Van Gogh...genius or fraud?

While in Holland again, we took the opportunity to spend some more time in Amsterdam, and explore the neighbouring fishing villages for Volendam and Edam.

Our plan was to be as Dutch as possible and cycle from Volendam to Edam (famous for it’s cheese), but sadly we there on a Sunday and the bike hire shops were closed. Not to be deterred, we enjoyed the (rare) Dutch sunshine and walked instead. It was quite lovely – soaking up the spring atmosphere with lots of ducklings paddling in the canals.

From there, we made our way back to Amsterdam. We’ve pretty much gone a full circle from actively disliking it to actually really loving it. Ignoring the drugs and the red light district, the city is stunningly beautiful, has a great atmosphere and some of the most unique and breathtaking architecture in Europe. We took the opportunity to do a ‘free’ walking tour and it was quite interesting learning a bit more about it’s history, seedy underside and culture.

We were also lucky to have the opportunity to visit the Van Gogh museum. It was pretty fascinating – he certainly liked to experiment. It’s interesting to compare musicians with artists. With a musician, they can sit in their bedroom and practice different styles and genres and nobody hears their mistakes or their random experimentations - people only ever hear the perfect, polished finished product. With artists though, all of the experimenting is captured forever. Van Gogh seems to have a few classic paintings that he got famous for (after he died), but the vast majority of the rest of his work was quite random…and dare we say it…fairly average. Upon reflection, perhaps this can be explained by how he got into art in the first place. Apparently he was in his late-twenties, lost his job, and then just decided to be come an artist….having never painted before. Go figure. 

Back in Holland for the Tulip Festival

We made another trip to Holland. Again, it was sensational to be able to spend some more quality time with Oma.

We made a point of lining our trip up to coincide with the Dutch Tulip Festival. It was thoroughly worthwhile. We spent a day strolling through the gorgeous gardens of Keukenhof and tried to make the most of the macro lens.

The festival was just beginning to come to an end so missed the opportunity of seeing the fields in full bloom and getting the clichéd ‘field of tulips with a windmill in the background’ shot, but that took nothing away from the gardens in Keukenhof. The colours were vibrant, the landscaping and design of the gardens was beautiful, and there was quite an amazing range of unique flowers. All in all, it was a wonderful experience and well worth making the effort to line our trip up.

New Years in Amsterdam

The relaxation of our week with Oma paid off as we hit Amsterdam with renewed energy for New Years. We joined Sam and Shaun and stayed in a classic four storey canal house right in the heart of the city (pictured). We’re not 100% sure how old our house was, but the one next door was dated as 1648.

It was great to spend some more time in Amsterdam. We only popped in for a few hours back in September and so didn’t really get a chance to soak it all in. While we weren’t totally sold last time, it was great to have three days to explore the good parts of the city - in particular, it was wonderful to be able to visit the Corrie Ten Boom Museum and the Anne Frank House.   We were still fairly overwhelmed and challenged by the seedy underside of Amsterdam, but at least that wasn’t our only impression.

New Years Eve itself was fairly crazy. There was only a small official firework display, because every Tom, Dick and irresponsible Harry was able to buy infinite amounts of fireworks and firecrackers and let them off to their hearts content. Walking through the streets of Amsterdam on New Years Eve was something like walking through a war zone during an air raid. There was a constant stream of deafening firecrackers being thrown across the streets, often into crowds of people. The masses were left extremely jittery and shell shocked.

All in all, it was a great New Years. As an aside, Amsterdam 'the day after' is quite a sight with rubbish and soggy firecracker debris lining the streets.  

Relaxing in Holland

We know that we have already given you an insight into our Christmas Day, but we thought we would share a little bit more of our trip to Holland.

We spent a wonderful six days of quality time with Monique’s Oma who lives in Leiden, an old university town near The Hague. Oma had borrowed bicycles from a grandpa in her apartment block so we were able get around and explore the area. The three of us set off that afternoon to the supermarket to get supplies for Christmas day, with Oma on her new pimped up scooter. We did our best to keep up!

Aside from that, we...

• Enjoyed a magnificent boxing day meal with Oma’s sister Truus and her partner Bernard
• Explored Leiden and cycled around Monique’s old stomping ground, Voorschoten.
• Took the opportunity to put our newfound Tuscan cooking skills to the test, as a Christmas present to Oma.

It was a very quiet and relaxing few days which was just what we needed.

Merry Christmas from Holland!

* We're a few posts behind on the holiday, but thought we would chuck in a video of our Christmas day...just because we can. We've got plenty of posts still to come, so make sure to check in again soon.


Merry Christmas!!

Amsterdam, a museum and Oma

Our last few days in Holland were spent…

• With a day trip to Amsterdam. It was an interesting place. While the canals and buildings were beautiful, we got an overwhelming sense that the vast majority of people were there solely for the sex and drug trade. It is a shame that this is all a lot of people will ever associate with Holland.
• A day trip to the Zuider Zee Museum – this is basically Holland’s equivalent of  Victoria's Sovereign Hill. The Museum was really well put together and offered a great insight into what life would have been like several hundred years ago. 
• Finally, we finished our stay in Holland with some quality time with Monique’s Oma. It was great to spent some one on one time with Oma, and of course eat lots (and lots) of her fantastic food!

Next stop, Luxembourg...

Memory Lane

After not having been to Holland for 14 years, Monique was very keen to revisit her old stomping ground. Tanya joined us as went to the towns, schools, bike paths, play grounds and shops that Monique left behind as a 12-year-old. It was a bizarre experience for Monique as random and forgotten memories of her childhood started flooding back. It was strange how some things like the local shops had barely changed at all, while others such as her school being knocked down were obviously completely different.

On our way home in the evening, we visited Kinderdijk – a town that boasts the largest concentration of windmills in Holland, dating back to around 1740. It was a beautiful place to see, and another classically Dutch experience,

Unbelievably flat

We stayed with Tanya and Jennifer at a hostel in Scheveningen (the word that Monique always makes you say to test out your guttural ‘G’). We decided to have a classically Dutch day and hire bikes.

Holland is undoubtedly the bike capital of the world. There are people on bikes like flies around a BBQ on a hot summers night.  The extent to which un-helmeted cyclists buzz around is dizzying (especially when driving). They are the undisputed kings of the road, always having right of way over pedestrians, and often having right of way over cars. Seeing the thousands upon thousands of bikes piled up at train stations and tied to every lamppost, fence, gate and wall in every city is almost beyond belief. The great irony is that despite the popularity of cycling, they all seem to ride around on gearless, dilapidated and barely road worthy bikes. Go figure.

With this knowledge, we hired our bikes with great excitement, and a little trepidation. While we started cautiously, we were soon rolling along enjoying the beautiful Dutch countryside throughout the region of Delft. It was classically Dutch – beautifully green pastoral fields, countless canals, windmills, old villages and flat. Unbelievably flat.

In the five or so hours that we were cycling, we didn’t face even so much as the slightest of gentle inclines. Cycling through Holland almost feels like perpetual motion. It feels like you can just roll on forever as if following the curvature of the earth.

It was a sensational day seeing the Dutch countryside.    

Our brush with royalty

After the parade we continued to stroll through the streets of The Hague, and came across the Palace gardens. We saw quite a crowd of people gathered at the gates behind the palace, staring at an empty car in an empty courtyard. Jennifer kindly asked a Dutchwoman ‘Who are we waiting for?’, to which the lady responded ‘The Queen!’.

Well, how exciting! We joined in the throng of middle-aged women and paparazzi (not even joking) and stood poised, camera at the ready, with bated breath, now also staring at an empty car in an empty courtyard.

We were in quite a flutter.

Sure enough, out she came. Offering a polite wave to her adoring fans, she hopped in the car and began to drive off.

At this point, the throng of middle-aged women and paparazzi, by now in a complete flap, began running towards the driveway outside the palace gates. Caught up in the excitement and confusion, we too found ourselves running towards the driveway. Monique, like a crazed royal-watcher sprinted through the crowd with elbows out, almost knocking over some equally crazed middle-aged women, clamoring to be in the presence of royalty*.

As the Queen drove past, Monique was so close that the car literally brushed past her, and she was able to get a close up photo that we will be able to keep for ever and ever and ever.

It all happened so quickly. She came, she waved, she went. We were left standing in the palace driveway with the rest of the middle-aged women, with flushed cheeks, each of us recounting our brush with royalty.

*Daniel has a tendency to exaggerate adjectives when writing about things I do. I was not crazed, I did not elbow anyone, and I did not sprint – I merely power walked. I just wanted to get a good shot. Who wouldn’t? Don’t believe everything Daniel says…he becoming more theatrical with every blog he writes ;)

After 14 years...

Monique returned to her fatherland. Her return to Holland was greeted with a lovely family dinner at her Oma’s, which included her Dutch great Aunt and Uncle and South African Aunt and her friend. With Bert visiting the week before, Oma affectionately described September as being a ‘family tsunami’ due to all of her international visitors. After an incredible meal, we waddled down to the van and slept in the car park.

The next day we headed to The Hague where we again met up with Tanya, this time also with her sister Jennifer. We spent the morning at Madurodam – a miniature village replicating significant places, buildings and sights of The Netherlands.

From there, we made our way into the centre of town where the Dutch Queen, having heard about Monique’s homecoming, kindly decided to put on a parade to celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately, our VIP tickets must have got lost in the mail, so we had to line up with all the other commoners as the marching bands, horses and military brigades marched through the streets. The Queen, clearly recognizing her error with our tickets, gave us a wave as she went past in her magnificent golden carriage as a way of saying sorry.