From Rotterdam it’s a quick hop to Dordrecht, the oldest city in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. I arrive just as the locals begin milling around the city center for dinner but it’s still a few hours yet before sunset.
I begin my walk at the statue of the brothers Johan and Cornelis de Witt, two political heavyweights brutally lynched in 1672,
The historical city center is utterly charming with narrow, twisting cobblestoned streets that lead to the city hall,
shops and offices,
and lots of bridges over its many canals,
I keep walking, away from the main square, around the Grote Kerk (big church)
until it becomes just the background for the marina:
I end up at the street that’s museum row, but everything is closed. The smell from nearby restaurants and even a few BBQs on people’s boats tells me it’s time to head back to the city center for dinner–and it won’t be from this portable food stand…
or the ubiquitous McDo where a delivery is taking place:
I catch a few more photo ops during my brisk walk back…
…toward the cute place that had caught my eye earlier with its menu:
Once I’ve refueled, it’s only a guess as to where I’m headed next!
Tags: Cornelis de Witt, Dordrecht, Holland, Johan de Witt, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
There’s a local expression here loosely translated to “you make money in Rotterdam, divide it at the Hague, and spend it in Amsterdam.” Whereas Amsterdam is the cultural epicenter and the Hague more or less a government seat of the Netherlands, Rotterdam is this country’s no-nonsense, worker-bee kind of city. It’s my kind of town. But on this day, when there’s a summer carnival going on, I think their motto is work hard, play harder.
I’ve come to Rotterdam to soak in its architectural history and future. Home to the Netherlands Architectural Institute (NAI), Kunsthal, Erasmus Bridge, and prominent architects like Rem Koolhaas (cool name), it is just a really cool city with innovative architecture from all decades.
Yesss, I hear you groaning already…and yes, I am taking you to all these places! That reminds me, when I was on the road somewhere I overheard a young American girl mumbling to her parents as they waited in line at the museum, “This is so agonizingly boring.” I looked at her parents and chuckled. Big vocabulary for a preteen, and so apt. I’d found that museum boring, too.
I arrive in Rotterdam via subway and I wish I’d jotted down the name of the metro stop. The train is jampacked with a million very tall 20-somethings and I follow the mass exodus at that one stop. I figure wherever they’re going there has to be something going on. Turns out it’s that carnaval thingy. There is loud music coming out of bars, restaurants, floats and people are dancing, smoking, shouting everywhere…
and when there’s this much beer flowing everywhere, the city has to get creative to prevent peeing on the street by letting them…pee on the street (look at the picture below and this last sentence will make sense):
Yes, I can hear you thanking me for that picture already (haha). But that’s how my day has begun in Rotterdam. Tomorrow let’s go see the city in earnest.
Tags: Erasmus Bridge, Kunsthal, NAI, Rem Koolhaas, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
The first time I got to see a windmill up close and in person, it was dark outside and the tavern inside, where we were hoping to get a beer, was closed. I’d arrived at Le Moulin Defrenne too late. This time, I’m prepared like a Boy Scout. I’ve perused the mill database and concluded that eventually all roads lead to the UNESCO World Heritage Site mills at Kinderdijk in the Netherlands. So let’s skip the Quixotic chases and just go there:
BTW there’s plenty of parking right by the mills, so whatever you read about finding parking elsewhere, I’d ignore it. I don’t mind the long walk from where I park, however, because I get to enjoy the neighborhood…
as well as teaser views of the 19 mills as I get closer and closer:
Can you imagine this view from your backyard:
After a 20-minutes walk I get to the front of the “park”…
and there are bikes for rent…
(yeah right! I walk!)
…and there are people fishing:
This tourist attraction is, as it’s always been, in the middle of a village with life happening as we speak, so you get to see relics from the past right in the present.
How are the 19 mills, you ask? Same, same but different. Tomorrow I’ll take you inside Windmill 2:
Tags: Kinderdijk, Moulin Defrenne, the Netherlands, UNESCO, windmills
Way before 9/11 I used to spontaneously pick out a city, hop a plane and some hours later basically get lost somewhere in the world. If I didn’t speak the local language, all the better. Now it’s not so simple to travel. The consequence of 9/11 is the knowledge of how the impossible can manifest itself. That has changed how we all travel and view each other. Airports are tiresome; the security gates feel like hell’s gates, albeit a necessary evil. Even so, I am just as driven now to see as much of this planet as I possibly can. There’s just too much heaven behind hell’s gates.
Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands. I spend half a day here visiting the cobblestoned town center in pouring rain. Luckily the rain does let up for my photos. With a drenched walking tour map in hand (note to self, keep a clear plastic folder or bag handy so that you can keep maps and such from getting wet), I meander around the narrow streets filled with upscale shops…
small squares for al fresco dining…
and just wonderful nooks and crannies with homes and stores built on/around/under fortress ruins from days of long ago…
In the middle of the old center there is a large university which explains the vibrant vibe. Maastricht is a stunning town. It’s just a stone’s throw across the border from Belgium but immediately the architecture looks different. The people are friendly (one local woman approached me to help me with my map and spoke nearly perfect English) but not overly affectionate as their French speaking neighbors in Belgium. There’s no lovey dovey chitchat with total strangers, just very curt but polite assistance. I immediately pick up on how to-the-point they all seem. Where there’s drama and flowery dialog with the French, there’s bottom line efficiency with the Dutch. At least that’s my take on it.
From this old quarter you cross a bridge to the new part of the city. Here’s a picture of the old quarter taken from the bridge on the new quarter side.
Check out this cool groove they’ve put on the bridge so that you can walk your bike across. Necessity is the mother of all inventions!
As I cross the large square to get back to the underground parking lot, I spy this mobile food-to-go place–the name is Vietnamese! When my friend and I first get to Maastricht that morning we have no idea where the public parking is. Oddly the first local person I run into is Vietnamese. She doesn’t speak English or French. So it’s either Vietnamese or Dutch. Lucky for my friend I speak VN because he doesn’t speak Dutch besides stuff like “ik houd van jij” which would definitely not get us very far in figuring out where to park. And she doesn’t look like she’s open to dating him. Anyway, at the end of the tour when I run into this little Vietnamese kiosk, I just crack up.
When my sisters and I were very young and traveled with my parents to new towns, we would open up the phone book in the hotel room to see if we could find anyone with a Vietnamese last name. No, we did not make crank calls for fun! I think it’s just not rare that immigrants have this curiosity and I’m certain we were not the only people who did this. I did it in Venezuela many years later and sure enough, I found Nguyens in Caracas.
So right in the middle of this square in rain soaked Maastricht I want to call my parents and tell them we no longer need the phone book. The Vietnamese are already everywhere.
Tags: Maastricht, the Netherlands
