Netherlands: Quiet Roads and Strange Sheep
I'm very lucky to have a Dutch friend who is patient enough to drive me around Netherlands and show me its beauty. I would hate to leave this country without having seen more of it than just Amsterdam.
image from Google maps
Despite the bitter cold, we set out this weekend for the charming town of Hoorn. Hoorn was a very important port town during the 200 years in which the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) was active. Most people, even within Holland, do not know that the VOC was not only the first multinational corporation, the first to issue stock, but also the largest and most valuable corporation in history.
Coincidentally, this Saturday was also the day for the Sinterklaas arrival, when children dress up to meet Saint Nicholas and his companion, Black Piet. This Dutch tradition is so not politically correct, but it persists nonetheless. As a result, our lunch stop, Grand Cafe Winston, was filled with families with small children, adding to the normal mayhem. Most of Dutch lunch food includes some kind of cheese, in this case Beemster as that is made in the area.
We also braved the bitter cold to walk through the town full of gorgeous 17th and 18th century architecture, and then along the water front where there is a tower from the 16th century.
Our next stop was Marken, a village on an island attached to the mainland with a road and bike path. Until 1941, Marken was an isolated island that fascinated folklorists, enthnographer, and anthroplologists beacause the native people and culture had stayed mostly isolated for 800 years.
We walked through the streets of Marken to admire the unusual architecture of the wooden houses and stopped for a warming drink at the Taverne de Visscher (Fisherman's Tavern) on the waterfront.
Inside the Taverne de Visscher
Here is a painting by Belgian painter Xavier Mellery who was asked to create illustrative work about the people of Marken.
The next day we drove south from Amsterdam and wandered around the tiny back roads off the large man made Amsterdam-Rhine canal.
We drove past a sign saying visitors "Welkom!" to a Fort bij Nigtevecht and decided to take a look at it. It was fascinating to wander through the cement buildings built in 1903 and used in many wars. The building is used these days for workshops in art: concrete, wood and ceramics.
On a past trip to the island of Texel, we noticed that the sheep there were strangely ugly. After leaving the fort, we passed some sheep that look more like large sheep dogs than sheep.
Finally we ended up at the beautiful Muiden Castle (Muiderslot), built at the mouth of the river Vecht in 1280.
It is worth it to take the guided tour of the interior of the castle, as the guide is full of great information about what life was like in the castle. I was the only English speaker on our tour however, everyone else spoke Dutch, so I had to content myself with a written explanation of each room, along with some translated tidbits from my Dutch friend, Harm. For example, this fireplace was used to dry the children's nappies after use, rather than wash them. The smell must have been brutal!
