The train from Luxembourg City to Liege headed north over one of the town's tall bridges, giving me a wonderful view of the city and its ravines. Out in the country flat fields gave way to the forested hills of the Ardennes, decorated here and there with castles and chateaux. As the slow train from Liege to Maastricht rolled across Belgium I was struck by how artificial the national boundaries seemed. The Ardennes country, and its square houses with their windows outlined in stone or concrete, were the same regardless of frontiers. I wondered, now that a European parliament operates alongside national parliaments, whether regionalism would replace nationalism in Europe.
Appropriate thoughts, since it was Maastricht that gave its name to the treaty that converted the European Community into the European Union, and also led eventually to the euro, whose existence had significantly simplified my trip -- five countries but only two currencies.
The town itself, just inside the Netherlands, offered modern architecture on the right bank of the Maas river, a crammed pedestrian shopping area and atmospheric old squares on the left bank, a pleasant park around the 13th century fortifications and a stunning church.
While St. Servaas Basilica was worth visiting just for its architecture and carvings, some dating back to the 1000s, and for the statues above the south doorway, the surprise was the Treasury. You start with silver, silver gilt, gold, ivory and textiles from the 1300s to the 1900s. Two particularly fine monstrances (for holding communion wafers), dating respectively to 1545 and 1905, positively dripped with intricate ornamentation. Then I found the saint's massive reliquary -- 1160, his silver key -- 890, and a 4th century bowl.
My (overpriced) hotel was above a dark, paneled bar-cafe on one of the two main squares -- the Markt. Below my window a statue of Johannes Petrus Minckelers, inventor of gas lighting, held a gas flame aloft. On Thursday, the square was a parking lot, but Friday morning I woke to find the statue had become an island in a sea of trucks and white-roofed market stalls. The fish section was right below me -- conger eel, crab, squid, herring, mackerel, salmon, flanked by stalls selling fruit and veg, eggs and chickens. Further along I found wallets and wigs, buttons and boas, and massed flowers -- dried flowers, cut flowers, potted flowers and future flowers (bulbs and seeds).
I retired to a table outside my hotel for people-watching and coffee -- accompanied in this part of the world by a little saucer of whipped cream, a cookie and a chocolate. (No wonder I gained weight on this trip!) Most people were dressed in neutral colors, the women in trousers and flat shoes -- none of the more exotic fashions I had seen in the dress shops. While shopping bags and carts marked the locals, plenty of tourists were in evidence -- I chatted for a while with two elderly Scottish couples at the next table. The temperature, if not the sunshine, should have made them feel at home, a few days earlier the hot weather had abruptly departed overnight, and I began to consider investing in a souvenir of the warm and wearable variety.
The only disappointment in Maastricht was a boat trip on the river -- a cement factory may be necessary but never attractive -- but two nights were enough. After changing trains at Sittard -- a quick dash across the platform -- and at Rotterdam -- time to buy a sausage roll for lunch -- I was glad to find that the Bridges House Hotel was just a short walk from Delft station. The hotel was a worthwhile splurge (cheaper over the Internet) with a big, comfortable bed and a full-size bath tub where I could thaw out after sightseeing. In the pleasant sitting/breakfast-room the bookcase provided a few English language books, and I had a grandstand view one morning of a hapless driver maneuvering a huge coach over a tiny humpbacked bridge.
Delft has nearly as many canals as streets, and must be one of the least traffic-friendly towns anywhere. I shudder to think what garage space must cost. Certain streets are off-limits to cars, but are used by buses -- metal posts with flashing red lights sink slowly into the pavement as the buses approach. Saturday, the main canals were flanked by a noisy flea market, and the squares crowded with tourists, but early Sunday morning I had the photogenic town to myself.
Although Delft has a couple of good house-museums -- and an abundance of opportunities to buy blue-and-white pottery -- one night would have been enough, except that I day-tripped to Rotterdam. Lonely Planet waxed eloquent about Rotterdam's modern architecture (it was heavily bombed by the Germans during WWII) but I was more impressed by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, and it was also a lot warmer and drier indoors! In addition to a solid permanent collection, with a specialty in Surrealism, the museum was hosting an exhibition of exquisite Durer prints and drawings, and another of Ruben's series of eight tapestries illustrating the 'Life of Achilles'. The latter included the original small paintings, most of the first stage 'blowups' (modelli), and the tapestries themselves, from several different workshops. While I find Ruben's work way overblown, even when not blown-up to tapestry size, the sequence was fascinating.
Back outside I walked through misty rain to the Overblaak, cube-shaped apartments built near the river from 1978-84. Nothing special, you might think, except that the cubes are tipped onto a point, like diamonds. One is open for visits, fully furnished, and I found it quite disorienting to have walls and windows at such odd angles.
[Food alert] In addition to canals and pottery shops, Delft is packed with cafes and restaurants -- half-a-dozen just steps from my hotel. The first night, eating at next-door-but-one de Zeven Zonden, I started with liver mousse with pistachios wrapped in smoked turkey breast on a bed of mixed greens, red currants and pine nuts. Unbeatable! So much so that the main course -- seawulf rolls in bacon with tagliatelle -- was a nonevent. I was surprised when a big bowl of crisp chips came with the pasta -- did I mention I'm gaining weight?
The next night I ventured a few doors further to the Bistro Patachou. Tender lamb in red wine with rosemary, a few veggies, a salad and a baked potato with bacon, chives and creme fraiche left food stains on my notebook and little room for dessert. In any case, I usually skip dessert, but cafe complet looked interesting. When it arrived it looked, and was, wonderful: coffee -- I chose cappuccino -- a liqueur, a dish of whipped cream and another dish with three bonbons and an artistic scatter of chocolate beans. Mmmmm. [End food alert]
At the helpful Delft Tourist Information office (you can even check your email -- for free) I picked up a map of Amsterdam's museums, all 33 of them. I was already carrying three maps of Amsterdam (Insight, Rick Steves, and Lonely Planet) but this one showed the tram lines and most of the tram stops and proved invaluable. While my hotel, the Prinsenhof, on the Prinsengracht canal, had steep stairs and shared bathrooms, it also had a tram stop almost on the door step (more steep stairs...).
I have faced down the traffic in Saigon and Calcutta, and crossed busy boulevards beside the locals in Cairo, but I was more worried about being run over in Amsterdam than anywhere in Asia (at least in Asia I feel that the locals would sooner miss me). Amsterdam's roads -- and streets -- are shared, unequally, by trams, cars, bikes and pedestrians, with pedestrians clearly at the bottom of the pecking order. At least the trams (long, thin, bend-in-the-middle and great for getting around) stay in their tracks and ring their bells. At least the cars stop for traffic lights -- although they do have a tendency to appear unexpectedly from side streets that look pedestrian-only. But the bikes -- swift and silent -- pay no heed to traffic lights, nor to any other traffic laws I could discern. You need eyes on four sides of your head.
The safest way to get around Amsterdam is on a canal boat -- although it can be a little rough in the harbor. And the best time is at night, when the many bridges are outlined in white lights. Of course, at night you can't really see the canal houses, but I found the houses disappointing -- the 'Golden Bend' on the Herengracht wasn't golden for me. The solid burghers of Amsterdam built solid houses -- tall and thin, yes, but the gables, frequently repetitive, are the only decoration. At night, however, with chandeliers lighting uncurtained rooms, they come alive.
With 33 of them, Amsterdam has more museums than any reasonable person could need, and I only made it to four. The heavyweight is the Rijksmuseum, undergoing a four-year renovation, but still open and still well-endowed with Rembrandts. I also paid homage to three Vermeers and a number of amazingly life-like still-lifes. Just down the road from the Rijksmuseum in the tranquil Voldelpark I ate lunch near a tree-fringed lake at the Filmmuseum's cafe, but skipped the museum itself.
More central is the Amsterdam City Museum, with clever displays charting the city's growth around -- and later over -- the dam on the Amstel. I was happily playing with a carillon of bells at closing time, and so missed the wartime section. Also central, on the Herengracht canal, is the Willet-Holthuysen Museum, a 17th century house that retains the furniture and art of its last owners.
But the must-see house museum in Amsterdam, is, of course, Anne Frank's. I went late in the day, avoiding the crowds. The hidden rooms, where eight people lived for two years, were empty of furniture but full of feeling. Through the blackout curtains the outside world seemed distant and indistinct, the bells of the nearby Westerkerk faint and far away. The photos of the concentration camps where the eight were taken after their betrayal, however, were all too real.
Tired of dodging traffic and crowds, I took a train north to Enkhuizen on my last day for a peaceful wander around an open-air museum. I thought that I had seem flat country before, but nothing to match the reclaimed land in Holland. Flatter than a pancake, ruler-straight dykes edging rectangular fields, it could only be man-made -- in accord with the saying: "God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland." Since most of the Netherlands is not only below sea-level but densely populated, I couldn't help wondering what would happen if the rest of us make the sea level higher with global warming.
I had an odd sense of deja vu looking at the Dutch fields. Cultivated in long strips, they reminded me of the pictures of medieval strip-farming we drew in history class. History was also alive in the Zuiderzee Museum which I reached by ferry from Enkhuizen station, with 130 houses, shops and workshops, a church and a windmill transported from other parts of the Netherlands to create a fair-sized village.
I felt at home in the Netherlands, despite the impenetrable language, but not moved to return. Amsterdam in particular failed to live up to my expectations. Perhaps it was because I wasn't in the market for marijuana -- yes, the coffee shops are there if you want it, nor for sex -- and I duly took a look at the red-light district, which I found more sad than exciting. True, the food was good and I ate the best chicken satay yet at the Indonesian Tujuh Maret round the corner from my hotel (twice), the museums were excellent, and the back streets atmospheric. But I didn't find it worth the traffic, the high hotel prices or the sleazy main streets -- and nearly getting swept up in a soccer riot as I left Centraal Station didn't improve my outlook. I preferred the museums in London, the food in Luxembourg and the buildings in Bruges.
Your mileage may vary.
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