AMSTERDAM

Wednesday September 10th
We’re back from Amsterdam after a very pleasant four day trip. The visit was all because our son-in-law Anthony has a job there and Fritha, our daughter was going over for the weekend and we decided to go too.
Instead of flying we took the Eurostar train under the Channel and as far as Brussels. From there we picked up a train to Amsterdam. It was a very smooth and comfortable trip albeit about 5hrs long. The actual bit under the channel is only about fifteen minutes and for the most part we just relaxed and watch the flat countryside fly past at a hundred miles an hour until we arrived in Amsterdam. Our hotel, we discovered was only five minutes’ walk across a square from the station. The front of the hotel is very modern and smart, but our room, which they called the “junior suite”, turned out to be part of a much older building. From the outside it looked like an old wooden house, quite narrow and several storeys high. Inside was a real surprise. It was one large sitting room and bathroom attached, with a ceiling supported by huge old wooden beams. But there appeared to be no bed. That was until we opened a wooden door to discover a very narrow winding staircase up to another level. Up thereunder more ancient old beams and a vaulted ceiling, was a huge king sized bed. Check out the photos
Fritha was already in town but she was already committed to an evening with colleagues of Anthony’s so Barbara and I set off to explore, and find somewhere for dinner. Everybody in Holland speaks good English so asking directions and things was no problem. We wandered in and around little lanes and found ourselves in the famous “red light district”. We first became aware of this fact when we passed a shop window with a young woman in black lingerie looking out at the passers by.
This was followed by numerous shops selling porn and erotica of all sorts. But there were also lots of restaurants and bars, all with lights blazing and customers spilling out onto the sidewalks. We chose a Chinese restaurant specialising in Sichuan cooking and enjoyed a banquet for two washed down with Heineken beer and white wine. After that we did some more exploring and eventually sank into bed at around eleven.
Rather than pay exorbitant hotel meal prices, we found a little cafe deli a few doors from our hotel and enjoyed a delicious Dutch breakfast of pancakes and bacon with maple syrup, scrambled eggs and warm croissants and marmalade plus huge cups of good hot coffee.
Fritha had called to say she couldn’t meet us and was spending the day recovering from the previous evening, so undaunted we set out again to explore. Amsterdam is not a difficult place in which to get around. We could have taken the tram or a boat on the canals, but we chose to walk. And walk and walk and walk!
We strolled along the many tree lined canals, peering into shop windows selling flowers and postcards and toys and clothing and vibrators and fruit and souvenirs and marijuana and everything else. Eventually we found ourselves outside the house where Anne Frank had spent two years hiding from the Nazis during WW2. You have to queue to get into this house but it was well worth the wait. Having read The Diary of Anne Frank years ago we knew what to expect, but when you climb that narrow staircase and enter the rooms hidden behind the bookcase, you appreciate what it must have been like for a teenage girl virtually imprisoned with seven other people, unable to go outside and unable even to peak out from behind the blinds in case of being discovered. The experience was really very moving, especially when you can look at hand written pages of that diary, and the pictures of film stars pinned to the wall, typical of any teenager’s room.
As we continued on our walk we passed all sorts of beautiful buildings, many of them very narrow.
Most of these were built in the 17th century by rich merchants, politicians, doctors, lawyers and artists, and because of a lack of space along the rings of canals around the city, they are mostly about six metres wide, with very narrow staircases inside. Each house has a unique gable top usually with a protruding pulley hook so that goods could be hauled up from the street below.
The whole network of canals is lined with trees and there are hundreds and hundreds of brightly coloured houseboats moored alongside. And of course across these canals there are hundreds of little arched bridges. People do drive cars along these narrow ways but by far the best way of getting about in this city is by bicycle. There are millions of them or so it seemed to us. They are in every street and in every lane. There are racks of them parked on every corner, chained to canal railings, and in some cases even chained hanging over the sides of bridges. In a region so devoid of hills, bikes are the way to go.
Strolling on again we passed rows of elegant houses, some of them leaning at slight angles. Many are built on wooden pylons sunk deep into the soft soil. No wonder they call Amsterdam the Venice of the North.
We crossed the Dam, a wide square in front of the royal palace, where people gather on the steps beneath the tall column of the national monument. Actually crossing anything here is challenging. If the bicycles don’t get you, then you’ll be startled by the clanging of the tram bells as they whiz by.
As the afternoon wore on, we reached one of the city’s main museums, the Rijksmuseum (pron: Rix-museum). This is a virtual treasure house of paintings by the great seventeenth century Dutch Masters. We spent the next hour or so gazing in awe at the works of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Franz Hals and many others. After that we had to sit down in a cafe where they served coffee and pofferjes, a sort of fat drop scone which is dusted with icing sugar and dipped in melted butter. Yummm!
It was dinnertime by the time we dragged our weary feet back to our hotel, so we staggered into a nearby bar and ordered chicken and salad and more Heiniken. As it happened the TV was on, without sound and as we ate, the barman flicked through the channels. So for about two seconds we caught a glimpse of some very explicit sex movie which nearly caused us to choke on the chicken. A moment later we were treated to a soccer match between Holland and Australia and normal dinner service was resumed. Our Saturday was complete when Australia won 2-1 although as the barman pointed out, it was only a “friendly “game
The next morning, Sunday was dull and overcast with the threat of rain, but undaunted we set off again, this time to Amsterdam’s famous flower market. We found it, although with Spring and Summer now over, the accent was on bulbs rather than flowers. And there was no shortage of those. The various stalls were selling every conceivable tulip bulb in every colour. As well there were sunflowers and hydrangeas and many many others. And along the way we went into “The Christmas Palace”, a shop which specialises in Christmas decorations of all sorts. Including some very rude Santa Clauses! Barbara was highly amused by the way things were laid out, with a Christmas cribs bearing the message “Jesus loves you!”alongside a Santa with an outsize appendage.
Braving the rain, we walked on, stopping for coffee and to get out of the continuing rain. Then on to the Van Gogh Museum!
This huge collection of Van Gogh’s paintings, follows the artists’ career from his early sketches and paintings, through all his periods, when he lived in Paris and his time in the French and Dutch countryside. We spent a long time moving from one picture to the next, many of which we recognised from exhibitions in Melbourne, but to see these works in context and in sequence was unforgettable.
We walked along the canals again past more of those beautiful houses and eventually back towards our hotel. Next door is St Nicolaaskerk, the Church of St Nicholas, a 19th century neo-Baroque building with two Baroque spires rising from its towers, and in the centre, a large dome.
This place is not normally open to tourists, but as there was a Mass in progress we went in anyway. We were well rewarded. The Mass was coming to an end, but there was a magnificent choir singing the last part of the service, and we just stood and listened wrapt.
Then we walked again until we’d had enough and rested back at the hotel until Fritha and Anthony joined us for dinner. We felt it was time to try the local cuisine, so we walked along the main thoroughfare until we found a likely restaurant and asked for a table for four.
We started with green pea soup, and that was where we should have stopped. This soup was thick and rich and full of chopped up sausage. It was a meal in itself.
But by then we’d ordered main courses and there was more meat and sausage and bacon with mashed potato and even dumplings. We retired gracefully after that and called it a night.
Monday was check out day, and Barbara and I packed for home. We breakfasted again at the local deli. (More bacon and pancakes), and left our bags at the hotel while we went on one last safari. This time we were looking for a special church, you might call it a secret church.
This is a place hidden away in the middle of the red light district but you wouldn’t know it was there without directions. It is also the oldest museum in Amsterdam, called the church of Our Lord in the Attic. It was built in the 17th century at a time when Catholics were not allowed to practice their religion in public.
The owner of the house decided to convert the top floors of the house into a church complete with altar, a chapel, a confessional and even an organ, so that masses could be held there in private. Apparently the city authorities knew it was there but turned a blind eye as long as it wasn’t public.
Today from the outside it just looks like a house, but inside you climb the steep staircase and emerge into a full sized church with seats and statues and an altar, with a cunningly designed rotating pulpit that could be pulled out when it was time for a sermon. These days the place is purely a museum but they do have weddings there sometimes.
By now Barbara and I only had a few hours left before we had to catch the train so we decided to relax a bit and take a cruise along the canals. We bought tickets on a hop on hop off cruise boat and spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting back and looking at the passing houses from a different perspective. We got off for coffee and then caught another boat back to the city centre. From there it was a short walk across the square to the station and our ride home. As usual we could have spent a lot more time in Amsterdam. It is a beautiful city, vibrant and very friendly.
Another memorable experience in a long series of memorable experiences which are now sadly drawing to a close! But then the upside is that soon we’ll be reunited with family and friends and home.
Postscript: We had a fun time getting back to Fritha’s Canary Wharf flat in Limehouse. We took a taxi from St Pancras station and the driver couldn’t find his way into the right street. He said it was blocked off and he couldn’t find an alternative route. So he dropped us off and said our street was somewhere ahead. So there we were, at eleven at night in a strange neighbourhood in the east end of London. Jack the Ripper may have been just around the corner. Fortunately we met a man who seemed to know where we were and pointed us in the right direction. So much for the infallible London cabbie!