The Long Trip Home

Today was six hours longer than other days.  We gained six hours on the trip home, arriving home at just before 6pm.

We left the hotel at 7am for the long trip home.   The hotel stay came with a great breakfast,  but breakfast opened at 7am so we weren’t able to partake.  Instead, we asked the hotel to make us some boxed breakfasts, which they said they would do.  We gathered all the luggage in the lobby at 6:30, sat at a table in the lobby and ate our boxed breakfasts.

They were really more like boxed lunches.  Two sandwiches, one with a couple of meats, cheeses, and tomato, and the other with cheese and pickles and mustard (!).  Add a bag of potato chips and a candy bar and you have a well rounded, nutritious breakfast.

It was the only thing available so we ate. Pickles and mustard.  Yum.  Not.

Finishing up, we were just picking up the bags when I noticed the city bus coming around the corner.  We sprinted out the door and down the street to the bus stop about 100 yards down the street, as much as you can sprint when fully loaded with luggage.  We just made the bus.

Took the bus to Centraal Station, lugged the baggage to the proper train platform and then hopped on the train towards the Schiphol Airport.  At this time of day it wasn’t real busy for which we were grateful.

Check-in and security were a breeze, which was surprising considering this airport is the busiest in Europe.  It is certainly big, with three cavernous departure halls.  It took a bit to figure out where to check in.

We got to the gate a couple hours before the flight left.  If we had known this, we could have stayed at the hotel somewhat longer and had their awesome breakfast.  Oh well.

It was about 9 hours to Chicago.  The 787 aircraft is one of the newest planes in the fleet and is the one that has the dimmable windows that I worked on 15 years ago.  It may be one of the newer planes, but the seats are some of the worst I have experienced.  There is no knee room and the seats feel like concrete after a while.  We were so glad when that flight was over.

Coming into Chicago, we could see the smoke from the wildfires in Canada.  It gave Chicago a brownish foggy haze, and visibility was rather limited.

Unlike Schiphol, Chicago was a madhouse.  Our plane came into the absolute farthest gate in the international terminal, so we had to walk what seemed like several miles to Passport Control.  Waited here for a while, waited in a line to re-check the baggage, and then we had to go to the departure gate in another terminal, which meant we had to leave the secure area.

Going through security again took most of the remaining layover time.  The lines were huge and some of the TSA agents were really grumpy.  We got to our departure gate as they were boarding the plane.

Shortly after we arrived home, Zhen showed up with a couple of pizzas.  Mom G was there also, and Abigail and Nate came.  So there were six of us for pizza.  It was good to have a real pizza again.  Dutch pizza is deplorable.

So we arrived home to a pizza party put on by our kids.  We were nearly falling asleep while eating but it was good to reconnect with family again, even if it meant keeping the eyelids pried open for a little bit longer.

Back in Amsterdam

This was our longest day yet, with around 50km to cover.  Today was also a carbon copy of yesterday, with temperatures topping out in the low 70’s and a pretty stiff wind.  I’ve read other comments and I am in agreement with them, that an electric bike was not just a luxury, it was essential for arriving at the destination with enough energy left to do the tourist thing.  These last two days have certainly driven that home.

The route took us nearly straight north, through quite a bit of rural areas, and then smack through the center of Amsterdam, ending up at the central bus/train station.

We happened on a bakery in the little town of Ouderkerk ann de Amstel.  We never pass up a good bakery and this one looked like a good one.  Looking at the case, we could see all kinds of delectables, and we settled on a piece of chocolate cake with marmalade strands running through it.  The cake did not disappoint.  We find that these small-town bakeries serve amazing food and the workers are usually pleasant and are willing to banter with you.  They appeared to do a good business also as there was a steady stream of people coming in and out and even a delivery van with their name on the side stopping in and picking up some items. This was one of our favorite bakeries. 

Another benefit of stopping at the bakery was the use of the restroom.  Public restrooms are scarce along these routes, so you take any and all opportunities, including stopping at a bakery for some sweets or a cup of coffee.

Directly across the street from the bakery is Beth Haim (or House of Life), a Jewish cemetery.   In the 16th century, Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain  that settled in Amsterdam were not allowed to bury their dead in the city, so they bought land in Ouderkerk and turned it into a cemetery, which now houses some 27,500 graves, some of them with very ornate gravestones.  Over the years many of the gravestones have sunk into the soft ground and are no longer visible, and there is an ongoing effort to identify and restore these.  In dry times (such as right now), you can see the outlines of many of the graves in the grass.  We walked around this for a while before pressing on.

As we biked into Amsterdam the idyllic countryside disappeared, replaced by narrow crowded streets, traffic, and busy intersections. Just navigating this takes every ounce of energy as the prescribed path follows one bike path and then another and it’s easy to miss the markers telling you which way to go.  Not too many wrong turns later, we arrived at the final point in our guide, a wide terrace overlooking the river in front of Amsterdam Centraal Station.  We had lunch here, sitting on a bench and watching all the traffic go by.  We then bought a 24-hour bus ticket for use later and rode the bikes the remaining 2km to the hotel.

We parked the bikes for the last time, dumped off the luggage in the hotel room, and took the bus downtown.  We really didn’t have a big agenda, other than to visit the Anne Frank House Museum later on this evening.  We went to the Royal Palace downtown, hoping for a tour, but it is closed for renovations until July.  So we strolled around, visiting some of the downtown shops.

We happened on a street performer who was juggling and watched him for a while. He had as many as nine balls in the air at once and also juggled with flaming torches. By the end, he had drawn quite a crowd, and rightly so, because he was quite good.

We had a light dinner near the hotel, at a small middle-eastern restaurant we went to several days ago.  The lamb wrap was good, just like the last time we were there.  Then back downtown to the Anne Frank House Museum as we had booked a tour for 7:15.

Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who, with her family, hid in this house in Amsterdam for two years during the Nazi occupation.  She kept a diary of her experiences and did some other writing while in hiding.  Their hiding place was discovered and the family was sent off to German concentration camps.  Only one survived: her father, Otto, who collected the diary and published it. It is now a well-known book, published in many languages.

This very popular tour winds through the house, including many of the rooms hidden behind the movable bookshelf that concealed the passageway., telling the story of this family and the people who helped them out.  Well-done museum and a chilling reminder of the depravity of man, that one nation would try to exterminate another.

Journey to Woerden

Today’s forecast called for much cooler temperatures.  Good thing, because yesterday was quite hot.  Long sleeves would be welcome.  I packed so light I ran out of short sleeve t-shirts and had to wash them all in the sink.  I wasn’t sure if they would be dry by this morning.  Turns out they were, but it was cool enough for long sleeves anyway.

Since we didn’t get much of a chance to do any shopping yesterday because of Sunday’s closures, we stuck around for a while this morning to take in a cheese shop that was recommended to us.

We got there just as it was opening.  I’m not much of a cheese person, so this didn’t bother me all that much, but Deb was disappointed that there weren’t many samples out to be tasted. But she was soon rewarded as one of the employees came out with lots of samples and began distributing them about the store.

She soon had a basket with several kinds of cheese.  Hoping to round out the samples, she put a small block of cheddar in the basket.  When we went to pay, the owner picked up the cheddar and told her, “You don’t want this. You can get it anywhere in the world. You gotta get something that you can only get here.”

When Deb told him why she wanted it, he told her, “Don’t do it. Cheddar is for pussies.”  He motioned to some other cheese in the case next to the cheddar. “You gotta get something with some ​balls​,” he said, “like that.”

Deb dutifully returned the cheddar and picked up what he indicated.  After we paid the bill, he jokingly remarked, “Now I can close the store for the day.”

And now I have a new problem.  Getting all this cheese home on an airplane. This adds quite a bit of weight and volume to our luggage so that will be a challenge.  It’s quite a colorful assortment.  Black garlic gouda.  Tomato.  Walnut.  Pepper.  Vintage Cheddar (that’s the one with balls).  And others.  One of them is even blue and has lavender in it. I kept the receipt to know what all we bought. 

Gouda is also known for its stroopwafels.  In the US, we have vending machines for pop and candy bars, here there was an entire storefront that was a vending machine for stroopwafels.  Make your selection at the little kiosk in the middle of the room and, once you have paid for it, one of the doors on the walls of the room pops open and you can grab your purchase.  I’ve never seen a vending machine quite like this one.

Having successfully done some shopping, we took off towards Woerden, a trip of approximately 40km.  Today the trip was not so much about the destination as it was the journey.  Most of this path goes through the Green Heart of the Netherlands, rural land surrounded by such large cities as The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and others.  It was a delightful ride, made more pleasant by the cooler weather, which even felt a bit chilly at times due to the wind.

When we passed through the little town of Haastrecht, we stopped at a bakery and sampled some chocolate and sweets, eating them at a table outside along the street. We weren’t in any sort of hurry so we could stop when we wanted, and for as long as we wanted.

We passed a few of the iconic windmills along the way, and stopped by one that was actually running.  This one’s purpose was to pump water from the lower level canal next to it to the higher level canal on the other side.  It was cool to see it in operation, sails unfurled and spinning and hear the rush of the wind in the sails.  At one time, the landscape was dotted with hundreds of these, however the advent of steam powered pumps and then electrically powered pumps resulted in many of these windmills being destroyed or falling into disrepair.  This one was restored and fully operational and, although it was pumping water, it is no longer essential to prevent the land from flooding. It is now something to be preserved.

Our journey took us along the top of several dykes, through quite a bit of farmland, and usually along canals along one or both sides.  One thing about this area is you are never far from water.  It is literally everywhere.

Woerden is much smaller than the other cities we’ve visited so far, but it does  have the typical city square with a big church on one end.  This square was quieter than usual and we soon found out that a lot of businesses here are closed on Mondays.  So the museum was closed, one of the cheese shops we tried to visit was closed, and other things we inquired about didn’t open until 11am on Tuesday.  So we visited places that were open.

Casteel Woerden is a castle built for military purposes and really doesn’t look like the stereotypical castle, except for the moat.  It has since been converted to a restaurant. We were told at the visitor information center that we should walk through the dungeon.  “It was a really bad dungeon,” said the woman we talked to.

When we finally figured out how to get into the dungeon, we found a long room underneath the castle with a series of long tables with white tablecloths, place settings, and wine glasses.  This dungeon is now set up for banquets.

We sat down to eat in the city square at a restaurant recommended by the same woman.  She may have mis-called the dungeon, but this restaurant, Van Rossum, a farm-to-table restaurant right on the square, was a winner.  We had their free-range Dutch chicken and fries, and the fries were served with mayonnaise as is very popular around here.  The chicken was amazing.  Fries with mayonnaise taste like ... well ... fries with mayonnaise, but this was a truffle mayonnaise which was delicious.  We also asked for ketchup but that went largely untouched.  

Tomorrow we take the last leg of our journey back into Amsterdam.  This will be the longest segment yet, at around 50 km.  Not looking forward to navigating Amsterdam. It’s my least favorite city of all that we have visited so far.  And the route seems to cut right through the middle of it.

Sunday in Gouda

Since it was Sunday, the breakfast buffet didn’t open until 8am.  So the day was well in progress when we were able to eat. This breakfast area had an outside terrace to enjoy the already-warm day.  It’s supposed to be a hot one, and we could feel the heat building at that time of the morning.

Another breakfast at the awesome end of the range.  With the variety of foods, it’s easy to overeat.  As my dad used to say, “It’s too bad a guy fills up so fast.”

Terry’s bike quit working yesterday so they hung back at the hotel, waiting for another one to be delivered, and Deb and I took off towards Gouda.  This segment took us past some farmland and several large greenhouse operations.  Seeds and flowers are big here and these massive greenhouses would attest to that.  Acres and acres of glass for as far as the eye can see.

One segment of the trail went down part of  Dorpsstrat, in the town of Zoetermeer, probably normally a very busy place since it is a very quaint, very traditional Dutch looking street.  However, today it was almost completely deserted because it was Sunday, and the only traffic on the street were those walking and biking to a nearby Catholic church, whose bell tolled loudly and continually for nearly 15 minutes.

We stopped in Waddinxveen for lunch, finding a shady grassy area next to a road.  At least three times as we sat there, a passer-by on a bicycle called out smak lekker! (eat well, or taste good). I knew what this expression meant, I just didn’t realize it was something you called out to complete strangers eating their lunch along the road.

Dank u wel,  I think.

We stopped first at the hotel when we arrived in Gouda.  Another 35 km covered.  It felt good to get off the bikes.  After checking in and dumping our stuff, we walked to the city square, just a few blocks away.  Most of the shops were closed for Sunday, but there was a beach volleyball tournament going on.  It looks like they had trucked in enough sand to cover the entire city square to a depth of about a foot, and there were several games going on at once.  We watched one game for a while and decided we wouldn’t do too well.  These guys did some amazing acrobatics to keep the ball in the air.

We picked up a few items at the grocery store next to the city square and Terry and Jill caught up with us there.  One of the places we toured is the oldest building I had ever been in, the Town Hall in the center of the city square.  The present building was built in 1450 and is the oldest gothic city hall in the Netherlands.  They used to slaughter and sell animals in the basement and the deck on one side used to be the place where criminals met their end while the townsfolk looked on.  Now the basement is done up as an event space and hundreds of weddings are done here every year, but the mayor still comes here daily and city business is still conducted in this building.

The guy at the desk said he has survived five mayors so far, and knew a lot about the building and the area.  We asked him about some of the area churches.  The big one near here, the Church of St. John, is open only for services on Sundays, so the only way to see the building today is to attend a service.  There was an evening service at 5pm and it was now 4pm so we could do this if we wanted, not just to see a medieval church building, but to attend a church service on a Sunday, something we haven’t been able to do for a couple of weeks.

We strolled over to the building.  I couldn’t really get a good picture because this colossal structure is closely surrounded by other buildings on all sides in the typical old-town narrow-street style.  Walking around to what we thought was the front of the building, there appeared to be little activity.  We decided to go get something to eat and walked around the remainder of the building to do so.

Along the side, in a street we had not been to yet, one of the doors was open and a couple guys were standing there, welcoming people to the service. They told us that we could have a brief look inside before the service started.  We were 20 minutes early so there were very few people inside so we took a couple pictures and then asked about attending the service.  One woman we talked to was very welcoming and said she would even sit with us and translate since the service was entirely in Dutch.  So she sat us down in an area where she could translate without disturbing other people.

This was probably one of the highlights of this trip. Attending a church service in a 16th-century cathedral, hearing the pipe organ playing, and worshiping with other believers even though we didn’t understand the language.

The organist was very good and played with lots of expression.  It has been a very long time since I have heard a pipe organ played like that.  And to hear it in a large cathedral like this--so cool.

It turns out that our translator, Francine, one of the members here, works for an international student ministry organization as an international coordinator.  We talked with her for a bit after the service and found out that she left her husband and kids in another part of the church to come sit with us. Such kindness shown to strangers.

Although it was difficult to hear everything she was saying while the service was going on, we caught enough to get the gist of the message and the order of worship.  It was a real treat.

We walked across the square to Casa Chow, a restaurant that was recommended by a couple people that we talked to.  We had a Nachos dish and crispy chicken with some sort of sweet-spicy dipping sauce.  Sort of a combination of Asian/Mexican fare.  And it was very good.

So we’re in Gouda and maybe we’ll make it to a cheese shop tomorrow before we head out.  Everything is pretty much closed today.  We were bound to have one day like this on a 7-day tour.  At least we were able to attend a service at St. John’s church.  That was an unexpected highlight.

A Day In Delft

We had breakfast as usual in the hotel restaurant.  Breakfast is included in the package and each hotel has had a breakfast spread that runs the gamut from really good to amazing.  Today’s was on the amazing end.  All the normal hot stuff, fruits, deli-style meats, cheese (of course), and bread.  Lots of different kinds of bread.  This hotel even had the crenten bollen that we enjoyed from the grocery store yesterday. I may have to purchase an extra seat on the plane coming home if this keeps up.

We took off on the bikes, expecting to be riding city streets for the entire distance.  The cities tend to run together here, particularly around The Hague, where part of the journey took us.  We were presently surprised to find ourselves in a considerable amount of green space, and at one point the trail was flanked by old-growth beech trees.  It was a lovely ride, made all the more enjoyable by the near-perfect weather.

I found out later that this green space is actually the ​Haagsche Bos (Forest of The Hague).  Smack in the middle of it is the Paleis Huis ten Bosch, one of three royal palaces used by the Dutch monarch (that explains the guards and the closed gate).  Quite a lovely setting and in sharp contrast to the squished nature of the buildings in the cities we’ve been in.  This path led us past several estates and a bunch of well-to-do neighborhoods, but the palace topped them all.

Coming out of this and back into the city proper, we were greeted by lots of temporary fencing and probably the heaviest police presence I have ever seen.  Cameras were being set up, temporary grandstands lined the streets--it looked like the setup for a parade.  And our desired route took us right through the middle of it.

At one point we needed to cross the road so we asked one of the police officers what was going on.  It turns out that today is the Netherlands’ Veteran’s Day and there was indeed going to be a parade.  As a part of that parade, King Willem-Alexander would also be coming through here, which explained the police presence.  The officer told us that this would all be happening at 1:00.  It was now 10:00 and people were streaming into town, making it difficult to navigate our bicycles.  We decided not to stay for the festivities and finally found ourselves outside the parade route after walking our bikes around lots of temporary fences and concrete pylons and lots of people.

When we arrived in Delft, we parked the bikes next to the city square, which was a lot like the city square in  Haarlem.  A large open area with an impossibly large church at one end and surrounded by stately old buildings. After having some lunch sitting on a low wall next to the church, we entered the church and paid the €12.50 a head to take the tour and climb the tower.  This church has the second tallest tower in all of the Netherlands so it was bound to be a treat.

The narrow spiral stairway into the stratosphere handled people going both directions so at times we would have to squeeze past people going in the opposite direction.  No easy task since those on the inside had steps that were all of three inches wide.

Another cool tower climb and well worth the €12.50.  There were three levels that had outside access and we stopped and took some pictures at two of them.  Quite a view from up there.

"Dizzy Deb" going round and round on the spiral stairs.  It was 396 steps to the top

That church far below?  Those spires stick way above the surrounding buildings but we were far above that.

Photo-op on the first level

The view straight down.  I wonder how many cameras have been dropped from up here.

A little bit later, I took a picture of the church from the square to see where we were and could see people on the level above the bells and the clock, where we were earlier.

Inside the church, there is a funeral monument to William of Orange, who, in the 1500’s, was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish and resulted in the independence of the United Provinces, later the Netherlands.  He is interred in a basement room reserved for royalty, lying beside such names as Queen Wilhelmina, the longest reigning Dutch monarch.  

We strolled through the market square, where lots of booths were set up displaying items that were several levels above my pay grade. We’ll have to go the low-rent district to find something that I can afford.

Went to find a Delft factory tour listed in our program for the day, but when we got there it was an empty building with a sign in front of it, advertising some new apartments.  So on to the only other choice, Royal Delft, which is really the only game in town.  In fact, it is the only remaining Delft factory in the Netherlands. We were getting a little late in the day so we were a bit rushed on the tour, and we pretty much closed the place down.  We were able to see one of the workers hand-painting a picture on a piece.  The paint goes on black and only turns blue after it has been fired.  Of particular interest was the full size Delft representation of Rembrandt’s Night Watch, done up on 430 tiles.

Royal Delft pieces are often given by the royal family to other dignitaries and heads of state, so, as you can imagine, it is pretty pricey.  It’s the hand-painted stuff that is really expensive.  Transfer-ware, done using a printing process and mass-produced, is far cheaper.

One room of their facility is a studio with paintings of flowers in Delft vases.  Very striking and colorful.

We were outside of town and getting hungry, so rather than go back into town and search for something to eat, we stopped in the cafeteria of the IKEA store located right next to the hotel.  A little later on, we ventured out to a nearby grocery store for a small box of chocolate ice cream and enjoyed it in the hotel room.

Lounging in Leiden

Longer day today, the route comes out to about 43 km.  There was a choice of two routes, we took the longer one because much of it was along the coast  of the North Sea and it just sounded good to be biking along the water.

We rode straight west out of Haarlem and soon were in the Zuid-Kennemerland National Park, so the narrow streets and squished-in buildings were replaced with open expanses of rolling hills, trees, and sand.  This is one are of the Netherlands that is not quite flat, and electric bikes were a big help when riding up hill and against the wind blowing off the sea.

As we reached the coastal areas, it all began to look strangely familiar.  Beaches and rolling dunes and sand and low vegetation; it was looking a lot like the coastal areas of West Michigan, without all the homes and cottages.  When we reached Zandvoort, we stopped at one of the beach areas.  The North Sea was warmer than expected, and there were a few people wading, although the beach was largely empty.  A few workers were setting up hundreds of wind breaks, probably for the weekend crowds, but we were otherwise alone.  We hung around for a while, enjoying the cool breeze off the North Sea, and then pressed on.

We stopped at the Atlantikwall Museum near Noordwijk and learned that this museum is only open on Fridays and Mondays.  One thing about museums here is the odd days they are open.  So far, many of them have been closed on the day we were in the area, but this one happened to be open today at noon, in about twenty minutes.  We took the opportunity to have some lunch, enjoying some amazing krenten bollen (raisin buns) that we picked up in the grocery store this morning.

The Atlantikwall Museum is a preserved section of a series of bunkers that the Germans built along the coastline of occupied Europe during the war.  The North Sea was lined with hundreds of them of them.  This one was reconstructed and open for visitors in 2015 and showed how the Germans used these underground bunkers mostly for defense.  Unfortunately for the Germans, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, causing the US to join forces with the Allies and the Atlantikwall was breached at Normandy on D-Day, changing the tide of the war.  

This location had a bunch of underground bunkers connected by passageways, however another tour group got there ahead of us so the passageway tour was full.  But we were able to browse the command and control center which was interesting.

The trail turns inland at Katwijk and follows the Rijn River into Leiden. We arrived at the hotel at around 2:30, checked in, left the bikes in their secure bike cage, and walked around the old city for a while.

From the hotel window, Leiden looks like any other modern city but the old town, which was once surrounded by a wall and a moat, is the now-familiar narrow and crooked streets flanked by ornate buildings all squished together.  The moat is still there but the wall is gone.

We browsed an open air market, strolled past a few large churches, saw the places where the original pilgrims settled before coming to the US, and saw the birthplace of Rembrandt van Rijn.  Coming back from this, we had dinner at the hotel with my dad’s cousin, the youngest daughter of Grandma’s youngest sister.  We had some great conversations and found out that we have probably met her before, at my cousin’s wedding in Canada a couple of decades ago.

Cathedral-Hopping in Haarlem

Today was a fairly light day, distance-wise.  Maybe the outfitter thought they needed us to start easy.  Whatever the reason, 30 km was the distance for today.  After a hearty breakfast, we left the Westward Art Hotel and started the first day of the bike tour.

Trails here are plentiful and well-marked.  And it should be, as it appears that more people travel by bicycle than by automobile, by a wide margin.  We talked to a guy who was helping us set up the bikes last night and he said that Amsterdam is crazy for biking. He has lived here 12 years and still doesn’t like it.  He told us that our route takes us west out of Amsterdam and we are on the western fringes anyway so we won’t have to deal with much of the craziness.  It should be calmer in other areas.

And it was.  For the first 20 minutes or so we drifted along with hundreds of other bikers, most of them with a much better idea of how the trail system works, some of them that just didn’t care.

I’m sure we stuck out like crazy.  For one thing, we were riding high-end electric bikes with big red pannier bags.  Many of the other bikes plying the pathways are much more utilitarian and some look like they are on their last legs, with squeaks and rattles to match.  The other thing?  Helmets.  I’ve noticed that only the tourists on the outfitter bikes have helmets on.  Outside the city, I saw a few more helmets, usually worn by serious bikers in Spandex and traveling at high speeds.  

The routes are well thought out and well marked.  Just follow the numbers on the signs.  The guidebook gives a sequence of the numbers that corresponds with the route and it’s a simple matter to follow them.  Until a sign gets missed.  We did this a couple times and had to backtrack a bit.  Using the signage, a map, and an app on my phone, we made good progress.

Nice day for a ride also.  Started out with a hoodie because of the coolness of the morning, and soon had to shed that as the day warmed.

Rather than go right to the next hotel as the route suggested, we veered off downtown to the ​grote markt​ (large market) downtown, which is a large city square flanked by centuries-old buildings, including a colossal cathedral.  We first passed by the Corrie ten Boom Museum.  We had hoped to get a tour of this but tickets are gone many weeks in advance so we just had a look at the outside.

We paid the 4 Euros each to take a walk through one of the most notable buildings in the city, originally a Catholic cathedral built in the 1400’s.  It is now a Reformed Protestant church.  Of particular note is the pipe organ which Mozart played in 1766 when he was ten years old.  Also, over 1500 people are buried in the church floor, and you have to watch your step to prevent tripping over some of the uneven stones which double as grave markers.  This church dominates the skyline of Haarlem and is referred to on the streets signs simply as g​rote kerk​ (large church).  Unimaginably huge.  I took lots of pictures. We were remarking that it would be fun to climb the tower or get up into the upper levels or behind the organ.  No possibility of that, however.

We ate lunch sitting at the base of a statue outside of Laurens Jansz Coster, an inventor, who allegedly predated Johannes Gutenberg in the invention of movable type. Seems that he observed that letters he was carving in pieces of wood would make impressions in the sand which gave him the idea of typesetting.  However, Gutenberg got all the credit and Coster is still regarded locally as a local hero as his name appears in many places throughout the city.

We walked around the square for a while before venturing farther afield.

After this we decided to check out another cathedral, this one the St. Bavo Cathedral just about 15 minutes away by bicycle.  We were not on the bike paths anymore and, although there are many bike lanes in the city proper, they can be confusing sometimes for newbies like us.  We did all the newbie things like riding the wrong way and riding in the bus lane. But we eventually did make it there.

This cathedral was built in the late 1800’s and has a much newer feel to it, although it is still gargantuan.  It is yet unfinished as there are some areas that were left for future generations to finish when it was built. For instance, the dome was planned to have paintings of the Apostle John, but is just a white ceiling right now.

In contrast to the ​grote kerk​, this cathedral allowed visitors to access some of the higher parts of the building, including the top of the dome and the roof of the bell tower.  The dome is accessed by a narrow spiral staircase and a series of wooden catwalks above the arched ceiling on one side of the building.  From there you are looking at the center of the church from a dizzying height.  A narrow walk goes all the way around the inside of the dome.

A view from up in the dome

Catwalks necessary to get there

Spiral staircase made all of brick

The view straight down

The way up

Another, even narrower, spiral staircase leads up into he bell tower.  This one, after going past the massive bells and the clock, ends up on the roof of the tower, where a metal platform has been set up to allow views of the city.  And it is a magnificent view.  We stood up there for a while and gazed out at the city of Haarlem, all packed together in a series of red and brown roofs and narrow streets.

Inside the clock

Way above it all

I guess you can see from the number of pictures that I thought this was super cool.

Upon recommendation from one of the guys at the cathedral and confirmation from the receptionist at the hotel, we biked to  DeLachende Savaan, an Indonesian restaurant hiding in a narrow alley near the ​grote markt​.  This restaurant did not disappoint.  We ordered the Rice Table, a collection of 8 dishes to share and it was really delicious.  Very enjoyable meal.

After dinner we biked to the Elswout Estate, a private estate originally built by wealthy merchants from Amsterdam.  The house and buildings are still private, but there are some trails through the estate that are open to the public.  We hiked for 2.5km before biking back to the hotel.