Overview
This post covers The Netherlands portion our 9 country 35-day adventure across Europe and picks up the adventure as we leave Belgium. This included a trip to Transylvania in Romania, a 23-day Viking River cruise across Europe from Bucharest to Amsterdam and then a trip that we arranged after the cruise to both Belgium and The Netherlands.
An overview of this trip can be found at A European Sojourn with links to the other segments of the trip listed below in the summary.
Day 1 – Sailing towards Amsterdam (via Kinderdijk)
If you’ve been reading our 35-day European Sojourn posts in order, this post may seem a little “wonky”. That’s because it includes our final day on our Viking cruise and then skips a few days while we travel to Belgium before returning to The Netherlands for 4 days.
On this final cruising day, we are headed toward our stopping point, Amsterdam. We will stop in Kinderdijk on the way. Everyone is busy getting each other’s contact information so we can stay in touch post-cruise. We’re also packing our suitcases, desperately trying to fit in all the souvenirs we’ve purchased over the past 22 days. We start to see quintessential windmills as we cross over The Netherlands Border.
Kinderdijk Windmills
The Kinderdijk windmills are a group of 19 monumental windmills in South Holland. Most of the mills are part of the village of Kinderdijk. Built in 1738 and 1740, to keep water out of the low lying land, it is the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands and one of the best-known Dutch tourist sites. The mills are listed as national monuments and the entire area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The windmills pump the water into a reservoir which can also be let back out when needed. Today, the windmills are still kept in working order, but they are no longer used for water management.
The area is truly picturesque! We get to witness the staff starting up a windmill and listen to the sound of the wind as it hits the canvas sails on the arms to rotate the blades. The sound was louder than expected and is very rhythmic. We are here for several hours and there is a bike bath that leads through this that we use to explore the area.
Kinderdijk to Amsterdam
With our tour of Kinderdijk completed, we board the Viking Lofn for one last time and sail the remaining miles of river toward Amsterdam as the sun sets. It’s a beautiful evening as we approach Amsterdam and we a great sunset. As cruise along we pass a Noah’s Ark while hanging out with some of the friends we have made on the trip including Cindy.
Docking in Amsterdam and a Road trip to Belgium
We wake in the morning and the ship is already docked. We finish our final packing of the suitcases and catch one last breakfast onboard. The Viking staff has a well-oiled routine for getting passengers off the ship with their luggage and off to wherever they need to be, whenever they need to get there. Most people are headed to the airport and a few are being transported to their hotel to take advantage of one of the Viking sponsored post-cruise excursion in Amsterdam. We have our own transportation since we’ve arranged our own post-cruise trip.
For our post-cruise trip, two of our children and one of their friends flew into Amsterdam to meet up with us for another 8 days of adventure. We are heading first to Belgium for the next 3 days and then we’ll return to Amsterdam to explore The Netherlands. This in-between portion of the trip is written up here: A Belgium Adventure
Day 2 – Brussels Back to Amsterdam
So we’ve just finished our 3 days in Belgium and this post now fast-forwards to our travel from Brussels back to Amsterdam so we can continue exploring The Netherlands. We have an early morning 3-hour drive and its lovely to watch the sun come up. Our travel agent found us a fantastic hotel, Hotel Van Gogh (part of the XO Hotel chain), that is in a quiet area across from the Van Gogh Museum in the heart of the Museum District. It’s a small boutique hotel just one block away from the Amsterdam Tram stop called Museumplien which makes it easy to access all corners of Amsterdam. It is also just a block or two off the high-end shopping district called P.C. Hooftstraat that hosts stores by big-name designers like Hugo Boss, D&G, MaxMara, Ralph Lauren, Hermes, Gucci and more, alongside high-end jewelers like Boutique Tourbillon. And within an 8-minute walk is a wonderful restaurant district that includes a Hard Rock Cafe, a Holland Casino and 12-15 smaller cafes and shops. We highly recommend this hotel for its cleanliness, quiet atmosphere, free breakfast and surprisingly very low price.
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the capital and most populated city in The Netherlands. It is situated in the province of North Holland, whose capital is Haarlem. Amsterdam is referred to as the “Venice of the North”, for its large number of canals, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Amsterdam’s elevation is about −6.6 ft below sea level . The surrounding land is flat as it is formed of large polders ( low-lying tracts of land that form an artificial water entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes).
Hidden Gems Walking Tour
We meet our tour guide, Eva, who has true passion for Amsterdam and the history of the city. Amsterdam was founded at the mouth of the Amstel River, which was dammed to control flooding. Originally a small fishing village in the 12th century, Amsterdam became a major world port during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, when the Netherlands was an economic powerhouse. Amsterdam was the leading center for finance and trade, as well as a hub of secular art production. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded and new neighborhoods and suburbs were built. As the cities needs grew, so did the canal system, expanding outward in a horseshoe shape. Eva carries a notebook with photos of the entire canal system showing one page for each era of its growth. Amsterdam has more than 60 miles of canals, most of which are navigable by boat. Part of our walking tour takes us through the Jordaan neighborhood which is famous for its picturesque charm. Houses are narrow and tall, which has to do with trying to minimize the property taxes that are based on square footage of foundation.
Lunch at Bulldog
Cycling is key to the city’s modern character (like we saw in Belgium), and there are numerous biking paths and lanes spread throughout. They aren’t kidding when they tell you to watch out for bicycles. It takes some getting used to, but we quickly learn that bicycles own the right of way around here.
As mentioned earlier, there is a restaurant area about an 8-minute walk from our hotel. We decide to check out one of Amsterdam’s famous chains – The Bulldog. Cannabis is legal in The Netherlands and as such, it is part of the “coffee shop” culture. The logo consists of a cartoon figure of a bulldog in a round frame. In 1975, Henk de Vries converted his grandmother’s brothel (prostitution is legal too) to a “coffee shop” that allows its customers to purchase and consume cannabis in the establishment. Surprisingly, you aren’t allowed to smoke tobacco here, only cannabis. Also surprisingly, they have an amazing menu with excellent food. The food is so fantastic and the location so close to our hotel, this place becomes the family meeting place throughout our stay. Many days we split up to explore the different things that interest us – and meeting back here just makes sense.
Here we try several regional foods including:
- Bitterballen – Beef is finely chopped and seasoned with several spices. Spicy beef is then rolled into balls which are then coated with bread crumbs and deep-fried.
- Kibbeling – White fish or codfish cut into small chunks, then battered with various spices and is deep-fried.
- Patat – Dutch French Fries, thicker than “normal”, served in a box or paper cone with a variety of toppings – we chose “hot patat” that have chili pepper flakes and served with a mayonnaise & chili dip
They also make a mean chicken club, a unique pepperoni pizza, a “dutch” cheese steak (variation of the Philly version) and we loved their “wings and rings” (chicken wings and onion rings). All these can be easily split so it isn’t a meal, but an in-between meal snack.
Red Light District Tour
As previously mentioned, prostitution is legal in The Netherlands (and so is operating a brothel). While many countries around the world have a “Red Light District”, Amsterdam’s is one of the largest and most well-known. A Red Light District consists of a network of alleys containing approximately 250 one-room cabins/store-fronts rented by prostitutes who offer their sexual services from behind a window or glass door, typically illuminated with red lights and blacklight. Window prostitution is the most visible and typical kind of red-light district sex work in Amsterdam.
We meet our guide, Aaarre, who immediately puts us at ease talking about this semi-awkward topic and tour. The Red Light District isn’t just about prostitution, but is also an area filled with clubs and nightlife. As we walk toward the district, he tells us that when we walk through the alleys, it will be very crowded and to be wary of pickpockets. He further advises us we should try to avoid eye contact with the girls, but if we do, must smile politely. We are not allowed to take photos of the girls. We learn most of the girls are in their 20’s and 30’s and are from Eastern Europe. As we walk through the district, it is obvious the girls come in all shapes and sizes
Day 3 – Amsterdam
Public Transportation – The Tram
Amsterdam has wonderful public transportation – referred to as “The Tram”. We get a quick lesson from the clerk at the front desk of our hotel and we decide to give it a whirl. While you can buy a daily pass or several day pass, unless you are going to use it A LOT, it just makes more sense to “pay as you go”. When the tram arrives, the doors open and you tap your debit or credit card. When you leave the tram – sometimes you can go out the same door and sometimes you have to go out the exit door. If you go out the exit door, you swipe AND push a green button to open the door. (And just once, we tapped but didn’t know about the button and had to travel an extra stop because the bus started up before a fellow passenger told us to push the button.) Either way, you tap that same card and the system records your trip. You aren’t charged until the end of the day with one accumulated charge for all trips in that day. FYI – the most we spent on the tram in a day was about 3euro and the pass would have been 4euro.
Morning Walk
Harrison really loves to walk, typically walking 6-9 miles per day. It has become part of his daily routine – so these are the photos from his walk on this day.
Anne Frank House
During World War II, when the Netherlands was occupied by Germany, Anne Frank hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms in the rear building of the 17th-century canal house now referred to as the Secret Annex. She did not survive the war but her wartime diary was published in 1947 and has been translated into more than 70 languages.
The entire museum opened in 1960 and occupies the three adjacent buildings. It preserves the hiding place while the other buildings expand the exhibition outlining the life and times of Anne Frank. It also has an exhibition space about all forms of persecution and discrimination. In 2017, the museum had 1.27 million visitors and was the third most visited museum in the Netherlands, after the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. All entry is through time-entry tickets which go on sale one month in advance and typically sell out same day.
The ground floor consisted of three sections; the front was the goods and dispatch entrance, behind it in the middle section were the spice mills, and at the rear, which was the ground floor of the annex, was the warehouse where the goods were packed for distribution. Directly above the ground floor were the employee’s offices. The Secret Annex is the rear extension of the building. It was concealed from view by houses on all four sides. Its secluded position made it an ideal hiding place for Otto & Edith Frank, their two daughters, Margot and Anne, and four other Jews seeking refuge from Nazi persecution. The total amount of floor space in the inhabited rooms came to only about 450 square feet. While in hiding, they had to remain very quiet – so reading and writing were ideal pastimes. They could not look out the curtained windows or use any lights at night. Food was scarce – the people hiding them had to share their rations so as not to raise suspicion by purchasing a lot of food. They remained hidden here for two years and one month until they were raided by the Nazi authorities, arrested, and deported to their deaths in concentration and death camps. Of the hidden group, only Otto Frank survived the camps.
Heineken Experience
We have some time to kill before our next scheduled tour, so the gang decides to do the Heineken Experience. This was NOT a typical brewery tour – and greatly exceeded our expectation. The industrial facility was built as the first Heineken brewery in 1867, serving as the company’s primary brewing facility until 1988 when a more modern, larger facility was constructed on the outskirts of the city. The brewery opened its doors for tours in 1991 and has transformed the experience throughout time. The Heineken Experience comprises four levels of historical artifacts, product exploration and sampling, and interactive exhibits which employ the latest high-tech multi-media technologies. We highly recommend this!
Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of The Netherlands dedicated to Dutch art & history and is the largest art museum in all of The Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1798 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace. The current main building first opened in 1885. The museum has on display 8,000 objects from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer. Rembrandt’s famous painting Night Watch is the centerpiece of the museum at an impressive 142.9″ x 172″.
Meet up with an Old Friend
You just have to love social media sometimes! We learned a former colleague and friend of ours was also in Amsterdam. We met up in Dam Square and then went to a cafe for drinks. Dam Square is the historical center of Amsterdam and is just 2500 feet from the main transportation hub called Centraal Station. On the west end of the square is the Royal Palace. The National Monument to the victims of World War II, a white stone pillar, dominates the other side of the square. While meeting up with Kim, we got to witness a Palestinian Protest with about 150 people in the square. Although its a small group they are very loud and start setting off what we thought at first were gun shoots but in the end assumed it must have been firecracker’s. We leave the area as it seems to have little bit or rowdiness to it. A week after we left Amsterdam, we learn that a small riot was indeed carried out against the Jews in the city. Sad that it in the city of Anne Frank that this sort of behavior can still occur.
Dinner at the Black Dog
After a couple hours with Kim we start to head back to where we are staying. The gang is still split up at this point, so it is just the two of us for dinner. We find a small pub named Black Dog in honor of the Led Zeppelin song of the same name. The place was small but loaded with old-style ambiance and surprisingly great food. We chose their Beef Ale Pie and – wow! After dinner, we stopped at one of the many shops selling Netherland’s popular treat – stroopwafels – a thin round cookie made from two layers of sweet bake dough held together by a thick syrup filling.
Day 4 – Road Trip to Zaanse Schans, Volendam and Marken
We wanted to branch out of Amsterdam to see more of the The Netherlands. Our private driver, David, meets us bright and early at the hotel to being our all-day tour. This is now our 5th tour guide between Belgium and The Netherlands and it is so interesting to us how different they all are. This is their livelihood and yes they are different, but each tour is different and their personalities and passions match well to the tours they do.
Zaanse Schans
It is quite interesting to drive through the city and into the countryside of The Netherlands, going from busy, congested city to lots of open space and farmlands.
Our first stop is Zaanse Schans, an outdoor museum best known for its collection of 8 historic windmills and over 30 wooden houses all relocated here from their original locations. We love these outdoor museums (remembering the one we saw earlier on our trip in Bucharest) because they let you walk through history in one location. We are treated to a wooden shoemaking demonstration and get to see inside an operational windmill. It is a damp, nippy morning and we are delighted to get hot chocolate with a shot of run while inside the windmill. There are a total of 7 museums within the larger complex, each with a different cultural angle.
Henri Willig Cheese Farm
Our second stop is to the Henri Willig Cheese Farm where we get to see many aspects of cheese making. The specialty here is the creamy yellow Gouda cheese made from cow’s milk. The first thing we learn is that Americans definitely don’t pronounce it the Dutch way. The correct pronunciation is: HOW -duh (where HOW is very guttural).
Our tour starts in the barn where we watch the cows self-direct themselves into automated robotic milking machines. Each cow has a tag and the machines track the amount of milk each teat of the cow expels. Next, we move on to a cheese making demonstration. We learn that cheesemaking traditionally was a woman’s task in Dutch culture, with farmers’ wives passing their cheesemaking skills onto their daughters. Most Dutch Gouda is now produced industrially. Finally, we get to the store where over 60 cheeses are available for tasting. Everyone purchases cheese to take home (thankfully, it doesn’t require refrigeration as long as the wax seal isn’t broken. We opt to bring home a garlic gouda, a cumin gouda and a chili pepper gouda.
Volendam
Volendam is a tourist town known for its streets, old fishing boats and the traditional clothing worn by some residents. The women’s costume of Volendam, with its high, pointed bonnet, is one of the most recognizable of the Dutch traditional costumes, and is often featured on tourist postcards and posters.
Lunch in Volendam
Lunch is included in our tour and our guide chooses Restaurant Cafe Van Den Hogan and it was a wonderful relaxing place to eat. After lunch we wander through the village looking mostly at souvenir shops.
Marken
Next, we board a water taxi and enjoy a 45-minute ride to the island of Marken. Our guide David drives over and meets us there. The village is filled with characteristic 17th century wooden houses, serves as a fishing harbor and we also visit a protestant church.
Interesting side note – all our European tour guides pronounce “protestant” differently than we are used to in the US. In the US the emphasis is on first syllable – with that first syllable spoken like: PRAH. In Europe (where English is a second language) – the first syllable is spoken like “PRO” and the emphasis is on the second syllable, test. This makes the pronunciation focus on the word “protest” – which does reflect the creation of the protestant religion in protest of the way the Catholic church was going.
Day 5 – Amsterdam
We intentionally left one day completely unplanned. As expected, the group splits up. Carl takes a train to The Hague for the day. The Hague is the capital of South Holland and is also seat of the Cabinet, the States General, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State for all of the Netherlands. It is the third largest city in The Netherlands. Lisa & Cait make arrangements to meet up with David since he happens to have the day off – and he’ll help them explore things that interest 30-somethings. We make it a “day of museums”. With almost 100 museums in Amsterdam, its just a matter of choosing a few that most interest us that we haven’t already been to.
Het Scheepvaartmuseum (aka: Maritime Museum)
The Maritime Museum is dedicated to maritime history and contains many artefacts associated with shipping and sailing. The collection contains, among other things, paintings, scale models, weapons and world maps. The paintings depict Dutch naval officers such as and historical sea battles. The map collection includes works by 17th-century cartographers and also has a surviving copy of the first edition of Maximilianus Transylvanus’ work, De Moluccis Insulis, the first to describe Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage around the world.
Verzetsmuseum (aka Dutch Resistance Museum)
We step back in time to the era of war, dictatorship, persecution and resistance. The museum conveys the history behind the difficult choices that the Dutch had to make during the dark days of the German occupation in World War II. The museum also sheds light on the significant changes brought about by World War II in the former Dutch colonies of Indonesia, Suriname, and the Dutch Caribbean islands, as well as the aftermath of the war, with stories about decolonization and the lasting impact of the colonial past up to the present day.
Grachten Museum (aka: Museum of the Canals)
The Amsterdam canals are the heart of the city and have a complex and interesting history. Within 5 rooms, we uncover how and why Amsterdam transformed from a small fishing port into a metropolis and why they remain of central importance to the city to this day. The museum also hosts several “period rooms” that showcase the different architectures and homes of several periods of time. The museum uses interesting techniques to present the information and we truly appreciated this museum the most of the three we visited today.
3 Sisters Pub
We’ve worked up quite an appetite and we end up choosing Three Sister’s Pub for lunch. Its a sports pub with many TV screens around the room – which is our favorite type of restaurant back home.
Night Canal Cruise
Our final tourist activity is a night-time canal boat cruise through Amsterdam. What a fitting way to end our time in Amsterdam, our time traveling with our kids as well as the way to end our entire trip. We are blessed with a beautiful evening as we sail around this gloriously lit up city in a boat on the canals. We sit out on the back to maximize the view that isn’t quite as visible inside the boat. Thank you Amsterdam!
Summary
The Netherlands is a very welcoming and easy to navigate country. We spent the majority of our time in Amsterdam and we barely touched the surface in terms of all that we could explore. The same holds true for the country which has so much more to offer that we are highly likely to return.
The other segments of this trip can be found here:
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