May 30 - Windmills and Delft

Yesterday we stopped in the last port of this cruise, Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  This was my very first visit to this country.  I don’t know how that happened but when I thought back I realized it was so.

Unfortunately it was during the night that we sailed into Amsterdam so I didn’t see it, but we had to go through a lock in order to get there. Like about one third of the country that city is below sea level so we went through what is apparently the world’s largest sea lock, the Ijmuiden lock, to make the transition. I had to get up very early (for me) because I had booked a tour recommended by my Dutch friends who disembarked a couple of weeks ago.

I set out with 14 of my fellow passengers to visit Delft and The Hague.  The tour was interesting and I’ll get to it in a moment, but first I want to talk about my guide, Peter Sandberg.  He is an 87-year-old Dutch man.  He looked that old, a small man with a lined and wrinkled face and hands, eyes that looked a little rheumy and as if they had seen all sorts of things in their time. I had a few moments to talk to him along the way and that’s when I asked how old he was.  I didn’t want to ask too much but his answers to what I did ask raised more questions than answers.  He was  born in 1939 in Holland and he said he was raised in the countryside with his grandparents.  He had some memories of the war (WW II), some of which he said were good, others not so much.  I know that Sandberg can be a Jewish surname and I have heard of families who sent their small children into the country to live with non-Jewish families willing to hide and adopt them as their own to keep them safe. I have no basis for knowing if that was the case with Peter, and maybe I’m being influenced by the thought of Amsterdam being the place from which Anne Frank was discovered after being in hiding for so long.  Anyway, I didn’t ask any further questions because I didn’t want to pry, but the unfulfilled author in me will always wonder what his full story is.  Regardless I was amazed that a man of his age is still working.  He said that he works a couple of days a week and I applauded him for doing that.  He must be one of those people who would wither away if he didn’t have a reason to get up in the morning.

We drove out of the city on our way to Delft and I think Peter decided that irrespective of what the itinerary said we were to do, there were some things he wanted us to see.  I say that because I was sitting just behind our driver Margot and based on the conversation she was having with Peter, she didn’t know where he was directing her.  We drove through some narrow byways and little villages surrounded by small canals and large green fields in which happy cows were grazing.  This country is famous for its cheeses and butter and based on how lush the pastures looked and how contented the animals looked, it’s no wonder.  As we drove Peter told us to look at the magnificent landscapes with the beautiful green of the fields and blue skies dotted with puffy clouds.  I did ask him later if he was an artist because of the way he talked about the scenery, but he said only that he had studied art but wasn’t an artist.  We made a stop at an old windmill and he explained about the pumping system that keeps the Netherlands dry. I won’t go into detail (I can’t remember it all anyway), but it is a complex system of pumps (those were the windmills function), dikes and sand dunes along the coast to dissipate wave energy.  

This was a typical street we passed in Amsterdam and some of the little towns we drove through with a canal and little boats tied up in it.

Lots of bicyclists everywhere.  I think having a bicycle business must be a real money maker here.

The peaceful looking countryside.  Hard to see but there are a couple of windmills on the left and the black dots were happy cows.

An old windmill up close

Eventually our uncharted detour ended and we headed to Delft where our first stop was the Royal Delft Pottery Factory.  Delft makes the distinctive blue and white pottery that most of us have seen.  I think perhaps the fact that just a few weeks ago I visited the tile factory in Portugal detracted from my visit to this place.  Delft has been making pottery since 1653 and at one time had more than 30 factories around the country.  Now there’s just this one.  Their wares are beautiful and most are still handmade, but unlike what I saw at the tile factory where each piece was painted by hand without being stenciled and so from tile to tile there could be slight variations.  Here at Delft the designs are stenciled on so they are much more uniform,  still very pretty but to my mind less personal and quirky.

The entrance to the Royal Delft Factory and below are some of their products

This is a replica of Rembrandt's famous "The Night Watch" in delft tiles.  It is quite spectacular and beautiful

From the factory we drove a little out of town to have lunch which was nice but nothing extraordinary and then we drove back into Delft for a very short walk around the town.  It was extremely warm (in the mid 80°s, which is hot for here this time of year), it looked like it might rain at any moment, and I didn’t feel like trotting through the old town so I stayed with Margot and had an interesting chat with her about life for a middle-aged single mother with a grown daughter.  I know it sounds lame that I didn’t go and take photos of another church or some more Dutch red brick houses, but I did what I like best – talk to local people about what their lives are like.

The old church in Delft courtesy of one of my tour mates

The group came back after just about 20 minutes and we headed to The Hague for a driving tour through there.  I don’t think any of us realized it would just be a drive-by but that was what we did and since it was sprinkling it was probably a good thing. Now I’m going to go off on a tangent again and try to get straight in my head the Netherland’s odd (at least to me) set-up.  Amsterdam is the capital of the country but The Hague is where the seat of government is.  The Parliament meets there, all the government offices and embassies are there and that seems strange to me.  It’s as if Washington DC was our capital but all government was operated out of Philadelphia.  I asked Peter about this and he gave me a long explanation going back to the 13th century when a Count of Holland liked to go hunting in a forest where the present-day Hague sits.  He eventually built a castle there and at some point three or four centuries later when the Netherlands split from the rule of Spain and the Habsburgs and when Amsterdam was the most important financial place in the country, an arrangement was made that created the present division.  I’m not sure I really got an answer to the question, but if this works for them so be it.

The city is quite pretty with lots of green spaces and some grand looking buildings.  Once again Peter waxed almost poetically about the colors and curves of the things we were seeing and again I wondered about his past about which he had been a little elusive.  We saw a circle in which there was a grand statue of King William I who after the Napoleonic wars headed the modern state of the Netherlands.  We passed the International Court of Justice building which houses the principal court of justice of the United Nations.  It was there that the Serbian dictator Milošević was tried. It is also that court that has condemned Israel for genocide.  I won’t comment about that.  It was a quick drive through, which I think was meant to be longer, but our detour into the countryside precluded that.  I think I liked what we did better so that was okay.

A street in The Hague.  There are electric street cars running everywhere

The grand statue of William I

The clock tower of the International Court of Justice building

These are what typical 19th century Dutch row houses look like - red brick with white tile accents. They are made that way because there wasn't that much timber available while with all the canals around there was lots of clay to make bricks and tile.

We got back to Amsterdam under a black sky with very threatening clouds.  As I walked across the all-metal gangway to reboard the ship there was an ear-splitting-louder-booming thunderclap and I hustled off onto the ship.  The skies opened then and I was glad to be back onboard.  Our departure was somewhat delayed because evidently there was a problem in the big lock.  As a result I didn’t see us traverse that again because by the time we did I was having dinner with friends, my English friend Hilary among them.  She disembarked today in Dover so we said our farewells when the evening ended.  I’m sure we’ll sail together again sometime in the future.  It was nice and interesting day.  If I were an author I could probably make up a nice story about Peter.  I realized after I got back that I didn’t get a photo of him.  I kind of wish I had, but on the other hand, as I said he was a little vague about his history and I didn’t want to pry.

That was my visit to Holland.  Perhaps I should have stayed in the city and gone to the museum there to see Rembrandts and taken a canal ride.  There will probably be a next time so I’ll save that for then.