Pictures & Writing: Lyle Such
Camera: Canon 5D Mk IV & Mavic Pro
I had never really given much thought to visiting The Netherlands or Belgium. What little I knew about the main attractions and major cities wasn’t enough to dedicate an entire two weeks of vacation to visit. However, after Thu decided to join the San Francisco Buus on their trip to Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg), I couldn’t say no to the offer to tag along. After a few weeks of research, I realized this trip was going to be much more entertaining than I had originally anticipated.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Our first stop was Amsterdam. While it’s known for pot, hookers and all the joys of the Red Light District, we took a much less risky approach to the city. Our hotel was located in a mostly family/museum oriented part of town, and it was a nice place to walk around and feel like we weren’t in the middle of a bad foreign Seth Rogan movie. We found a lot of humor in the tiny vehicles scattered throughout Amsterdam. At one point I remember they had an issue with roving bands of hooligans tipping these tiny cars into the canals. We didn’t find any humor in all the trash.
Van Gogh Museum
We each had one thing we were set on seeing while visiting Amsterdam. Mine was the Van Gogh Museum. Rarely do we ever get to see such a comprehensive archive of a great artist’s career all in one place, and the Van Gogh Museum did not disappoint. We spent a couple hours wandering through every room and trying to take in as much of the artwork and information as we could. For me it was like visiting an old art history textbook that I had studied many years ago. For Thu it was a completely new look at an iconic artist that she knew of but only by a few of his paintings and the story of his ear.
Kinderdijk, Netherlands
At the top of our list of things to see in The Netherlands was the blossoming tulips. Since we arrived a few weeks too late, we had to settle for second on the list...the windmills at Kinderdijk. These 18th century preserved working windmills are located about an hour away from Amsterdam, so we got our first taste of what road-tripping in Europe would be like. After a nice, casual drive with a quick stop to pick up our dinner, we arrived to an almost completely deserted Kinderdijk. As the colors in the sky began to change, the bugs began to swarm, and Thu finished running the mile back to the car to get the tripod she left there, we picked the perfect spot for a timelapse and dinner. We sat beneath one of the most iconic windmills in all of The Netherlands, and barely saw a single person. We couldn’t believe that we had such a heavily visited tourist attraction all to ourselves. The sunset was gorgeous.
We decided that we had to take a canal tour while in Amsterdam. After a little searching, Thu found an individual who owned an antique wooden boat, which added to the charm of the tour. Overall it was nice, we even had a back side view of the local zoo. After the tour we wandered the city and realized how hard it is to find adequate air conditioning in Amsterdam. The temperature was around 90 and humid.
Royal Palace Amsterdam
Anne Frank House, Amsterdam
Depressing history seemed to be the theme of Amsterdam during our visit. First we learned about one of the saddest, most tortured artists of all time, and then we went to see the Anne Frank House. In the middle of all that colorful tourism and Amsterdam craziness, this house turned museum was a soboring example of Europe’s sad and violent history. To stand inside the infamous house where this little girl lived out the end of her existence was a unique and touching experience. We could almost see the pages of her diary playing out before us as we took the audio tour.
Kinderdijk, again
We enjoyed the quiet evening in Kinderdijk so much that we decided to stop by for sunrise on our way to Belgium two days later. The hotel receptionist tried to dissuade us, wondering why anyone would check out of a perfectly fine hotel at 4 in the morning. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for our plans, we headed out and arrived to another peaceful and uncrowded view of the windmills. Unfortunately the sun only appeared for a moment, but the fog and low clouds added a mysterious and gloomy atmosphere which transformed these gentle giants into ominous machines which disappeared into a deep gray void off in the distance.
The population of birds dominates the canals of Kinderdijk, and they just couldn’t keep quiet. Ducks quacking, swans honking, other kinds of birds making other kinds of birds sounds. It was comical. We were surprised to see a lady taking her morning swim right in the canals. What a way to start your day!
