Andijk

One of the big checkboxes of this trip was to visit the house where my Dad grew up.  It’s a little hard to believe that we are now here.

The cool thing is, when I was looking for places to stay in Andijk, I noticed on Google Maps that there appeared to be a bed and breakfast at this exact location.  I found the web site and saw that it was indeed the same house.  But they only had BnB guests on Tuesdays.  So when we set up the bike trip, we first verified availability, then set all the bike trip dates around today, Tuesday, June 20. This BnB is really only set up for two people, but when we inquired where the other two could stay, the owners graciously offered a guest room where their family stays during visits.  So all four of us will be sleeping in the house where my dad lived before he emigrated to the US when he was thirteen.

I should say that this is the same building. There are two residences in the building.  The one on the left was a butcher shop run by Gerrit Nydam, and the one on the right was where my dad’s family lived.  We are actually staying in the old butcher shop.

But let’s start at the beginning...

After another great breakfast at the hotel, we hopped on the bus to the Sloterdijk Station, where we caught a train going to Enkhuizen.  Different station, but it was a little easier to figure out, other than what platform the train left from.  A passerby noticed our confusion and helped us out by looking up the information that was not printed on the ticket.  Seems like that would be a no-brainer, listing the platform number on the ticket, but what do I know.

The train ride took us about an hour and we were the only people in this particular train car.  It was interesting watching the countryside slip by.  Lots of interesting architecture, canals everywhere, and even a couple of the iconic windmills, one close enough to shoot a picture out the train window.

Arriving Enkhuizen, we stopped at the information booth next to the train station and bought tickets for the Zuiderzeemuseum, an outdoor museum depicting life before the Zuiderzee was separated from the North Sea by the Afsluitdijk,  a massive project completed in 1932.  Because the former Zuiderzee became a freshwater lake, all the former fishing industry died out, and was largely replaced by pleasure boats.  The lake was renamed to IJsselmeer (Lake IJssel in English).

We spent quite a bit of time at this museum.  It’s quite impressive and well done.  All the buildings gathered here have either been moved here or reproduced in an attempt to preserve the former way of life of the people who lived and worked here.  In one sense it is a much larger version of the Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan, complete with a functioning windmill, only this windmill exists for the purpose of pumping water.

At one point we came upon a guy with a couple of smokers running, and he was smoking fish and selling it.  Salmon and herring.  Deb and I bought a piece of each and ate it on a bench next to his building.  It was quite good.  I like smoked salmon anyway, but have never had herring.  Pickled herring sounds awful, but smoked herring was delicious.  Check off another item on the authentic Dutch food list.

A little later on we came to the restaurant which had, among other things, Apple Tarts, or apple cake.  We had a piece of this also.  We’re just really knocking off the Dutch food thing.

We walked to the indoor building of the Zuiderzeemuseum.  Housed in a 1600’s-era building that was leaning badly towards the street, this contained more information and stories about the way of life before the new dyke and also had a collection of a bunch of smaller boats used during this time--beautiful wooden boats, many with the characteristic fly-wing keel seen on a lot of smaller sailboats.

It was just a short walk back to the train station, where we picked up the bus going to Andijk.  The girl in the information booth told us to pay the driver, but the driver didn’t really want to bother with it, so he told us the ride was free.  Music to a Dutchman’s ears.

We arrived in Andijk at about 4:30pm, and figured out that it was about a mile walk to the house.  Right across from the bus station is Pop Vriend Seeds, a business owned by a relative of ours.  We walked by several other seed companies; the seed business is big here, and our family was intricately involved in it, with my grandfather eventually landing on tulip seeds (bulbs) as his main crop.

I’ve seen a bunch of pictures of it, some very old and some relatively recent, and even looked at it on Google Earth, but it was great to finally stand in front of the house and see it in person.  I didn’t take any pictures right away because we were met immediately by Gerrit Nydam, the grandson of the similarly named Gerrit Nydam, who ran the butcher shop when my dad’s family lived in the other side of the house. He invited us to the back yard where we met his wife, Helmi, and we sat down and chatted for a while.

They showed us the shed out back that used to be the slaughterhouse complete with a small smoker room. This now serves as Gerrit’s wood shop.  Behind this is the barn where my grandfather used to store and sort tulip bulbs, and further back are some open fields that he used to farm. 

A passing thunderstorm drove us inside and Gerrit helped us order some pizza for dinner. When we asked if there were any good eateries around here, he wryly remarked, “How about Enkhuizen?”  We probably should have eaten before we left for Andijk.  So pizza was about the only option unless we wanted to brave the rain and walk to a Chinese restaurant a mile away.  They also offered us the use of their kitchen table for our meal since there were four of us and the small table in the room would only seat two.

After having the pizza, we climbed to the top of the dyke as the rain had slowed.  Lake IJssel can be seen in the distance, and walking a little to the west, the lake laps up against this embankment as additional land was reclaimed at some point with additional dykes.  The dyke offers a good view of the nearby area, and we walked for a ways on the dyke, ending up at the church that Dad’s family attended and where he was baptized.

Then back to the house for a night’s sleep ahead of more adventures tomorrow.