GOEDEMORGEN FROM THE NETHERLANDS

A 4 day weekend so we're outta Madrid. Wednesday night we caught a KLM flight to Amsterdam and arrived at our hotel just before midnight (Travel Tip: Do NOT sty at the Hotel Chariot near Schiphol Airport. The service was awful - the only time we encountered it). After brekky on Thursday morning we were in the car and heading south to the city of Maastricht to visit Dulcinea's Tante Marianne at her nursing home. Tante Marianne is also known as Zuster Johanna within the Carmelite order. We arrived to be greeted by all the sisters, who were genuinely thrilled to see us. We spent several hours there with Tante Marianne. She is a lovely lady, overjoyed to have seen her niece and a real highlight was Aimee and Liam both playing the piano for her. We were about to see some wonderful sights, but visiting Tante Marianne was the highlight of our 4 days away.

 

A magic moment

Aimee channels "I Say A Little Prayer For You"

Buzzy rips off "Stairway To Heaven"

We headed east to Belgium overnighting in Brussels, and to say we were taken aback would be an understatement. What a stunning city, so beautiful. Our hotel (Travel Tip: Hotel St. Nicholas is inexpensive and centrally located - great value) was literally around the corner from The Grand Place, and we couldn't think of a more appropriate name. It is surrounded on all sides by gothic masterpieces, truly extraordinary. Of course, we ducked down a side street to see the Mannekin Pis.

"Just a few steps up to your room" he said!

The Grand Place at night.....

.....and by day

Mannekinpis

Call me sceptical, but....

Not easy for everyone

Tin Tin wall murals abound in the city

If you have any doubts about Belgium's obsession with chocolate, then Brussels will eradicate them. Chocolate stores are literally everywhere, without exception amazingly merchandised, without exception willing to offer free samples (I put on 2 kilos overnight). There were chocolaterias that displayed their delicacies like jewellery pieces - amazing. Brussels is also renowned for waffles, and the ones we had were as good as any I have ever tasted - real 'melt in the mouth' stuff. And as Belgium is the global epicentre for comics, no visit would have been complete without visiting the Tin Tin centre!

This is a chocolate store!

Macaroons as gems!

Chocolate chefs wall of honour

Mokafe - trad Belgian cafe

Waffles....

A slightly healthy version!

Belgian hot choc...mmmm mmm

Belgian café latte!! Nuff said...

"Manuel Moment": It was a public holiday, and when we went to get the car, the car park access was closed! Mild panic. We got directions to the 'after hours' entrance. We got there to be told 'wrong park' and head off under new directions. We go in but the vending machine rejects our ticket. Nevertheless we head down to the 3rd floor - the 'green rabbit' floor but can't find the car! Why? Wrong car park! All the car parks are owned by the same company and in a case of 'franchise merchandising technique' gone mad, they mark all the car parks the same....we finally found the entrance to our car park on the 3rd attempt, an hour after we had checked out! Departing Brussels we were obstructed by a protest march that blocked the main arterials and delayed us a further 45 minutes - not a good start to the day!

Time to tilt at a few windmills. We head to ZAANDIJK near Rotterdam. It's drizzling, but this UNESCO listed site is simply awesome, containing 19 windmills dating back to 1740 - we're all impressed (it's the first time we've ever seen 'real' windmills). Rotterdam has the worst traffic congestion I have seen ANYWHERE in the world, so bad it destroyed any chance we had to visit the Schiedam windmills, and we also missed out on visiting the town of LEIDEN, where we had an appointment with the local sign writer to point out the correct spelling! We finally made it to Amsterdam and our spectacular apartment in PC (Pieter Cornelis) Hooftstraat (look it up on Google maps!), the most exclusive retail street in the city and a 5 minute walk to all the major museums - it was a stunning location and excellent apartment (Travel Tip: I found it via AirBnB. If you ever go to Amsterdam and need an apartment then I can give you details).

Zaandijk windmills

EuroBoy

Over the next day and a half we did a canal boat tour, walked through the Old City, the groovy Jordaan district, the Dam, walked through the lanes and canals, absorbed the beautiful architecture, lost count of the number of bikes (Travel Tip: BEWARE in Amsterdam - bikes are a law unto themselves and have right of way. They are maniacs on 2 wheels!) managed to keep the kids out of the red light district, and lingered too long outside some of the "coffee shops".

Believe it or not this is a hairdresser

Imagine zipping these up

Drum anyone?

The things you see in lolly shop windows

Kebabs and adult shops - perfect

No idea what this is....

...or this.

Jumper store!

 

Big foot

...x 2

All aboard the canal boat

Canals by day......

Warehouse apartments

 

....and night

Bikes have priority

A fortune just waiting to be made - in bike helmets!

Ingenious

How do you pick yours?

Dutch company cars

Stunning architecture

Anne Frank's house - no problem finding it these days!

Rembrandt's house - circa 1606

Concert Hall

Van Gogh Museum

Stedelijk Modern Art Museum

To crown it all off, went to the RIJKSMUSEUM. On our first visit nearly 10 years ago it had closed for renovations and has only recently re-opened. It is truly magnificent and we got there early enough to see its signature work - Rembrandt's "The Nightwatch" almost unhindered. Whether it's The Prado, Reina Sofia, Sorolla Gallery, Louvre, D'Orsay, The Tate, London National, Van Gogh, or Rijksmuseum, they are all magnificent and very different experiences to one another.

Magnificent Rijksmuseum

Hall Of Honour

No.1 attraction - The Nightwatch

The Milkmaid by Vermeer - exquisite

Museum library

Portrait of Gerard Bicker by Van De Helst

Quellinus' sculpted portrait of Johann de Witt 1666

Extraordinary doll's house from 1676

Holland means Blue Delft porcelain

.....even for violins

Do Rembrandt's portraits all look the same?

Van der Heist's Treaty Of Muster circa 1648

Chilling - you can work out what it is

Dutch designed FK23 Bantam

Nazi chess set

The good guys....

Three priceless works of art

Dutch East Indies Presentation Box with sample opium packaging.
An attempt to eliminate narcotic smuggling - brilliant!!

Museum centrepiece no. 2 - The Battle Of Waterloo by Pieneman

Piano Practice Interrupted by Van der Kooi

Reclining Venus by Lambert Sustris. Predates Goya by 200 years!

Amsterdam had one more little twist for us....at airport security I was subjected to my usual full body search (I was a bit surprised when the officer said "thanks big boy" afterwards!), but the X-ray girl snaffled Buzzy's backpack. She couldn't find anything wrong, UNTIL....she pulled out his plastic Halloween meat cleaver! It took 2 of them 10 minutes (it would have only taken 5 except Dulcinea kept interrupting them telling them not to be so silly!) to evaluate whether a little boy's plastic cleaver presented a security risk, and ultimately let him keep it!

FANTASTIC TRIP - and los ninos were really well behaved (mostly!). Sadly, so was Dulcinea.

Travel Tip: if you are thinking of going to Holland or Belgium then have no fears about any potential language barrier.  Belgians without exception all seemed to speak at least 4 languages (Dutch, French, English, Spanish), although few spoke Flemish (go figure!!), and in Amsterdam I swear the first language spoken by everyone was English. It made travel very easy.