Amsterdam…

Published on April 4, 2005 in Travel. 6 Comments Tags: , , , .

Well it’s been a few days since we last updated you all, our hotel in Amsterdam is clean but old, and the only internet access is a PC in the lobby that has seen better days (it doesn’t have a USB port). Anyway to bring you up to speed we finished our fantastic stay with “The Dutch” by having Indonesian food or a “Ricetaffel” with Joop, Rob, Jessica and Walter. It was delicious and a great end to our tremendous stay in the Randstaad. After dinner Rob decided I needed to try the Dutch gin known as Jenever, it’s awful and I can see why it’s never become popular outside the Netherlands.Rijwickjenever

On Saturday morning our faithful hosts Jessica and Walter took us to the Zootermeer train station where we caught the train for Amsterdam. Just want to thank them again for their hospitality and friendship, our trip was made much more special by having them with us.

Once we arrived in Amsterdam we took a boat tour around the main canals. The first thing that struck us was this bike parking lot outside the main train station. If I haven’t mentioned it before, the dutch bike, ALOT. We’ve seen mothers riding with one child on the front, one child on the back, the groceries in panniers on the side of the bike all while talking on a cell phone.IMG 1529 The canals were great with beautiful views of the narrow row houses, churches, and the huge houseboats that look like they don’t move very often. We’ve passed one several times that has a lawn on it’s roof.IMG 1536IMG 1542IMG 1551IMG 1555IMG 1558IMG 1561IMG 1567

After the canal cruise we hit Dam Square which is the site of another royal palace and the heart of the city.IMG 1577

We wandered around a little, checking out the quality of the beer (excellent), the coffee shops and the like. We wound up in a little cafe off the beaten track where we hooked up with Mara Murphy of Boston, Mass. and her husband. We had a few more drinks including some ‘dutch’ shooters…IMG 1582IMG 1585 And then it was off to the Red Light district. They frown on taking photos there so you’ll just have to use your imagination or Google.redlight We were amazed at the scale of it, we must have passed 200 or so little window rooms each with a girl in them. Worth seeing but a little disturbing at the same time.

The following day we slept in late and then went to Anne Frank house. It was a really moving experience, several times Ali and I both welled up and we’d strongly recommend it as stop one for anyone in Amsterdam.

Today, we took a canal boat again and went to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum before walking in Vondelpark. The folks at the Rijk’s let us take pictures so here are a few Dutch masters for you to feast your eyes on.IMG 1597IMG 1599IMG 1601IMG 1602IMG 1611IMG 1622IMG 1621IMG 1623IMG 1624IMG 1630IMG 1634

The Rijk’s also had this fantastic doll house that I though Ali’s nieces might like, the pictures are a little dark but it’s incredible. It cost more than a large real house to build and everything is authentic, the plates are real Delft blue, the silver is silver, the chandeliers are crystal, etc.IMG 1608IMG 1607

Finally, some of you may be wondering where George is. Well on the train from Zootermeer we told him of our itinerary and outside of the Red Light district he didn’t want to see anything we wanted to see. He asked us to drop him off here and we’ll pick him up tomorrow morning on our way to catch the train to Paris.george

Cheers,

Mark & Ali

Keukenhof, Leiden, Harriet, Wim, Tim and Daan

Published on April 1, 2005 in Travel. 5 Comments Tags: , , , .

We started out yesterday morning for the Keukenhof, it’s an annual flower show that has been held in the town of Lisse since 1949. Flower growers from all over Holland contribute to the displays and prizes are awarded in various categories like the best Orchids, etc. We took a whole memory card worth of flower pictures so without further ado here they are…

IMG 1392IMG 1400IMG 1404IMG 1407IMG 1416IMG 1427IMG 1429IMG 1442IMG 1473IMG 1471

This one of Ali is my favourite…IMG 1468a

Walter and I of course were in dire need of beer after having spent 3 hours looking at flowers.
IMG 1470m

So we drove to Leiden, which is home of the oldest active University in the Netherlands and where both Jess and Walter studied. The weather was great about 17 degrees and sunny so we found a patio and got to the nectar quickly.

IMG 1478IMG 1474

Of course George’s throat was also parched (even though he somehow managed to sneak out of the flower show early)…

IMG 1475IMG 1476

Leiden is great, has that university town feel with students everywhere sitting outside on their living room couches drinking, chatting and playing music.IMG 1484IMG 1485IMG 1487IMG 1494IMG 1504

After Leiden we returned to Zootermeer and walked the 10 minutes or so from Jessica and Walters to Harriet and Wim’s. Harriet put on a fantastic spread IMG 1510

And we got this great picture of the future stars of the Netherlands Olympic Field Hockey Team.IMG 1513

On our way to Harriet and Wim’s we passed this water towerIMG 1509 so Daan, Tim and I decided to build this human tower which was at least twice as high.IMG 1514

It was the perfect end to a great day that was over too soon. Thanks for the great food, great wine and great company; Harriet, Wim, Tim and Daan.

Cheers,

Mark & Ali

Delft, The Netherlands

Published on March 31, 2005 in Travel. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .

We spent the day wandering the quaint streets of Delft, famous for it’s blue and white ceramics “Delft Blue” and as the burial place of the House of Orange, Holland’s Royal Family.

They are buried here in the ‘New’ Church.
IMG 1352

We had a wonderful relaxing day in this sleepy little town. I think the pictures speak for themselves so I’m going to keep quiet now and let them…

IMG 1342 01IMG 1346IMG 1347IMG 1348 01IMG 1351IMG 1353IMG 1363IMG 1367 01IMG 1369IMG 1381IMG 1382

We had a great traditionally Dutch meal at “Der Waag” which is in the old weighing and measuring guildhall. As usual Jessica was a great tour guide.

Cheers,

Mark & Ali

All of Holland in 60 minutes and The Hague

Published on March 29, 2005 in Travel. 8 Comments Tags: , , , .

Well another jam packed day in Holland. Our fantastic hosts; Walter and Jessica and my Tante Joop took us on another great day of Dutch site seeing. We started with Madurodam which is a unique minature village. It opened in 1952 and contains incredibly detailed models at a 1:25 scale of famous Dutch landmarks. This is George at the entrance.
IMG 1283
And this is Walter’s finger in front of one of Madurodam’s residents to give you some perspective on what 1:25 means.
IMG 1287

The ‘village’ has 16,000 model people, and today at least one slightly oversized monkey. The Queen of the Netherlands, Beatrix was the ‘Mayor’ of Madurodam until she was crowned in 1980. The models are spectacularly detailed hopefully our pictures will give you some idea of this. I’m going to start by showing you a real picture of the Gouda Town Hall from yesterday and then the pictures of the models I took this morning.IMG 1270IMG 1296
IMG 1299

We took pictures of many famous Dutch landmarks which I’m not going to identify for you, we’re hoping to see lots of them in the next few days ‘for real’ so we’ll label them then but here’s a few that I think are great even without you knowing where or what they are.

IMG 1302IMG 1293IMG 1307IMG 1309IMG 1319IMG 1320IMG 1328

Of course we did get one shot of some strange giant people walking around Madurodam.IMG 1323

After Madurodam we went to Simonis which was in the harbour at Scheveningen. Jessica, Walter and I ate about a kilo of mussels each. They were great but we had to be rolled out of the restaurant to the car.IMG 1335

Our next stop was The Hague which is the political capital of Holland (the Dutch are very strange they have their Parliament in The Hague and their official capital in Amsterdam) and contains the parliament buildings and the palaces of the Queen. You’ve seen them in mini so here they are ‘all grown up’.IMG 1370IMG 1348

Our next stop was the world famous “Betsie TerHaar Museum” we started with the main wing shown hereIMG 1338IMG 1342 Our next stop was the “OnMyOwnInTheHagueAnnex”.IMG 1367 For those of you who don’t live in the Netherlands, these are my mother’s family home in The Hague and then her first living on her own apartment also in The Hague.

Next stop a museum called the Prison Gate, no pictures allowed inside but this one outside.
IMG 1359 They must put some kind of shining agent in Dutch shampoo.

Cheers,

Mark & Ali

P.S. Here is George in a miniature version of Amsterdam, can you guess what part of the town?IMG 1317

Easter in the Netherlands

Published on March 28, 2005 in Travel. 7 Comments Tags: , , , .

We slept in late at Jess and Walter’s in Zoetermeer and after a nice breakfast we headed for Moordrecht which is a small town where my cousin Nancy and her husband Hugo live. They had champagne and all kinds of great food laid out (they said it was for Easter but I like to believe it was just for the Canadians visiting). Also there were my cousin Harriėt and her husband Wim, my Aunt (Tante) Joop and Uncle (Oom) Rob. And most importantly all of the kids. There are a lot of the “Davilar” clan so here is each ‘group’ as a family portrait and we’ll let you know who everyone is:
Jessica and Walter
Jessica and Walter
Nancy and Hugo and Max and Jip (they are twins, Max is on the left, Jip on the right)IMG 1262
Harriėt and Wim with Tim and Daan IMG 1239
And last but not least the patriarch and matriarch of the clan my Tante Joop and Oom RobIMG 1241
This is almost the whole clan; missing are Cynthia and Louis who live in Switzerland. There will be a quiz in tomorrow’s update so please take some time now to memorize everyone.
Hugo took Wim, Ali and I on a tour around the polder. A polder is an area of land recovered from the sea and is surrounded by dykes which are dams made of earth. The traditional Dutch windmills were used as pumps to pump the water from the polder side of the dyke to the sea side of the dyke allowing the land to be used. We went to the lowest place in the Netherlands, which is 6.74 meters below sea level. IMG 1235 The top of that blue post is sea level. I think this picture of Wim, me and Hugo gives a great perspective on how ‘low’ the country is and what an extraordinary feat of imagination and engineering it was and is to have carved a prosperous country out of the ‘sea’.IMG 1237

In the theme of engineering we held the first World Jenga Tower championships in the Moordrecht Dome. Entrants from Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium competed to build the highest tower without dropping more than two blocks in the construction processes. IMG 1246IMG 1251IMG 1252IMG 1258

The winning team of Max and Jip were hung by the feet as a result of their victoryIMG 1263

Here is the peaceful view from Nancy and Hugo’s back deck.IMG 1254

From Moordrecht we went to Gouda (the place that the cheese is named for) though the Dutch (who should know) say “howdaa” not “Gooda” like we would. It’s one of the oldest towns in the Netherlands. The cathedral like building you see below is actually the town hall.IMG 1266IMG 1267IMG 1269IMG 1270IMG 1273

As we were leaving Gouda we spotted a Poffertjes house. Poffertjes are little round pancakes served with lots of butter and covered in icing sugar. They are as good as they sound. I ate 33 of them and could have eaten at least 33 more.IMG 1274

Then it was back to Jessica and Walter’s where George had been partying with Boudewyjn, meaning ‘loyal friend’.
IMG 1281

Cheers,

Mark & Ali

P.S. For those of you who want to study Dutch pronunciation here’s the quick guide http://www.stanford.edu/~sipma/prexlp.html

P.P.S. I think this one speaks for it’s self.IMG 1265

Switch to our mobile site