I’m always slightly, surprised that Scottish people don’t seem to know about the Netherlands, unless it’s just for a stag or hen do ~ the ‘join ultimate party’ website shouts: “WHY AMSTERDAM IS THE BEST DESTINATION FOR STAG PARTIES IN THE WORLD!”.
It’s a pity. There’s more to the Netherlands than that. The Netherlands are so easy to get to from Scotland, with cheap flights and a car transport via the ferry from Newcastle. Transport links to all over Europe are good as well. It therefore made a really good destination for us to do a trial run for a long Euro-rail trip, travelling sans car with a rucksack and a small pull along suitcase. Holland is full of things to do, far beyond the capital, museums, art, real good food, and with a load of buildings on my bucket list as well - this was a good chance to tick a whole load off.
A few top tips:
- Dutch beer is stronger than you think (UK I think, is normally 5%-ish, in the ‘Low Countries’ 11% is not uncommon). And it’s also more expensive.
- The transport system is really effective; frequent, reliable, clean, goes where you want it to go to.
- You can pay for most things with a Starling Card (other cards are available etc, but it’s what we had). That includes all the buses, trains etc; just tap when you get on, tap when you get off.
- An awful lot of Dutch people seem to only work a short week, and finish on Thursday afternoon. Thursday night is therefore party night, and it’s apparently impossible to get any business done on a Friday (or a weekend).
- Every museum we went into wasn’t cheap, but it was always good value for what you got. You won’t get cheated.
- Seriously, check who might be playing a concert in Amsterdam if you are thinking of booking a hotel in the centre. We couldn’t get anywhere, it turned out that AC/DC were playing at the Ajax Arena that night.
So, here we go with a few drawings from our June trip.
Zaanse Schans
Well, we had to start with a windmill. This a not really a Museum, more a collection of windmills and other historic buildings that have been collected into one place. Many are still lived in, many of the windmills still have working functions - spice mills, a paint mill, and my personal favourite, a sawmill entirely reconstructed from plans a few years ago, by a group of middle aged men whose views on health and safety are quite relaxed.
Rietveld Schroderhuis, Utrecht
Built in 1924 by architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld for client Truus Schroder. A famous little house, a UNESCO heritage site, a groundbreaker. On my bucket list. I had seen the house in photos, but nothing prepares you for how small it is in real life, and how strikingly different it is from anything around it, or being built at the time. The sliding doors upstairs which turn into a living room and two bedrooms into a big social space in about two minutes is amazing. The planning authority just didn’t get the concept, so the whole of the upstairs was listed as an attic.
On the downside, it required a great discipline to live in, wasn’t great for the children, and I could never have lived in it.
Hilversum Town Hall
Another one ticked off my bucket list and another UNESCO World Heritage Listing. Completed in 1931 by architect Willem Marinus Dudok. Not just a remarkable set of spaces beautifully organised and crafted, but also very influential. The shapes will be vaguely familiar to those like me who were brought up in North London and will know of Charles Holden and his Piccadilly Line London Underground Stations.
Thanks to Sem, the young architect who showed us around and got me to the top of the tower.
Maastricht Railway Station
The two great 20th century architects of the Netherlands were Dudok (of Hilversum fame) and just a little earlier Hendrik Petrus Berlage.
Although by architect GW van Heukelom, this vast brick edifice was built in 1916 exactly in the manner of Berlage. It seems to go on for ever and has recently been restored, with the grand spaces opened up again and details such as the stained glass and the fountain returned to their former glory. Apparently there were once five waiting rooms.
I wanted to draw a Berlage building and this seemed to fit the bill. We also went to the Kunstmuseum in Den Haag, which is proper Berlage, and I shall endeavour to get around to drawing that.
Church Spires
I had seen this a couple of times in the Netherlands - simply huge church spires and steeples. Much taller than anything you would get outside a major cathedral in Britain, and generally made of an awful lot of bricks.
So I have put two together. The first - the red church - is that of St Jan’s Church in Maastricht. The original tower collapsed in 1366, this is its replacement from the fifteenth century.
No idea why it is painted that extraordinary colour, it has been both bright yellow and white in previous times, the red dates from 1774 and it was last repainted in 1983. Perhaps it is to draw the attention away from the rather more famous (and slightly less bright) Catholic Basilica of Saint Servatius next door.
The second stands on its own at the edge of the town square; it is Tower of Our Lady in Amersfoort, just about 100m tall, the third highest in the Netherlands. it dates from around 1470. The rest of the church has long gone, destroyed by a gunpowder explosion in the 8th century.
That’s it for the Netherlands for the moment, but no doubt we shall be back there before too long.