch. The memorial consists of bricked walls forming four Hebrew letters that make up a word that translates as ‘In memory of’ when viewed from above. Of the 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands in 1940, 102,000 did not survive the war.  This monument has a brick with the name, date of birth and age for each of the known casualties, plus 1000 blank bricks for unknown deaths. We found the brick for Anne Frank and paid our respects.

Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is known as the museum of the Netherlands. Over 800 years of Dutch history, with the great Dutch masters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh are represented here. It is the largest museum in the Netherlands, and 14^th largest in the world.

Amsterdam Bicycles

The Netherlands has about 18 million people, 9.4 million cars – and 23 million bicycles. They are everywhere, and it’s no exaggeration that you need to be at least as mindful of bike traffic as cars. Dedicated bike lanes, some with their own redlight system, helped. Theft, vandalism, and wrecks result in ~12-15,000 bikes fished from the canals of Amsterdam each year!

Houseboats

There are three semi-circular rings of canals around the Amsterdam city center constructed in the 17^th century as part of land reclamation. In the 1960s, canal houseboats increased in popularity for the poor who could not afford housing. There are over 2900 of them in Amsterdam alone now, many of which are boats only to the extent they float on water. As they are permanently connected to public water, septic, and electric, they don’t go anywhere. And fetching as much as a million euro, they are no longer the province of the poor.

Keukenhof Gardens

This was the highlight of the trip. We planned the timing of our trip to hit peak tulip season, and we weren’t disappointed. I only knew I wanted to see tulip gardens – I was unprepared for how spectacular they were. This 80-acre plot of land is only open from mid-March to mid-May, but packs in over a million visitors during this window. The garden is an idyllic setting of mature trees, streams, small bridges, and grassy areas with flower beds interspersed throughout.  Some 7 million bulbs donated by 100 Dutch flower bulb companies are planted in the fall. They aren’t saved from one year to another. At the request of the donors, the bulbs are dug out at the end of the season and used to feed livestock (one reason for this is to keep strict control of the hybrid varieties), and fresh bulbs are planted each fall. There are plenty of daffodils and hyacinths, but tulips are absolutely the stars of the show.

Van Gogh Museum

This was a museum heavy vacation compared to many of our treks, but there was a reason considering the cultural history of the Netherlands. The Van Gogh Museum was one of the reasons, and one of the rare times we used a tour guide. This turned out to be a necessity when we found out this was our only option at getting in despite trying to get tickets a month in advance. This also increased the price quite a bit, but it got us in the door and our guide did a great job.

Van Gogh’s earliest work was closer in style to the Dutch Masters of the 17^th century, but he abandoned this for a style uniquely his own. Like many other artists, he was an unknown in his time. He sold very few paintings during his life, and much of his financial support came from his brother Theo. He was certainly prolific, producing over 900 paintings before his early death at age 37. His work commands top dollar now, with “Orchard with Cypresses” fetching $117 million in 2017.

I was familiar with his “Sunflowers”, “Irises”, “The Starry Night”, and others, but “The Potato Eaters” was new to me and my favorite on this visit. The dark tones used throughout the painting captured the misery and toil these simple people seemed to endure.

Escher In the Palace

This was the first of two museums we visited during a day trip to the Hague. The “In the Palace” part of the title refers to the setting for this exhibit of 120 Escher prints. It is the former winter palace of the Queen Mother, Queen Emma, early in the 20^th century. Escher’s work is fascinating with his use of optical illusions on themes of eternity and infinity, and “tessellations”, a term that describes covering a surface using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps.  The term was new to me. This exhibit was a sharp contrast compared to the works of other Dutch artists we visited.

Mauritshuis Museum

Our second museum in The Hague was the Mauritshuis Museum. We added this specifically to see the “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” (Johannes Vermeer, 1665) and “The Goldfinch” (Carel Fabritius, 1654) and whatever else of the Grand Dutch Masters we might see.  Also of interest was the history of the building itself. The museum is housed in the former residence of John Maurits, governor of Dutch Brazil from 1637 -1643. Previously viewed through the lens of art history, the Dutch now acknowledge his role in the transatlantic slave trade – at least 24,000 enslaved Africans were transported to Brazil under his authority.

Anne Frank House

I’ve taken an outsized fascination with this 14-year-old girl. She received a diary for her thirteenth birthday on June 12, 1942 when she began to document the daily affairs of a teenage girl. This transitioned into documenting life in hiding from when they moved into a secret annex on the upper floors at the back of her father’s business on July 6, 1942 until their capture on August 4, 1944. These diaries survived and lived on as an international best seller. Thousands still visit the house of their refuge each day. Touring the house adds a whole new dimension to her story beyond just reading the diary.

King’s Day

Our last full day in Amsterdam was spent enjoying the celebration of King’s Day. It is the most widely celebrated national holiday in the country. It’s celebrated throughout the country, but Amsterdam is the main attraction with upwards of a million visitors converging on the city.  Orange-clad revelers wander the streets and take to the canals. Many inner-city businesses close for the day, as well as the normal transportation services. Orange has become the national color owing to the royal family bearing the name “House of Orange”, dating back to William of Orange who led the Dutch revolt against the Spaniards beginning in 1572.

The Netherlands has a booming tourist trade. They decided it was too booming and have taken steps to maintain the trade but stabilize it at a sustainable level, targeting high value tourists for the city. The port of Amsterdam has closed to sea-going cruise lines, and river cruises will be cut in half over the next five years. Tourist taxes are among the highest in Europe. No new hotels can be built unless an existing one closes, even then, the new hotel may have no more capacity than the one closing. The city aims to limit overnight hotel stays to 20 million per year. We did not suffer from any of the restrictions, and, in general, I applaud such efforts.

We’ve made connecting flights through The Netherlands in the past and idled past the souvenir shops with their cheese wheels, tulip bulbs, wood clog refrigerator magnets and the like in the airport gift shops. It was fun and rewarding to finally get the opportunity to tour the country (my 39th) in much more detail. We left with fond memories of our stay there.