We shifted about 300 kilometers today to a city whose name always conjured up images of the exotic to me. The drive over was on a very modern toll road. Once we left Casablanca it was a very relaxing drive, I was able to set the cruise control and enjoy my coffee. Not what I expected on the road to Marrakech.
This guy must have been very disappointed with the road to Marrakech. All of that off road capability wasted on a smooth toll road.
We arrived at our campground about 2pm, and basically did research on future legs of the trip, and Marrakech for the rest of the afternoon. The temperatures are going to get pretty toasty (after all we are only about 100 miles from the Sahara desert) so we moved to a shadier spot in the evening to prepare for our next 3 or 4 days here.
The pool at the campground will probably get a good workout the next few days.
We decided last night to pass on Rabat, but to instead explore the town we are in. Ton had done some reading and discovered that the souk (market) here was fun, so that became our destination for the day.
A kitchenware stall in the market.
We started out by doing a load of laundry and just kind of chilling in the morning. We arranged a taxi with the campground while we were doing our laundry. The young lady who helped us also gave us some good tips on how to shop in the souk.
You can get anything you need for your home at the souk.
We arrived at the souk during lunchtime so it was pretty quiet, but most of the stalls were still open. You can get almost anything you need for a home including pots and pans, kitchenware, furniture, and small appliances. Of course all kinds of food are available.
These are natural tooth brushes made from a local tree bark.
We spent a very happy hour searching thru the nooks and crannies of the souk. Our ostensible purpose for visiting was for vegetables, and a soap dish. We found the vegetables, and while we found a soap dish Ton didn’t like the design.
This mixture of peppers, tomatoes, and avocados cost us 25 dirham, about $2.50.
We were relaxing after the market when Ton declared that she wanted to visit the waterfront for another sunset walk. The sunset was nice but the other night was better. As we were walking we came across a food cart that we had looked at the other night. It sold escargot soup.
The snail vendor.
After seeing it Ton had googled the soup and learned that it is a common street food in Morroco. We decided to try a cup of the soup, but I had left my wallet in François so I went back and grabbed my wallet while Ton waited.
My 10 cent cup of snail broth.
The snails are simmered in a large pot of broth with spices such as licorice, thyme, and anis added to it. It is a strong favor, but I found it delicious-unlike anything I had tasted before. It would be perfect on a cold evening or if you were fighting a cold. There will be more of it in my future.
This donkey cart went by while we were eating. The owner was collecting cans and other recyclables along the waterfront.
When I went to pay for my broth I tried to give the owner a 20 dirham bill. He waved it away and held up one finger. The cost was 1 dirham which is 11 cents in US dollars. So another trip to François was necessary to find a 1 dirham coin, but it was worth it. A great culinary experience for a dime, that is why you travel.
While we were enjoying our new cuisine this was the background.
We booked a taxi to take us into Casablanca yesterday and were quoted a quite reasonable price for the day. In the morning Mohammed one of the family who owns the campsite asked if a French couple could join us, we of course said yes. Then the other good shoe dropped- our price yesterday was for the taxi, so now we were paying half the price.
Denis, Lysette, and Me in front of the great Mosque.
It turns out the French couple were Monsieur and Madame Poitiers. The first night in Asilah they had parked next to us and we had struck up a conversation. They are from Poitiers and as we had stopped there on the way down we could talk about their hometown. Denis had spent a year as a student in Worcester Massachusets which is my mothers hometown, so we also had that to talk about. Yesterday I saw them pull in here and gave them a wave, I told Ton that Mr and Mrs Poitiers had arrived and she knew immediately who I meant So we were really pleased when they turned out to be the French couple.
Typical religious art for a Mosque.
Our first stop was the Hassan II Mosque. It is the highlight of Casablanca for visitors. The Mosque is the third largest in Islam and can hold 25,000 worshipers inside and 80,000 on the square outside.
The immense interior of the Mosque. The wooden roof slides open during Friday prayers.
Morocco is known for its moderate approach to Islam, but this is the only Mosque in the country that non-Muslims can visit. It is open only in the morning for escorted tours.
The archways were beautifully carved.
The Mosque is modern having built from 1977-1983. As a result it has some interesting modern additions such as a sliding roof that is opened during Ramadan, and on Friday services to provide natural ventilation.
Looking towards the ocean.
The Mosque is built on land reclaimed from the ocean. It is an impressive building in size and structure. The wooden balconies where the women attend service were also quite beautifully carved.
The ceiling is over 180 feet high at its peak and the columns to support it are immense.
We finished the tour by going in the basement to visit the purification room. Before attending prayer Muslims must go thru a ritual wash to cleanse themselves which they prefer down here.
The fountains in the purification room.
After the Mosque we headed over to the souk in the Medina. The souk is the old market in town and I knew Ton would love it. We started out with a lunch of Tagines again, I had chicken and Ton had fish which turned out to be fish meatballs. We ended up swapping plates as we each liked the others food better than our own.
We believe this is a courthouse from the scales of justice. The language on the left is Berber which is the language of the original people here. The Romans, Arabs, and French have conquered Morocco but the Berbers are still here.
The souk was great fun. We had no shopping in mind but did leave with a very small bag of pickled lemons. But we spent a very happy hour taking in the smells and sights and sounds of the market.
Sugar cane and other fruit drinks for sale.
The old market was nice but was mostly aimed at tourists. Next to it was a street that was for the locals to shop in. It didn’t have the old columns and narrow passages of the souk, but it had more interesting things for sale.
This butcher shop featured camel meat.
After our taste of the market and seeing the restaurants in this part of town we wished we had waited to eat here, though there won’t be any camel meat in our future.
All of the butchers in one place, with a barbecue restaurant above. Shop to table dining.
The city had been pretty quiet during our drive over in the morning. On the way home it had woken up and the traffic was quite a bit more intense. Our driver Yunus was able to navigate the crowded and free form traffic while having a spirited conversation with Denis in French. I would have been a nervous wreck.
Our taxi today, this is the top tier of a three tier taxi system. Seat belts are not included in the price. But it came with an excellent driver.
Today we moved about 200 kilometers south to a campground between Rabat and Casablanca. Our plan is to use this campground as a base to explore both cities.
Driving on the very modern toll road we came across this old Hilux loaded in a way I haven’t seen since Thailand in the 80’s.
The drive was on a very modern and good toll road. The road was actually better than the last couple of hundred kilometers of freeway in Spain. The vehicles on the road though varied in quality and I had to be on my toes as the variation of speed was quite extreme. There were cars and trucks on the road only going 50 or 60 kilometers per hour when the speed limit was 120. We travel around 95 kilometers an hour so I had to watch in front of me to see how fast I was coming up on the old truck in front of me, and watch my mirror to see how fast the new Mercedes in the left lane was coming up behind me, to determine if I could pass the truck before the Mercedes caught up with me, or I should hit the breaks. It kept things interesting.
We passed a couple of trucks loaded with horses like this. Ton laughed as the horses were sticking their noses over the side like dogs in a car.
We stopped for fuel at a very modern rest area. The gas attendant was charming and spoke English well. When we travel over here the one business that is really thriving is fast food. The rest area had a McDonald’s which was not surprising, but what we never expected was to see a Krispy Kreme Donut place in Morocco, but this rest area had one.
Our French neighbors were preparing crabs for lunch. The French call these spider crabs and they were immense. He said he bought small ones so they would fit in his pot. Ton was jealous, and I can see a crab dinner in our future.
After we arrived we arranged for a taxi to take us to Casablanca tomorrow and then spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy around the campground and the beach in front of the campground.
Ton really liked this picture of three Arab women.
Ton wanted to go to the beach at sunset. It was quite busy as a lot of other people had the same idea. There were several food carts selling interesting food as a lot of the Arab dishes have a French influence here.
A guy had a mobile espresso machine loaded in the back of a truck and had set up this impromptu coffee shop on rocks overlooking the beach.
Ton loved the location for the sunset. Not only did it have natural beauty, but it had a lot of people doing interesting things. After the sun set the sky lit up with really beautiful colors so it made her day.
Just after sunset.
It’s nice to be settling down into enjoying the place instead of worrying about the drive. Morocco has made a very positive first impression on us.
For the first time in about 2 weeks we were able to sleep in, and not have the bulk of our day spent in François. Our good friends Fred and Denise Cook had visited Asilah in the spring and their blog pictures on www.diplostrat.net convinced us to spend a day in Asilah ourselves.
A beautiful archway in Asilah.
We did decide to move to a campground in the city. So we packed up and shifted about 7 kilometers to a very rustic, but functional campground close to the center of town.
The waterfront promenade near our campground that leads to the old town.
After we were set up we headed to town on a beautiful but nearly empty waterfront promenade. The interesting feature were probably 150 flagpoles with flags of many of the countries of the world. We entertained ourselves as we walked by identifying flags. We would have failed a test if it was a test as we were probably around 45%.
The beach next to the port in the Medina.
We chose to head towards the Medina which is the old fortified part of the town. The walls were largely in place and it was interesting to contrast them with European city walls. The differences were pretty minor to us.
Part of the city walls of Asilah. Apparently the crenelations, the rectangular things sticking out of the top of the wall are of Arabic design.
The Medina was very well preserved, and the occupants clearly take pride in maintaining the buildings. There were a lot of interesting doors to homes and businesses that Ton loved photographing. We spent a lot of time just meandering thru the narrow streets of the Medina.
A section of the Medina devoted to tourism, but really done tastefully.
The Medina area was also full of murals by talented artists. We found several that we both admired for several minutes. It looks like this was a recent project, but they are all well done and add to the charm of the town.
My personal favorite of the many beautiful murals in the Medina.
As we have quickly learned this is a cash economy, so we also needed to find an ATM to get more Dirhams. We had to venture out into the modern part of the city for this. I was worried that the banks might not be open as it was Friday which is the sabbath day for Moslems. When we went by the Mosque in the Median service was going on. But when we turned up at the bank it was open for business.
Another mural with paintings next to it displayed for sale. The artist was quite talented.
With money in our wallet we set out for a late lunch. Ton picked a seafood tagine, and I went for fried seafood. Tagines are a Moroccan specialty cooked in a conical shaped earthenware pot. The result is a heavily spiced stew like dish with a mix of vegetables and meat or seafood.
The seafood tagine.
After lunch we headed back to François for a rest. Ton decided to see if there was hot water in the shower (there was) which set off a rush to the showers in the campground as an eyeball check of the showers would not lead you to believe hot water was part of the package.
A nice mural opposite a beautiful door in the Medina.
A couple of orange kittens have adopted us as I am a soft touch and fed them. One even climbed into my lap after feeding and demanded to be petted for a while. The promenade is only 5 minutes away so we decided to head there for sunset. It was a beautiful cool evening and the promenade was much busier than this afternoon.
Sunset over the port.
Asilah was a very pleasant surprise and a great introduction to Morocco.
When Ton saw this she said, ahh the Instagram shot.
We made it to Morocco. It has been a long journey from Amsterdam to get here, but the first impression is that it was worth it.
Camels on a beach, we must be in Africa.
We had one important chore to complete before we boarded the ferry in Algeciras. I wanted to replenish the propane, as we cannot fill our tanks in Morocco. So we left a little early to go to a fuel station next to an Oil refinery. The attendant showed me how to connect the LP using my Spanish adapter, so this important chore taken care of we headed to the ferry terminal.
This ferry backed in next to ours, but despite arriving after ours, beat us to Tangiers.
We picked the least expensive ferry available for the trip and were rewarded with an old and slow ferry. We were the first one on, but as anyone that has been in the Navy or Marines knows the first one on a boat is the last one off. But this meant we were at the front of the line to clear Moroccan immigration. But immigration was the fast part.
The line to get François scanned.
As we drove off a guy in uniform checked our passports and vehicle documents and waived us on. In front of us was a three lane road that led to the freeway. Just as we were thinking we had escaped, we came around the last corner and there was a customs checkpoint. We were routed to the line to have François go thru a giant x-ray machine. The machine was impressive, but it took us about 40 minutes to get our x-ray.
The x-ray is attached to the semi truck. It reverses down the line of cars and scans them all.
After the x-ray we hoped we were done with customs, but when we went back to the customs check point they were manually inspecting all of the vehicles. While we were waiting our turn Ton noticed some vans that the customs guys had had the owners remove everything on the inside. Ton said if we have to do that we will be here hours. Fortunately, for us they only did a quick visual check, and had a drug dog do a pass around François. After another 15 minutes we were released to Morocco.
On the road in Morocco.
By the time we cleared the port it was about 4pm so we headed down the toll road to our overnight stop at a well reviewed campground. It is part of a large hotel complex. We are the only camper on site, and I believe we may be the only guests in both the hotel and campground, but the service has been impeccable.
We had a busy morning, and a slower afternoon. The day began by us heading off to see the mysterious Carlos for our ferry tickets. He does exist, and as reported on line gave us a really steep discount on our ferry tickets. We also got our first Moroccan Dirham so we are prepared with currency for our trip. Morocco is a more cash economy so we will see how often we will be going to banks to get more Dirhams.
We made a pass thru a Carrefour Grocery to get some bread and wine, and then headed out to get LP gas. We failed at the LP gas, so after some more research at the campground tonight we will try a couple of places on the way to the ferry tomorrow. I think we have about 5 weeks of LP on board but would like to have a reserve as it is not possible to fill tanks in Morocco.
The last chore for the day was laundry. We also “had” to drink a bottle of wine to get us down to our legal limit of wine we can import to Morocco.
We made it to the Mediterranean today. It’s been a long haul and not much fun. Today we covered about 400 kilometers but are now sitting a few kilometers from Gibraltar.
On the beach near the campground.
Enroute we found time to swing thru the Seville Costco to stock up on some dry goods to cover us the next 4 weeks in Morocco. We didn’t get any vegetables or meat because food is supposed to be especially inexpensive in Morocco. We were concerned about space and had a discussion about nearly everything we put into the cart. In the end we were probably a little too conservative and could have bought more.
Someone had arranged these shells on the beach.
Tomorrow we are off to buy our ferry ticket from the mysterious Carlos that everyone says is the man when it comes to ferries. We have three chores to complete tomorrow and then we will be off to Africa.
Our primary target for this trip is Morocco, but before we departed Oregon Ton also handed me a list of Spanish cities she wanted to visit if we have time. Merida is one of those cities and luckily it was right at the distance and direction I wanted to drive today, so we were able to kill two birds with one drive.
Merida is one of the best preserved Roman cities in Europe.
Leaving the campground I hit a pretty big pothole that rattled François pretty strongly. About 10 minutes later the alarm on our refrigerator that tells us the door is open went off. I thought the jostling from the pothole may have caused something in the refrigerator to push on the door. So we pulled over and rearranged the contents of the fridge, but a few minutes later the alarm happened again. Ton went back again to make sure there was no pressure on the door. For the next two hours we fought a battle with the door alarm. It would go 5 or 10 minutes without alarming, and then alarm for a few minutes and then go silent again. It was annoying and I had visions of another day wasted on maintenance. I finally pulled over and took a look at the latch to make sure nothing was broken and everything seemed ok. Finally out of desperation we did the old turn it off for a few minutes and then turn it back on and see if the problem goes away. Sure enough for the next hour we had no alarms. Just as we pulled into the parking area in Merida the alarm went off once. Since the door was closed and the refrigerator was good we decided to go on with our visit of the city, the beeping wouldn’t bother anyone if we weren’t there.
One of the entrances to the amphitheater in Merida.
The Merida Roman sites consist of an amphitheater, a theater, a circus, a temple to the godess Diana, the longest Roman bridge still in use, and as a bonus a Moslem Alcazar built over a former Roman fort.
Entering the amphitheater they had an interesting display showing the four different types of gladiators that were trained for fighting in the arena. They each had different weapons and different armor. Each type had advantages and disadvantages that were supposed to make the fights more interesting.
The amphitheater was where the gladiatorial games were held as well as other events. It held 3000 people. It was buried during the Moslem era and middle ages. It is very well preserved and most of the interior rooms and the floor of the arena are as they were during Roman times.
The amphitheater, the hole in the arena space was covered with wood during games..
The theater next to the amphitheater is even more impressive. it was built to hold 15,000 people and has now been restored to use. The facade of the stage is still largely intact which is rare in these buildings. The only other one we have seen with the facade was in Orange France.
A view of the theater from the cheap seats where the slaves and foreigners would sit.
After the theater we visited a temple dedicated to Diana. The temple had changed purposes many times after the Romans and in the middle ages was converted to a palace for one of the richest families of the area. In the 1960’s the building was purchased and restored as best as possible to its Roman state.
The temple of Diana with the 17th century home in the background.
We headed to the river to visit the Alcazar and Roman bridge. The Alcazar was a fort built at the entrance to the town from the bridge. There was an original Roman fort on site, but the Moslems who ruled Spain rebuilt it to their standard using the material from the city walls and Roman fort.
A view of the Roman bridge of from the walls of the Alcazar. This is the longest Roman bridge in use at over 2000 feet. Today usage is limited to foot traffic.
There were several more sites to visit in town, but we were a little tired and the refrigerator was bothering me. While we were walking I had googled a motorhome service center in town and they were getting ready to reopen from siesta so I proposed we head there.
One of the main streets of the old town.
As we walked back to François around 4pm the town seemed oddly quiet to us until we realized that siesta is later in this part of Spain because it is hotter. Everything shuts down from 2 to 5 pm.
Some of the columns and statuary at the theater.
We drove across town and waited about 15 minutes at the service center. The entire time the alarm for the door didn’t go off of course. A technician gave the fridge a once over and declared that everything seemed normal, nothing was broken and the electrical connection for the alarm seemed ok. So we shrugged and headed off to the local campground for the evening, hoping not to get an alarm in the middle of the night.
More ruins and a nice modern garden.
When we settled in for the evening Ton and I regretted that we didn’t have more time as Merida definitely deserves more of it. We missed the circus maximus which is considered one of the best preserved, as well as the museum of Roman art, and we rushed our visits to the alcazar and the bridge, this is what happens when timetable drives your visiting.
We were happy when I noticed that Tordesillas was the perfect distance to cover towards Morocco. It was about 360 kilometers south from Orio, and we have set a target of 350 to 400 kilometers per day to travel, so it was a no brainer to stop here.
Windshield shot of the plains of Spain. The light brown squares are wheat, the darker fields are sunflowers.
The drive was again uneventful, starting in rain in Orio and ending in mostly blue skies in Tordisillas. The freeways started out tolled in Basque country, but by the time we got to Castilla they were free so we again were happy.
Our asado for 3 people. 4 types of grilled meat, nicely fried potatoes and grilled peppers. We have enough meat left for at least one more meal.
This is the third time we have stayed at the family run El Astral campground in Tordisillas. We think this is the best campground restaurant we have eaten at and we enjoy the food and the service. We had originally planned to walk to town for a wine tasting, but I pointed out that a half carafe of the excellent house wine was only €3.30- so we decided to save the walk, and enjoy the sun and another carafe of wine on the sunny patio of the restaurant. An uneventful, but good day for us.
Our charge down the atlantic coast to southern Spain continued with a 480 kilometer drive. The drive was nice and uneventful if. It was uneventful enough that we decided to tack an extra 150 kilometers on the plan to go to Orio in Spain because we like the campground here.
Rain starting to move in over the beach at Orio.
We started in rain in Poitiers, then after about an hour the rain stopped and we had blue skies for most of the trip until we arrived at the campground in northern Spain when the rain began again.
Looking back towards town with rain in the hills.
We are a little tired from the driving as we usually don’t travel this way in Europe. But we are feeling pressure to get to Morocco so we have a couple of more days of long trips. Lets hope Morocco rewards our effort.
The next few days are going to be mostly about putting miles on the way to Morocco. Today we covered about 350 kilometers and arrived at Poitiers around lunch. Since the reception for the campground was probably closed we headed to the center of town to take a quick walk around the town.
It was a nice Indian Summer day so the cafes were doing big business.
Poitiers is a university town of around 90,000 people, and the medical students were out at every street corner raising money. If you gave them a Euro you got a hard candy. We weren’t sure what we contributed to but we did contribute.
The church was undergoing major renovation so this was about as close as we could get.
We made a pass thru town that almost certainly didn’t do Poitiers justice. It was a nice town with interesting shops and a couple of nice cafe lined squares. If we didn’t have miles on the brain we probably would have given it a good look. It deserved more than we gave it.
More cafes and cool old houses.
After about an hour we decided to head over to the campground for the night. Another big day of driving tomorrow.
Today was another busy but not fun day. We completed our last chores before we head south. We were up early to drive to Sens. On the way we had to pass thru Paris and we planned for the worst. We were pleasantly surprised to only hit one short slowdown so we arrived quite early in Sens.
With time to kill we went to a large supermarket to get some French groceries for our cupboards. We are now well stocked for the next few days.
Today we had our safety inspection, and except for discovering that both our low beam bulbs had burned out and needed to be replaced we passed with no problem. François burns thru headlight bulbs at a very rapid rate, no one has been able to figure out why. I am going to have to add periodically checking on them to my driving checklist. We also had one minor part to replace in one of our privacy screens.
We were at Eurocampingcars for about 4 hours waiting for everything to get taken care of. During that time we had a nice conversation with Sandrine the owner. We were surprised to learn that she currently has 68 overseas customers she is supporting.
The library at the homey family run campground we are staying at tonight.
With everything finally done about 5pm we headed to a nice campground on the Yonne river. Tomorrow we are off for Morocco.
Today we turned south. With all of the repairs (fingers crossed) completed on François we are heading south. Our next stop is Sens to get our Control Technique done. We were tempted to try to make the leap but we have two major cities to navigate -Antwerp and Paris and I didn’t want to take them both on in one day.
The drive south was busy and Antwerp did not let us down as we were stuck in traffic there for 15 or 20 minutes. Most of the drive today was really busy from Delft until we hit the first toll way in France. Once again we drove across Belgium without stopping. Belgium deserves more love than we give it.
I picked a campground about an hour north of Paris and it is a charming place next to the Chateau in the picture. Sorel has a population of about 180 according to Wikipedia, but a nice campground and a pretty chateau.
Today was a busy day for us, but not a particularly compelling one. We have had a check engine light intermittently since we arrived. Our day started with an early appointment at a garage in Delft to get that taken care of. We did not know what the cause of the light was and the dealer had warned us it could take a while to troubleshoot the problem. Ton and I had packed to spend hours in the waiting area of the dealer. Fortunately the problem was obvious, a failed part in the diesel exhaust system, and the repair was done and we were on our way by 9 am.
Part of the park next to the campground. The high winds the last two days had downed a lot of branches and leaves.
With time on our hands for the rest of the day we decided to take on a couple of minor problems. So we spent the next several hours going to hardware stores and RV part supply stores. After about three hours of running around Delft and Rotterdam we had the parts we were looking for.
With more time on my hands I decided to try to repair our old power cord but I needed a better screw driver set. There is an Ikea walking distance from the campground so I headed over there, it took me 45 minutes to find the screw drivers they had, only to discover they would not work for what I had in mind.
The canal at the entrance to the campground.
It has been extremely windy and rainy the last two days so when we had a little break in the evening we went on a walk thru the woods only to find the trail we were on terminated at Ikea. Ton remembered she needed a soap dish so we went back in for another 45 minutes of searching only to leave Ikea empty handed again. We may be the only ones in history to make two forays into an Ikea in one day and leave without purchasing anything.
We shifted about an hour south today to Delft. Delft is a nice town that has become our unofficial hometown in the Netherlands. Tomorrow we have an appointment at the local Fiat repair garage to hopefully get our check engine light resolved.
In route we stopped at an Albert Hein to stock up on some food to get us thru the next few days until we get to France where food is cheaper. When we arrived at the campground we did some expensive laundry. It would have been €12.50 if the dryer was efficient, but because we had to run it twice it ended up costing €16.50. The building at the top is the laundry, dish washing, and shower building for the campground.
We hit another place on our to do list for the Netherlands. We had been told that Haarlem is a nice town and worth a visit so we decided to take advantage of the window of good weather we had today to visit it. Haarlem is about 20 minutes by train south of Amsterdam.
This cool old building was surrounded by modern buildings near the train station. It was one of the most memorable buildings in Haarlem for us. Unfortunately the first floor had been graffitied pretty heavily.
Haarlem is a mid-size city and like most Dutch cities easy to walk. Part of the reason it is so easy to walk in the Netherlands is because everything is so flat. Today my watch tells me we walked 6.6 miles and only climbed the equivalent of 5 flights of stairs. That is flat.
Besides showing off a cool still working windmill this picture gives you a sense of how flat the Dutch countryside is.
We made a quick pass thru town and hit some of the highlights. The town hall was open to visitors. The most interesting thing for me was the painting in the room that was used for jury deliberations. It contained a large picture of a judge having his eye gouged out for not being just in his verdicts. Quite a warning for potential jurists.
A nice historic street. On the left is a guest house associated with a nearby hospital. The building on the right was a museum.
We visited the church in the town square. It began life as a Catholic Cathedral, but during the reformation had become a Protestant Church. While it is a working church it seems that it has also become something of a community concert hall. One of the side chapels inside the church had even been converted to a coffee shop-something I have never seen anywhere else in Europe. So I guess you can listen to Sunday service while sipping a latte in the coffee corner.
The organ in the church is famous.
The church organ is well renown for its sound. Mozart is said to have played the organ on his travels. We were hoping to see a concert there, but unfortunately the timing didn’t allow for it.
An interior column. Note the ceiling is unadorned wood. I wonder if the Catholic images that are normally there in plaster were removed as part of the reformation.
We criss-crossed the town a couple of times to look at different interesting buildings. The town had a solid feel to it and the people were fun to watch as always. We have even gotten better about staying out of the way of the bicycles as they zoom past. I think we got thru the day without having a bell rung at us in annoyance by a bicyclist, (even though we did almost get run over by a city bus).
Jopen Brewery.
Our final stop in Haarlem was at another old church. This church had been converted to a brewery. Jopen brewery felt more like a brewery from Portland than the traditional places we usually go to. In fact their specialties seemed to tilt heavily towards IPA’s with Cascade hops that are grown in Washington and Oregon. The beer was good.
Art and Architecture.
On the train back we discussed a stop in Amsterdam for another walk, but instead Ton remembered a good chicken joint one stop from the campground. So we had fried chicken to go in François to end our day.
Our first stop of the day was the Katten Kabinet museum. It is a museum dedicated to cat art and cats. We don’t own a cat and neither of us have ever had a cat as a pet, but we are now cat people because of Dylan our sons cat Dottie. We have the privilege of cat sitting for Dottie a few times a year and she has converted us to the kind of people who pay large sums to go to cat museums.
Dottie the cat and her favorite possession. The inspiration for today’s visit to Amsterdam.
The Katten Kabinet was inspired by the property owners cat JP Morgan. The museum is in a large 18th century house overlooking one of Amsterdam’s canals and supposedly hosted John Adams when he was ambassador to the Netherlands..
The drawings on this wall are by Picasso.
The house itself is worth a visit, but it is also filled with art about cats by famous artists including Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Rembrandt. It is mostly a kitschy salute to cats that any cat lover will enjoy.
The garden mostly featuring advertisements that used cats.
There was a nice corner where people could leave dedications to their cats.
Dedications and drawings of peoples cats.
After our time visiting the Katten Kabinet we headed towards the city center. Although we have purchased a three day transit pass we ended up walking everywhere today. Amsterdam is one of the great cities to walk in. The center is pretty compact, the canals make for a dynamic backdrop, and the architecture is interesting and mostly original as it was not heavily bombed in WWII.
This was one of the most colorful houses on our walk. The modern looking homes in the foreground are actually canal boats or canal homes.
Ton proposed we visit a shop that was supposed to have the best apple pie in Amsterdam so I of course agreed. When we arrived the threatening weather finally delivered on the threat. We were fortunate to find a table. The restaurant had been in business for over 100 years and the interior felt like it was little changed since they opened.
The interior of Het Papeneiland, serving the best apple pie in Amsterdam.
We nursed our shared slice of apple pie and coffees thru a big down pour. As soon as the rain ended we moved to our next stop which was even older than the Het Papenland.
The In’t Aepjen or monkey bar. A dive bar that began operating in the 15th century.
The In’t Aepjen began operating in the 15th century and has been in business since then. It survived two major fires in 1450 and 1477 that burned down large parts of Amsterdam. It got its name the Monkey Bar because supposedly two sailors returning from a voyage to Sumatra in the 1500’s didn’t have money to pay their tab and instead traded the owners a monkey they had brought back.
The interior of the Monkey Bar.
The place was really cool. It is one of about 20 bars in Amsterdam that are collectively called brown bars because of the mahogany used in the interior. We discussed going on a bit of a brown bar crawl, but our better judgment got in the way of a good time.
Beurs passage.
Our last stop was Beurs passage a walkway between two roads that has been decorated as an aquarium. We had sprinted by it yesterday during a rainstorm and Ton wanted to go back and take a look at it.
Fish art on the wall of Beurs passage.
While the walk way has been in place for centuries, the passage as you see it today is a recent development. After that we headed back to François just ahead of the next rain storm passing thru Amsterdam.
The Van Gogh museum has been on our to do list for Amsterdam since the first trip. Each time we have looked at going there were no spots available. We finally landed a spot today.
Walking to the museum Ton got this nice picture of one of the famous canals.
We got caught in one pretty good down pour on the way to the museum but otherwise enjoyed our walk. The city seemed a lot less crowded than our previous visits which was nice, we weren’t sure if this was a function of the weather (pretty wet) or the time of the year.
My favorite painting at the museum.
We arrived at the museum about noon, but our ticket was for 1:15. They had a couple of people in front of the museum so I asked one of the young ladies what time we should get in line for the 1:15 entrance-she said it is not too busy today so if you come back at 12:45 we will let you in. So we headed over to the museum of modern art next door to avoid another squall and hung out in the atrium until we could enter the museum.
His favorite flower was sunflowers because they are robust flowers like the peasants he preffered to pain when he began as an artist.
The museum follows his career from his early days as an artist until his death by suicide. His career as an artist only lasted 10 years from roughly his 27th birthday until he died at age 37. While he was not commercially successful during his life time he was well known within art circles and admired. After his death a lot of his paintings went to his sister in law who eventually donated them to the museum.
A painting by Van Gogh of Gauguin’s chair in his studio.
Van Gogh had a contentious relationship with Gauguin. It was during the aftermath of a fight with Gauguin that Van Gogh famously amputated his own ear.
The famous painting of a wheat field.
We were pleased with the museum. It was small enough to be easy to navigate, but had an extensive collection of his paintings representing his entire short (but prolific) career. It was not so crowded that you could not get a good look at all of the paintings, even the famous ones.
His final painting.
The Van Gogh museum is considered one of the must see places in Amsterdam. And now that we have visited it we are glad we did.
Albert Cuyp Market Street.
When we came out of the market the skies had opened up, and there was some blue between the big cumulus clouds. We headed down to the Albert Cuyp market which takes up several blocks of Albert Cuyp street. We were near the end of the day but still enjoyed the walk. We stopped in an old restaurant and got two famous Dutch foods. Bitterballen, and Apple pie. Apple Pie is self explanatory but Dutch apple pie is very good. Bitterballen is a fried ball of dough with a meat puree like filling. I think we liked the apple pie better but we can now say we have had bitterballen.
We spent the rainy day hanging around François getting over jet lag and planning for our unexpected extended stay in Amsterdam. We have been trying to go to the Van Gogh museum here, but were never able to get tickets. Today we were able to get tickets for tomorrow so we are off to Amsterdam to tick off one of our bucket list items for the Netherlands. Ton has come up with some other good ideas for the weekend so we will be busy being tourists the next few days.
