For a special holiday this year we went to The Netherlands and Belgium. I pre-booked tickets to the Rijksmuseum, which was somewhere I really wanted to go to, thanks to the publicity they put on Facebook.
It was actually the first place we visited, being dropped in Amsterdam and told to entertain ourselves for a few hours. The tickets cost €17.50 each-I think it's the same if you queue for them or buy online. Amsterdam is a vibrant, lively place and the Rijksmuseum is the same. I'd have liked to see the High Society exhibition but it had finished. https://frieze.com/article/high-society-rijksmuseum-gambling-carousing-and-clothes
The Night Watch is the centrepiece of the Rijksmuseum, and it's a much more gratifying centrepiece than, say, the Monalisa, which is so small you can hardly see it!https://kottke.org/18/10/why-the-night-watch-is-rembrandts-masterpiece
The next day we were supposed to have a boat trip, and due to a misunderstanding we missed the boat and had to take a taxi to the diamond factory which was the next stop. On the way we saw a monument that we just had to come back to the next day. Maps of Amsterdam show the Rembrandt statue in the square of that name. A few year ago they amplified the monument. It's brilliant!
Amsterdam has an important historic Jewish quarter. When the Sephardic Jews were thrown out of Spain and Portugal, many came to Amsterdam. The Ashkenazis came from eastern Europe. They built synagogues and made an enormous contribution to the wealth of the city. Many were deported and killed by the Nazis.
An interesting and thought-provoking visit.
Volendam
A small fishing village engulfed by tourism. We were taken to a "cheese factory" which was really a farm shop. There were loads of cheese shops, selling the many variations of the waxed balls of cheese.
If you look at the horizon you can see the low-lying land
Choir in traditional costume
A good threat!
Also in the Netherlands we went to the exquisite Delft-well, it would have been exquisite except for the fairground in the main square.
Another city of canals
bridge that lifts to let boats through.
The Hague
Administrative capital, dripping with money
Parliament courtyard
Rotterdam, where they took us to a giant covered market.
Where we found this!
The next stop was Antwerp. A big, rather decadent town; the hotel we stayed at wasn't wonderful, but the old city centre is spectacular! It has that lush gaudiness of what they call civil Gothic, which emphasises just how rich and powerful the Low Countries were.
Antwerp cathedral is spectacular both inside and out. It has a very high tower. Here is what Wikipedia says about it: The belfry of the cathedral is included in the Belfries of Belgium and France entry in the list of UNESCO World Heritage SitesThe Cathedral of Our Lady (Dutch: Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Today's see of the Diocese of Antwerp started in 1352 and, although the first stage of construction was ended in 1521, has never been 'completed'. In Gothicstyle, its architects were Jan and Pieter Appelmans. It contains a number of significant works by the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, as well as paintings by artists such as Otto van Veen, Jacob de Backer and Marten de Vos.
The tower, they say, is 123 metres high, which makes it higher than St Paul in London's dome.
The pulpit was the first of the super-ornate carved ones we saw in Belgium.
There was a nice monument outside to the workmen. Unfortunately there was a safety fence round it.
You could tell we had arrived in Belgium by the Tintin posters!
Bruges, where we stayed in this street and had a lovely evening on terraces drinking nice Belgian beer
From Bruges we went to Gent. The centre is monumental in the civil, Belgian way.
The cathedral, which we didn't have to pay to go into, had the skeleton of a whale hanging up in it. Slightly wierd.
And on to Brussels, stopping briefly at the Expo site on the way in to do a photo with the Atomium.
The typical shot is, of course, to stand as if you were juggling the balls! The Atomium looks much better 60 years after the 1958 Expo than it did when I saw it on a junior school trip in the 1960s. I have a memory of terrifying escalators-I've never been very good at them.
This is what Wikipedia says:
The Atomium ( /əˈtoʊmiːəm/ ə-TOH-mee-əm) is a landmark building in Brussels, originally constructed for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58). It is located on the Heysel Plateau, where the exhibition took place. It is now a museum.
Designed by the engineer André Waterkeyn and architects André and Jean Polak, it stands 102 m tall. Its nine 18 m diameter stainless steel clad spheres are connected, so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Tubes of 3 m diameter connect the spheres along the 12 edges of the cube and all eight vertices to the centre. They enclose stairs, escalators and a lift (in the central, vertical tube) to allow access to the five habitable spheres, which contain exhibit halls and other public spaces. The top sphere includes a restaurant which has a panoramic view of Brussels.
In 2013, CNN named it Europe's most bizarre building.
Brussels
Here are a few shots of the magnificent main square
Really crowded with tourists!
We did go and find the Mannekin Pis but he was wearing a tracksuit and was rather underwhelming.
Louvain
Our last day we were taken on a morning trip to the university city of Louvain. Here the group is looking at a college complex.
From here we were taken to the city centre. The guid gathered everyone against a wall and then took us round a corner where this appeared:
It's the town hall
Our last afternoon was free so we followed the GPS on my phone to go to the Horta Museum. This is a kind of Modernist shrine. Since you can't take photos there and it was too rainy to take one of the outside, I've put this link: http://www.hortamuseum.be/en/Welcome
It costs €10 per adult to enter, there was a queue out in the rain, and we had to put all our stuff in a locker; actually, I like being able to walk around without being loaded with bags and coats, and nobody taking photos. It's magnificent! Very impressive.
Then we walked back to the historic centre of Brussels. In the main square they were doing a reenactment, or celebration, we weren't sure if it was the Napoleonic battle (Waterloo is a suburb of Brussels, I believe) Anyway, they told people to disconnect their earpieces and there was some shooting
Latvia visit in the rain
Bravely playing and singing in the rain!
I can't remember who he is but he looked suitably cold!
Spain square is also called Marsupilami square! If you look closely you can see him on the plaque.
Well, really the rest of the story is rain; we were very lucky with the weather for most of the week, and travelling. The coach picked us up to take us to the airport at 9.30-ish, we checked in, and flew back rather bumpily through the rain clouds to Madrid, where were kept waiting a whole hour for our luggage; they got a bad rating for that!
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