Europe 2001: A Travelogue
Many Mini Weekend Reviews
4 October 2001, 16:02 (4:02 p.m.)
(Is that "many mini-weekend reviews" or "many mini-weekend-reviews"?)
Well, since there's so much we haven't written, I may as well write something about everything!
Leiden:
Our second weekend in Europe, we decided to stay close to home and take day trips. RAND Europe has what is known as a "borrel" (happy hour) every other Friday, so whereas we'd planned initially on going to Belgium that weekend, it seemed more logical to go to Leiden, Delft, and Haarlem.
Adam met me at Leiden Centraal at lunchtime, and it was a lovely day. Unfortunately, I had only my Mavica with me, and the battery was low, which is why we have so few pix of Leiden. But as you can see, it's a lovely town.
After trying to find the area my colleagues said had nice restaurants, we settled on a Chinese-Indonesian restaurant, as we had done the previous weekend in Amsterdam. This experience -- although the food, when finally served, was better than we'd expected -- is why Adam would suggest to potential visitors that they not to go to Chin-Ind restaurants in Holland unless they have a burning desire for odd food and poor service.
After lunch, however, we had a lovely walk and "discovered" Leiden's Hortus Botanicus, which was much nicer than Amsterdam's. We also went into the Windmill Museum, which was quite interesting and provided a nice view of the city.
Finally we made our way to the borrel, which was populated by many visitors as well as full-time staff, as several researchers -- including RAND's president, were stranded overseas with no way to get back to the States.
Which reminds me -- one of the interesting and heartwarming things about Leiden that day had been the show of support for the US in the form of Dutch and even American flags flying all over. It was quite touching.
After some snacks and softdrinks at the borrel (though beer and wine were also served), we returned to Rotterdam, where RSM was having an international dinner. We arrived too late for dinner, but the dancing was fun, and in many ways reminded e of life at the LSE.
Delft:
Note -- the Dutch pronounce this city "DELL-uft" for reasons I can't explain. I know this because everytime I take a sneltrain to or from work, the conductor announces it as such.
We went to Delft on 15 September -- Saturday -- and had a lovely time. I higly recommend it. The Nieuwe Kerk has a wonderful exhibit on the royal history of Holland -- all the kings and queens in the family of Orange are interred there. And the city is very tourist-friendly, ith historical markers in Dutch and English. (This is in contrast to Brugge, which is also pretty but less historical and simply more touristy.)
We also went to the Oudekerk, which looked more interesting from the outside -- the steeple is tilted by about 2 meters at the top, which is quite visible from certain points on the ground -- but inside was just "ok."
One of the things that didn't occur to me at the time, until someone at work mentioned it, was that to get into these two churches, you have to pay an entry fee (one fee for both churches, plus extra to climb the Nieuwe Kerk tower). Now, most churches charge an entry fee to climb their towers, but, not being Christian, I guess it never occurred to me that, even if someone wanted simply to pray, he or she would have to pay to enter. (Like I said, I didn't think about it then, so it's possible that there was some exception, and that there are certain hours set aside when tourists are not allowed in, but I don't knw for sure.)
As in all cities, we did pay the fee to ascend the tower (I suppose "climb" isn't exactly the right word, since we were inside, not outside...). The view was quite nice, if a bit hazy -- though not as hazy as in Brugge, on which more later. In the Grote Markt outside the Nieuwe Kerk was some sort of a fair/festival, with the requisite bumper car rides and fairway games. From the tower it seemed like a modern-day Disney-version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and we wondered -- later, while in Paris -- whether the real Notre Dame ever has such festivals anymore.
Our day was capped off by a lovely Dutch (surprise!) dinner at a restaurant recommended in Frommers, Spijshuis de Dis (Spicehouse the Dish?). Apparently, we were lucky to get in, seeing as we didn't have reservations, so take that as a warning if you ever go to Delft and want a nice, traditionally Dutch meal.
One thing we didn't do while there, oddly enough, is go to a Delftware factory. Well, the weather was too nice that day, so we're planning on a return trip in a few weeks.
Haarlem:
After our lovely day in Delft, we awoke on Sunday to a gray and rainy morning -- surprise, surprise. We had plans to meet friends in Amsterdam for dinner, so we bought day-return tickets there -- you're allowed a stopover of sorts, and one way to get to Amsterdam is through Haarlem. We hardly need have bothered. The weather was bleah, and most things were closed on Sundays -- even the church, though there wasn't a service going on!
We had a list of a couple of restaurants (Lonely Planet), but they weren't open for lunch on Sunday, so we made do at one of the big cafes on the main square. Adam ordered a hamburger, I ordered a savoury vegetarian pannekoeken, and ... well, gourmet it wasn't. Adam was rather surprised to find his burger came with a fried egg on it (at least the frites were good), and my pancake had enough cheese on it to block up King Kong.
Since the only open entertainment venue was the Jan Vals museum, we went there, but although Adam liked the Dutch Masters kind of art, it merely reinforced in my mind that such art isn't my favorite. Oh well.
With nothing else to do -- even had we gone to Amsterdam, we wouldn't have arrived in time to see any museums, and the weather wasn't that great -- we went to a different cafe and had some hot chocolate "met slagroom." That is, whipped cream. As Adam observed, only in Holland would one find whipped cream machines that are, themselves, half the size of a small fridge. The Dutch loooove slagroom.
I then called Sebastian and Gioia, my SAIS friends in Amsterdam, but because of the previous week's events, they had to cancel on dinner (Sebastian works for the Dutch Ministry of Defense and was rather busy...)
So we decided to call it a day and head back to Rotterdam. By the time we returned, we were a bit hungry, so we decided to go to a Thai restaurant near the station, and our day then improved considerably. Dinner was great, and at the table next to ours was a young couple and their sleeping baby boy. I can't remember if we've already mentioned them, but the wife noticed my chai and we started talking. Turns out they belong to the Orthodox synagogue and invited us to shabbat dinner or to join them for one of the services. Max and Kinneret, and their son Ben-li. We still need to call them, but even the invitation was nice.
So, in sum, if you do go to Haarlem, don't go on a Sunday, and if you do go and aren't enjoying yourself, head elsewhere. The day is bound to improve.
Brugge:
After a lovely Yom Kippur (Jom Kippoer) break-the-fast dinner at the home of Marja and Rolf Hene, at which we both ate too much ("Here, have some more. We have to make room on the table for the cheese and desserts..."), I apparently came down with Adam's 24-hour-flu from the previous weekend. So my plans to work on Friday were fairly ruined, and our plans to travel that night or perhaps Saturday morning were also put on hold.
By Saturday afternoon, though, I was feeling better, so we decided to take a quick trip to Brugge, Belgium. The train should have taken three hours, but we arrived at Rotterdam Centraal just as the train we wanted was leaving, and the next train was an hour later. OK, four hours. But then that train arrived a couple of minutes late in Antwerp, and we missed our connection. OK, five hours.
But we finally arrived.
And it was raining, of course.
But at least the tourist info office was open, and it was able to make a reservation for us at a hotel downtown. Only after a night of little sleep owing to the horribly mildewy odor of the shower did we realize that it's not always optimal to have an ensuite bath. Live and learn. Also made us appreciate the effort we've made elsewhere to get advance reservations.
But at that point we still had the evening ahead of us, so after a decent stroll around town -- which, importantly, included a true Belgian waffle as a snack -- we decided on a Belgian-French restaurant around the corner from the hotel for dinner. So let me tell you now, if you go to Brugge, definitely eat a "gaufre au sucre" (waffle w/ sugar), definitely buy chocolates, and definitely eat at the Brasserie Belle Epoque. And despite the odd description on the menu, if it offers "waterzooi met kip," we highly recommend it. (Apparently it's a traditional Flemish stew; basically, it's chicken and vegetables in a rich cream sauce, not unlike the best pot pie you ever ate, minus the pie.)
Oh, and the chocolate mousse was also divine.
So, despite the long travel, that day seemed to end on quite the high note. Unfortunately, as foreshadowed earlier, the fat lady hadn't yet finished her aria, and as soon as we returned to the hotel the tune suddenly went quite flat.
In other words, we recommend that you not stay at the Hotel Comte de Flanders, aka de Graaf van Vlaandern.
Otherwise, Brugge turned out to be lovely. The weather improved the next day, and at times it was even rather sunny. We even went to an art museum (the Groeninge Museum) that had Primitive Flemish art -- pre-Dutch Old Masters, but only somewhat -- and I quite liked it. I think the deciding factor was that the museum provided free listening devices with interesting commentary, which provided a lot of information that distracted me from the art itself. But it also focused my attention on certain aspects of the art, which I found I quite appreciated. Go figure.
The one disappointment of Brugge was that so much was under repair, because 2002 is Brugge's year as Kultural Hoofdstad de Europe -- I'm probably butchering the spelling, but it means Cultural Capital of Europe, an honor for some reason bestowed on Rotterdam this year.
I was also rather upset because last weekend was the Begijnhof Opendag, so the normally closed Beguinage was fully open to tourists and tour groups. Not that this is bad, but on most buildings were signs requesting silence, please, and in our guidebook, it said vistors should respect the Benedictine sisters -- the Beguinage's current residents -- and follow their request for silence. So I can understand, with a tour group, that the guide might want to gather people and, at a moderate whisper, describe something. Fine. But no, these people -- guides as well as tourists -- were talkng at full volume! If I hadn't been in a convent I'd have strangled them, or at least told them to shut up, but then my anger would have led me to yell, and I'd have been a worse offender than they were. It was so frustrating that, despite the pristine beauty, we had to leave.
So, now we've finally caught up with telling ou about our weekends. Sorry it's taken so long. Hard to believe we'll be home in a month! Well, this weekend we're going to Colmar, France, and possibly stopping over in Luxembourg on out way. (We're thinking of renting a car, as I think I was able to confirm the availability of an automatic...)
With any luck, we'll have a Eurodiary posted early-ish next week.
And yes, we have some great Paris photos, but we need to make time to re-shoot them with the Mavica. Soon, I hope.
For now, have a great weekend, and pray that we have good weather in Alsace!