Haarlem - 8 April 2007

Forgoing our free bus ride, we paid for a train ticket to speed us back to Haarlem, our final stop of the day. This is even more attractive than Delft: the town square is impressive and there are many interesting streets to explore leading off the square.

Down one of these side streets, we came across an Indonesian restaurant, which we decided to try. We had read that one must try Indonesian food in Holland, as this was one of the Dutch territories.




An excellent way to approach this is to have a rijsttafel, which on this occasion was 14 separate dishes plus rice. Unfortunately, like our selection of fish in Hoorn, we ended the day none the wiser as we had absolutely no idea what we had sampled. What we did establish was that it was another fantastic meal: so, when in Haarlem, dine at De Lachende Javaan.

Delft - 8 April 2007

To get to the Keukenhof Gardens from the train we purchased another all day Bus Pass; so, following on our success of the previous day, we decided to use our pass in the afternoon and visit Delft. This proved to be a 2½-hour expedition, and included a bus change that required us to walk though the centre of The Hague. We did not enjoy this city: compared to the other places visited in Holland, it is most unappealing.


Delft is attractive and, naturally, full of Delftware shops. We wondered at the similarity to Chinese Willow pattern china, but this was explained when we leant that Delft was another of the cities where the Dutch East India Company was based.

Keukenhof Gardens - 8 April 2007

The main reason we choose Amsterdam in April was to visit the Keukenhof Gardens: the best spring bulb garden in the world. However, after paying €13 each to get in, the miserable toads charge €0.30 to use the toilets. How mean can you possibly get?


Nevertheless, the day was brilliant,


and we spent several very enjoyable hours


wandering around the gardens.


It was a wonderful way


to spend Easter Sunday,


enjoying the symbolism of the 'dead' bulbs


becoming new life


with their beautiful blooms.

Hoorn - 7 April 2007

In 1642 Abel Tasman set sail from Hoorn and, by chance, discovered New Zealand. In 2001 two New Zealanders returned the compliment when they set off from Auckland and ultimately, and quite by chance, discovered Hoorn.

As our fourth fabulous town for the day we were now drowning in a surfeit of cute and quaint views. It was once one of the six cities where the Dutch East India Company was based as well as a base for the Dutch West India Company so was full of prestigious and important looking buildings. It boasts a fine square surrounded with civic buildings, as well as a picturesque harbour and waterfront.


We resisted the touristy looking cafés in the square, and had a memorable meal in a humbler looking restaurant, where we shared a most delicious pot of a least a dozen different types of fish, fresh from the local harbour. They don't get many tourists making day trips from Amsterdam so made us feel very welcome. The meal was excellent, as was the view from our table in the window: if you are passing, dine at the So Da.

A quirk of old Dutch architecture is that buildings lean in towards the street, but not all at the same angle. It must be most off-putting if you are slightly tipsy and trying to maintain an upright stance by referencing the buildings! The reasons given were a) to make the buildings appear bigger and b) to keep goods being hauled up to the top floors from damaging the frontage lower down. With a corner building, sloping out on both faces the brickwork up the corner became quite interesting!

Edam - 7 April 2007

Back on the bus again, we left the masses of tourists behind, and stopped at Edam. Made famous by its cheese, it is not at all ‘cheesy’ but rather: charming, cute, compact and convivial; and made us wish we could stay the night.

But we couldn’t; so instead, after buying the obligatory Edam in Edam, we were back on the bus heading for Hoorn.

Waterland wanderings - 7 April 2007

By the time our final canal cruise had finished, the day had improved considerably so we bought a Bus Pass to the Waterland area. What excellent value! For €10, the two of us (but we could have had 5 people), we were able to travel all day this area. We intended to bus all the way to Marken but the first bus that came along was going via Monnickendam, the first stop on our intended route, so we took it and explored this very picturesque market town.


Back on the bus again we crossed the causeway to Marken, until the 50’s an island with a population of 70 families. This small fishing village now has a population of 2000 but the original town has, apparently, no street names – with only 70 families why would you need them?


Leaving the ‘island’ in the traditional manner, we took the ferry across the bay to Volendam. Here they have given up on traditional fishing and abandoned themselves to the tourist coaches; so it is very touristy and not as enjoyable.

Freedoms and rights - 7 April 2007

We made an early start this morning in order to beat the long queues at Anne Frank’s house. We felt rather pleased with ourselves as within 5 minutes of our joining a 6m queue at 8:40, the queue suddenly increased to the length we had observed the previous morning. We still stood for 20 minutes waiting for the doors to open but, somehow, it felt better that we had determined the length of the wait rather than a standing in a slow moving queue, which, for all we knew, may not have taken any longer.

The house is definitely worth a visit. Although larger than we expected, it is remarkable to think of two families surviving so long in such a compact area and having to be totally silent while the workday world went on around them.

At the end of the tour, there is a very thought provoking interactive series of scenarios presented discussing various ‘freedoms’ and 'rights': freedom of the press; freedom of speech; freedom to demonstrate; freedom to burn flags; freedom to oppose homosexuality, right to privacy, etc After each scenario is presented using ‘news’ footage from around the world, a question is posed and the audience is invited to vote Yes or No. The results are immediately displayed – Current Visitors and All Visitors; mostly the two graphs were very similar. What was disturbing was the ‘slant’, on some of the Yes/No options: for some of the scenarios the questions asked were not quite what the situation was discussing and one felt ‘trapped’ into voting a particular way by the way the question was framed.

Back in the real world we exercised our freedom to hop-on the canal boat and complete the hop-on-hop-off boat tour as our tickets gave us the right to ride until noon the day after purchase.