The Dutch Sojourn

Started from Mumbai on Saturday early morn and flew to Dubai to meet the rest of the family.. was thinking how and where would I meet them as we had not decided a place to meet them but luckily caught up with mum and Roz in the cloak ! J … well the perfect Saturday had just begun…

then Z calls Pa and says “ They wont issue me a boarding pass” – coz the flight was over booked and Rangwala junior had not done an online check-in  ! What followed was a nerve racking half an hour and then at last he gets his pass and we were almost the last to board… needless to say, the flight was packed and we were scattered but in twos and threes…

the flight from Dubai to Amsterdam was not great... whether it was in terms of services which was really bad or the landing... it was like being on a rollercoaster… and with the inflight camera and the recent spate of plane crashes being reported in the media, I was praying hard !

Anyways we landed, got our luggage, arranged for our car and headed out of the airport. Before I continue this journal any further, must really mention some relative who had said that the weather was warm enough to wear sleeveless ! It was 13 degrees, windy and was raining… I have never ever been that cold before!

Well somehow made it to the car, put our luggage in and then we were rolling….we had a GPS device ”tom-tom” (Jane ben J) which was giving the directions for the route to Wassennaar..

Day 1 June 19, 2010: Settling In

Actually we reached Duinrell in Wassennaar by around 3ish in the afternoon… checked in and …then Roz and I – we got lost! (The first of the couple of times in this trip J) we were looking at the places to visit at the reception and the rest of the gang just literally disappeared !  well the reunion did happened thankfully... 

That’s our three bedroom cabin complete with a barbeque stove and heaters..Anyways once we had settled in and unpacked, we decided to move out and check out Den Haag…  It was so peaceful and scenic, the houses were so pretty… it almost reminded of my Hansel and Gretel story book except that these houses were not made of food J… 
We had decided to go Madoradum .however that required quite some time to see and we were late and on top of that…the weather was gloomy (it was a rainy windy day ! L)… so we decided that we would see this place on the last day in the morning.. anyways we moved on from there and went to explore Den Haag and had dinner at a Indonesian place where we tasted a rice specialty called Ritsafel

Day 2 June 20, 2010: Say Cheese !

Had a nice heavy breakfast and headed out East to explore ……

So Our Jane ben guided us to the small and quaint village of Gouda… actually we did not have a specific location and hence once there we were kinda lost as to where to park and how to get to the market square… Anyways the Dutch are quite warm and friendly and we found a friendly stranger who quite literally walked us to the Nieuwe Markt …That’s Z chatting away with the friendly [tall-cute-blonde] stranger!! 

Yea so anyways made it to this cheese museum …which was actually a cheese weighing house and an interesting trivia bout this place was that once upon a time the owner (or perhaps the mayor) of this building had issued an order that no building should be built higher than this building… pretty autocratic so the neighbor actually built a building which was just the same height and there was a same stone carving on that building which when translated meant “Not very high not Very Small just right” J … 

anyways we had a tour of this museum and learnt how they make the famous “Gouda cheese”... Even cheese is young, mature and old …and a specific kind is eaten in breakfast, lunch and with wine… We did buy some yummy cheese ! We had some Ice-cream and french fries and mayo ! 

The village square had a beautiful Church which had a cuckoo clock. The melodic chime of church bells could be heard anywhere in the village !

Well we then headed out to Amersfoort… Amersfoort is said to have one of the oldest and the best preserved city gates. 

We walked around and found that there were live bands playing and all the road side cafes were occupied with people who were out to unwind… The imposing Onze Lieve Vrouwe tower can be seen from anywhere in this town…Wrapped up this long day with Arabic food at Habibi…

 

Day 3 June 21, 2010: Berry Berry everywhere

Texel is one of the 5 wadden islands. It is the biggest and the most populated Frisian islands in the Wadden Sea. We needed to travel north to Den Helder and take a ferry to the island.  We took a combo ticket in which we got to see an aquarium and a museum. The aquarium had seals and they were about to feed them which was fun to watch. The museum was actually a house tour (audio) as it were in the olden ages replete with furniture and utensils of the olden days…there was another museum we were kinda out of time as we needed to have dinner and be in time to catch the ferry back as the last ferry was leaving by 9… so  we had pizza for dinner and shopped for berries, berries and more berries J…

Day 4 June 22, 2010: A bit of this, A bit of that

Today was my coco bday... I turned --- never mind…we cut a cake and then headed South…

Delft:

Was a bright sunny day!!! ………Rode on a tram!!!

Had a hard time locating this delftware factory but it was worth the effort nonetheless. There was a tour which showed how the traditional delft ware was made right from the moulding to the painting stage. They create some amazing stuff and I think it is a piece to treasure. Anyways we then headed out to Kinderdijks

Kinderdijks:

Kinderdijk is situated in a polder at the confluence of the Lek and Noord rivers. To drain the polder, a system of 19 windmills was built around 1740. This group of windmills is the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands… The best way to explore this picturesque landscape was either to walk or cycle … I cycled after “god-knows-how-many” years…

Rotterdam:

…This could be Rotterdam or anywhere

Liverpool or Rome

'Cause Rotterdam is anywhere

Anywhere alone

Anywhere alone …

Since this was the last leg of the day trip we all were tired and went to the Euromast (standing tall at 185m). It was a nice way of discovering this beautiful city but one regret could not see the Cube Houses ..we finished the day with Chinese at the Oriental Palace..

Day 5 June 23, 2010: Castle, Caves and the elusive Printen J

s hertogenbosch

This was on the way to Maastricht. It was a quaint little town with a nice castle which had a moat and ducks and dandelions (so love dandelions – fulfilled my childhood Enid Blytons fantasies -- had fun blowing the thistles) a short trip and then out to Maastricht!

Maastricht

It is located near the border of Netherland and Belgium and Germany. It has some pretty special limestone caves. There are lime stones cave in the north and south of the city..We just missed the tour for the north caves and rushed south to ensure that we did not miss the south caves tour. The guide (in the pic) there was very sweet. He impromptu organized a tour and fortunately we had two other people in our group who could speak English and could translate what the guide spoke in dutch. The weather was beautiful and warm but in the caves the temperatures dropped to 10 degrees and we did not even have a sweater on us… Though the caves were impressive with the sketching and carvings, it was a bit too long (perhaps we were cold)... we then left the city and headed for a small little trip to Aachen in Germany !

Aachen

Aachen was this small town near the border of Germany. The local specialty offered was something known as Printen (which I am not sure if I would have wanted to eat)… In search of the elusive Printen had a glimpse of how beautiful and unspoilt is the bucolic rustic landscape of Aachen. Also lesson learnt – spelling mistakes can also take you places!  

Day 6 June 24, 2010: Waterloo

This was a long trip in terms of travel…I think it took us a good 1-1.5 hour to get to waterloo…we reached the tourist info center and inquired about the places to see... we got a combo offer which included 2-3 museums (including a museum dedicated to Duke of Wellington and Napoleon each) and the Lion Mound which is an awesome place. 

A bit of a history lesson on “the Lion Mound”- it is the place on which the battle of waterloo was fought in which Napoleon was defeated by Anglo-Allied army under the command of Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army. This battle was the last for Napoleon and brought an end to the reign of Napoleon as the Emperor of the French. The lion Mound is a memorial (which is built from the earth of the battlefield) in the form of a statue of a lion (looking towards France) on a hill, with 226 stairs. The views from the top are awesome.

…we had some awesome Belgian chocolate and cookies.

Day 7 June 25, 2010: Amsterdam

We went to Amsterdam towards the end of the trip as we did not want to spend more time on major cities. This is more often than not a stopover city and can be visited many times in the future. 

However we went to the Anne Frank Museum. It took us a bit of roaming here and there (which was actually good as we got to feel the city) before we actually reached the place. When we reached there, there was a long queue but fortunately the weather was calm and there was no rain. The museum is quite unique and in my opinion more a message to humanity. There are quotes from Anne Frank’s diary and interviews of Anne Frank’s father and friends. It showed a glimpse of life in the Nazi era. Thank god I wasn’t born then…

Honestly Amsterdam as city held less charm for me than as compared to smaller towns.. and I forgot  we ate fish and chips (I think the fish was raw ! eeeks had to gulp it down with cookies ! that was something) .. Seems like French fries and mayonnaise is a national favorite…I dig that! J

We went and shopped for a bit of groceries for barbeque and we wrapped it up early and headed home to pack and had a barbeque party ! Yayee!

Day 8 June 26, 2010: Heading back to Dxb

This was our last day in Netherlands and we checked out at around 9.30 ish in the morning and went to visit the Madurodam (miniature replica of Holland). We had tried to visit this place on the first day but it required around 2 hours to fully see the place and we were pretty late. The picture above is the replica of the place in Wassenaar we were staying in..really didnt have the guts to try out any water action since it was so cold.....Anyways we rushed through this place a bit as we had to give our car back and had a flight to catch.

And the flight back home was a safe landing, great service and and I finished watching the Twilight Series in air (not necessarily in that order) J

The End