Category: Netherlands

Another trip is in the books. It is one of our shortest since we began touring Europe by RV. Our end of the trip routine is pretty set now, a couple of days to clean up the inside and packing followed by a trip to the truck wash for a good cleaning before putting François in storage for the summer.

This trip we visited two new countries for us in Slovakia and Hungary. Slovakia was a country we knew little about and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. Hungary we had higher expectations and we were very happy. Ton had visited Budapest before, but it was a first for me and I now see why it is on everyone hot list for tours. It was a fantastic city and one of the most beautiful in Europe. The rest of Hungary was scenic and we really enjoyed ourselves. We also spent more time in Czechia and found the countryside and smaller cities to be charming. Vienna was also new to me, and it is an impressive wealth of culture.

We discovered good wine in Slovakia that we had never heard of, and confirmed what we had heard about the good wine in Hungary. The beer in Czechia also didn’t let us down. The food in central Europe is hearty and plentiful, but we still prefer southern European food.

It was a cold trip until the last week but also one of the driest. Spring traveling is always a roll of the dice, but in this case we came out pretty positive.

We haven’t locked onto a location for our fall trip, though Ton seems to have Spain on her mind. Stay tuned.

Today is our last day of fun on the trip. Tomorrows agenda is packing up, getting François an overdue bath, and heading to storage. But since we got most of the work done yesterday to prepare for storage, Ton agreed that we could go into the center for a last day of fun.

The reason we base out of the campsite in Gaasperplas is it is a 10 minute walk from the metro station. Plus it is the first/last stop of the M53 line so it makes navigating easy. Today we got off at the Nieumarket stop to head for a pastry shop Ton had picked out.

The city looked a little worst for wear after the long weekend. City workers were out in force cleaning up the debris from the party that must have been Whitsunday weekend. The first place was about 20 minutes from the metro stop but was not what we were expecting. Ton had a back up which was about 20 minutes from that place, but it was also not what she was expecting. I was hoping for some of the famous apple pie the Netherlands is famous for. I mentioned a place that looked promising, it was about 25 minutes from where we were. When we got there it didn’t look good either. So after over an hour of walking on the hottest day of the year, (part of the reason we headed into the city was to find some cool air) we hadn’t found anything.

We decided to give up on pastries and apple pies and head to a bar we like for a cold beer. After a short 10 minute walk we arrived at the bar, and it was closed. At this point we were close to giving up but Ton saw a bar that looked promising across the street and we went in. We were met with an empty bar, but a blast of cold air-conditioned air so we were hoping for the best. The bartender came in and asked what we wanted so we had found our place.

Our bartender was named Ank which couldn’t be more Dutch, but she was a treat. The bar was everything we expected from Amsterdam 6 good beers and lots of wood and old curiosities. Ank told us her clientele was still 80% Dutch with just enough foreigners mixed in to make it interesting. She asked about our day and Ton told her about our failed quest to find apple pie. A couple of minutes later she said I have an idea, and left us alone in the bar. About 5 minutes later she returned with an apple pie, she said her friends mother in law made it. Now that is service beyond the call of duty. The apple pie was delicious and the atmosphere and company made this the most memorable meal of the trip. A good end to the day.

Today we spent the morning watching the Witsunday exodus from the park. There was a steady stream of motorhomes and caravans going by our spot by the entrance in the park. Yesterday all 496 places in this large park were occupied. This evening there are maybe 125 places occupied.

Our experience in the last week convinced us that we could never enjoy Europe in the summer. Having to book each and every stay would take all of the joy and spontaneity out of traveling. Plus campgrounds teeming with people are not relaxing for us.

We spent most of the day packing for our trip home on Thursday. As usual Ton packed and I stood by to occasionally help hand her things or move heavy bags once they were packed. We are about 90% there and still have a day and a half to go so I have proposed a sojourn to downtown Amsterdam tomorrow. Ton is thinking on it.

Well Whitsunday weekend beat us. We like to travel in François so we have flexibility in where we go. This weekend our ability to just show up was taken from us. Our original plan of traveling slowly across Germany from Friday to Sunday was overcome by events and we ended up in a hotel on Saturday night. The first time this has happened in 8 years of traveling here.

We woke up in the morning and started looking for a place we could stay in ever increasing arcs from where we were. We didn’t trust stellplatz’s as we expected they would be full. After checking about 10 different places we checked the place we end our trips at in Amsterdam and already had a place booked for tomorrow and they showed a spot available today so we booked it and relaxed until check out time in the hotel.

The drive was busy and at one point Ton said I don’t think anyone in Germany or the Netherlands is staying home. We arrived at the large campground near Amsterdam and were assigned spot number 469. There are 470 spots in this campground and they are all full.

As we were driving Ton looked up Whitsunday and it is a minor Catholic holiday but it falls in May and appears to be the beginning of summer holiday much like Memorial day in the US. In our previous 7 years of traveling it had never bothered us which is why we were caught so off guard. But, I do remember last May we were surprised when our off the beaten path campground in the Ardennes in Belgium suddenly turned into Woodstock. It was Whitsunday. So from now on we have a new planning point for our travels in the spring. Book a place for Whitsunday weekend in advance if we are in western Europe!

Maastricht is a town on a small handle of land that sticks down between Germany and Belgium. If you travel 20 kilometers east you are in Germany if you travel to the western city limits you are in Belgium and if you travel 20 kilometers south you are also in Belgium.

We had stopped near Maastricht on our third visit to Europe way back before Covid. We did not go into town, but had bookmarked it for a future trip. A quick bus ride from the campground deposited us on the riverfront in the center of town. The Maas River (in Belgium and France it is called the Meuse River) cuts thru the center of the city.

Most of the town is located on the west bank of the river which is where we were headed. It is an old town that dates back to the Celts around 500 BC. The Romans had a small town here. It became a major city in the middle ages and was a prosperous river trading city.

Today the town is a shopping destination for all three countries in the area. So we weren’t that surprised to find a bustling town. The weather was almost perfect with clear skies and temperatures in the low 70’s.

We started at the market and as usual enjoyed window shopping (or is it table shopping when there are no windows), but the market blocked all of the pretty photos, so after a while we moved on.

Maastricht was on the “border” between Catholic Europe and Protestant Europe during the reformation. As a result as you approach the main church in town it looks like one gigantic church. When you get closer you notice there is a small road splitting the building. It turns out there are two churches side by side, one with an interesting red tower is Protestant, and the larger one is Catholic.

Ton and I are both big fans of libraries and bookstores and today we found our most memorable one. The Dominican Church Book Store is in a repurposed 13th century church. It is spectacular, and we were both thrilled when we entered it.

We spent quite a while walking thru and exploring all of the corners of the store. We both thought that this was a wonderful use of a deconsecrated church.

The place was full of other people who were just as impressed and awed as we were. We could have spent the whole day there but I was getting hungry so we reluctantly left to find some local food. Finding places like this in small cities is one of the reasons I love traveling like we do.

On the way to lunch we saw the entrance for a church that did not look that special from the outside. We were glad we entered though as the magic of this church was on the inside. The Onze-Lieve Vrouwebasilik was much larger on the inside than it looked from the street. Not only did you get to visit the main church but you are allowed to visit the nice garden in the living area for the nuns who used to be here. It was another unexpected surprise delivered to us today.

We set out to find lunch and specifically a dish called Zuurvlees a stew that traditionally was made from horse meat but today is done in beef. The stew has a tangy sour taste and is quite dark. It is usually served with fried potatoes that you dip into the stew. We found a place serving it and ordered one for the two of us. It was delicious and just the right size for us to share.

After lunch we strolled around for a while people watching, and despite it being a Wednesday the people were out in force. As I said the sunshine and warm temperatures seemed to have everyone’s spirits up so it was a jolly crowd walking around town. After a while we crossed the Maas and walked to our bus stop for a trip back to François.

Today we completed our trip to Tilburg by visiting the site that put the city on our map. Just outside Tilburg is another Abbey brewery. The Brouwerij de Koningshoeven brews beer under the trademark La Trappe. When we were looking for a place to settle for Easter we picked Tilburg because of the Abbey brewery.

The brewery is relatively young. The Abbey was founded by French Monks who moved to the Netherlands in the 1880’s. They took over an abandoned royal hunting lodge. To help sustain the Abbey they began brewing beer. The beer caught on and turned into the major source of income for the monastery.

To be designated as an Abbey beer the production must meet three criteria. The beer must be produced on the ground of the Abbey. The beer must be produced by or supervised by a monk. And any profits from the beer must be given to charity.

The problem is that the number of monks is dwindling every year. At Konigshoeven there were 180 monks in the 1950’s. Today there are 18, and the average age is 66. The youngest monk is 35. Several other abbey breweries have lost their designation because they no longer had a monk on site due to death and retirement.

They produce 1 million liters of La Trappe beer per year which is a lot of beers for 18 monks. Today most of the work is done by non-monks. They also have a tie in with a corporation that causes some discomfort for purists.

At the end we were treated to a taste of the beer and it was delicious. Later in the day we did a comparison of the beer from here with a bottle we had from the Abbey we visited in Belgium. They were both delicious, and unique.

After the tour we finally started heading east and ended our day in Maastricht Netherlands, near the German (and Belgian) border. The afternoon was spent taking care of laundry which always makes us happy.

We mostly took Easter Sunday off. The wind was blowing a gale with occasional squalls of rain. We took the opportunity to sleep in, and then had a slow go at the morning.

The campground is located in reclaimed industrial land that was once a switch yard for the rail road. The park is large and wide open. It has been well used since we have been here. We spent most of the day watching hearty souls trying to have family picnics in a gale. It was pretty entertaining for us, maybe less so for the picnickers.

Yesterday when we walked by a big Albert Heijn they had a sign saying they were open 365 days per year which is unusual in Europe. Early in the afternoon we decided to test that statement and took a quick walk there. Even though we didn’t think that we needed anything we somehow ended up coming back with two full bags of groceries. That was the highlight of our Easter.

We checked out Tilburg today. It is the 5th largest city in the Netherlands. When the textile industry collapsed in the 1960’s the city went thru a period of modernization and one mayor in particular oversaw the razing of many of the older buildings in the city to replace them with “modern” buildings. His decision to tear down the historic city hall and replace it with a nine story black rectangle is particularly lamented now.

The skyline is filled with typical office towers and high rise apartments. We tend to like Dutch modern architecture a little better than what we see in the US, but it is still mostly tall rectangles.

Lately the city has been trying to repurpose the older buildings rather than tear them down. The best example is the city library which was built in an old locomotive repair building.

They have done a fantastic job of converting the interior of this industrial space into a modern and airy library. It retains some of the details from the old use including a 30 ton crane that was used to lift the locomotives. But the library space is well done and quite airy. Both Ton and I really enjoyed walking around the building and admiring the details that went into the conversion. This building is really unique. Ton really enjoys libraries and book shops and they are unfortunately becoming fewer and fewer in this digital age. This library is one of her favorites.

After we left the library we headed into the city center. Yesterday the town seemed kind of quiet, but Saturday brought out the local people and the town was much more vibrant. We were enjoying the town when we saw the main church and headed in. In a country that is mostly Protestant this part of the country is Catholic so we were curious to see the church.

As we entered a gentleman hit us with a quick blast of Dutch and as soon as he could tell it did not register he switched to English. Ton and I were talking about how spoiled we are in the Netherlands. Very few Dutch do not speak English well, and as a result we have learned almost no Dutch. Also, some of the common words are the same such Hello, and Sorry, words you usually learn in other languages.

To get back to the story, he told us there was a concert getting ready to start at the front of the church and we were welcome to sit in. A young cellist gave a very nice 45 minute concert that I really enjoyed. He was a very talented young man and did a terrific job. We were glad we walked in when we did.

Our next stop was the port in Tilburg. It is a river port as we are quite a way inland. It was a nice walk and they had a few interesting old canal boats docked there.

Walking back we came upon the Saturday market and Tons day was made. We spent a lot of time going from stand to stand and ended up with some rotisserie chicken, and white asparagus. We also indulged in what the Dutch call kibble, which is fried cod. The markets never disappoint over here.

After the market we decided to head back to François to enjoy our chicken and relax for the rest of the day.

We made our first move of the trip about 120 kilometers south to the college town of Tilburg. We are going to spend a few days in this area as our primary motivation is to visit the only Trappist Abby brewery outside of Belgium which is in Tilburg.

But because Easter is one of the major holidays in Europe we were nervous and pre-booked ourselves into a campground for the whole weekend. We have run into problems finding places to stay on Easter in Greece, Poland, and Spain so we didn’t want to take any chances. I thought I was booking us into a major campground, but it turns out to be a small but well appointed municipal aire. When we pulled up we were a little taken aback, as it is a single row of parking spaces that only holds about 10 RV’s wedged between a large apartment building and a very nice park.

The good news it is almost in the city center, and near the train station so we can use Tilburg as a base to go to a couple of near by towns. We may also take a day trip to Belgium to get cheaper Belgian fuel. The Netherlands has the highest fuel prices in Europe and the price has exploded since the Iran war. Today we saw fuel between €2.50 and 2.80 per liter, which is well north of $10 per gallon.

We both slept well last night so a trip into the city center seemed in order. Ton found a new place for us to check out called NDSM.

The temperature had fallen compared to the last two days so we bundled up and headed downtown. The nice thing about this campground is access to the city center is quite simple. It is located at the end of the line for one of the metro lines and the trip to the main train station is only 15 minutes. Once downtown we needed to take one of the free ferries across the river to NDSM.

NDSM is a new artist cooperative on the grounds of an old ship repair facility. The old repair buildings have been converted into artists workshops. We could only visit part of the facility as a major tech convention is going to take place on the site next week and a lot of exhibitions were being set up.

One of the old buildings had been converted to the worlds largest “street art” museum. We walked around the outside, but I balked at the €21.50 entrance fee so we did not go inside. I suspect Ton would have loved it, so now I have non-buyers remorse as I write this.

The other main building contains about 20 artist studios with different kind of art being produced. Ton really enjoyed walking around and looking at the outside of the studios. They are working studios so the public is not allowed inside, you walk thru the old shipyard looking at the art on the outside of the studios.

A lot of the old equipment and catwalks from the buildings previous life as a ship repair building were in still in place. I found myself drawn to the equipment and envisioning how the repairs flowed thru the building. My time working in automobile plants makes these kind of buildings fascinating to me.

The repurposing of the industrial site as artist studios had me a little conflicted. I guess most people would see this as an upgrade from the previous use as a shipyard. I found myself wondering if the original work wasn’t just as interesting as the current work, and if the stories of the shipyard workers wouldn’t be just as interesting as those of the artists currently occupying the space. I guess I am a bit of a dinosaur who misses old fashioned manufacturing as a statement of skill and intellectual knowledge on par with more “intellectual” work.

After NDSM we headed to the second best apple pie in Amsterdam. The Netherlands is rightly recognized as having some of the best apple pie in the world. Last year we went to the apple pie place that was supposed to be the best in Amsterdam. After some debate and searching our memory, I decided that today’s apple pie while being very good and worth the walk, was indeed second best. Ton, couldn’t decide so declared a tie, but pronounced Dutch apple pie better than American apple pie in general.

It was gray, cold and blustery so the walks were done with a sense of purpose and directness we might not have had on a nicer day. But Amsterdam remains a beautiful city to walk in.

Our final walk was to a brewery located in an old nunnery in the infamous red light district of Amsterdam. The nunnery was founded in the 1400’s to offer sanctuary to women of bad reputation who wanted to turn their lives around. This made me wonder if the current red light district goes back to the 1400’s also. The nuns brewed beer to help pay for upkeep of the nunnery. Their beer was in high demand, so when the nunnery was winding up operations they sold their recipes to a private party who continued brewing the beer.

The brewery was the last stop of the day, and even better was located just around the corner from a stop on our train line. We returned to the busy campground and had a light dinner to make up for our huge piece of apple pie.

There was some activity today, but not particularly interesting activity. The day was spent provisioning for the upcoming trip. One of the reasons we like Amsterdam as a base is there are two excellent large Asian groceries near the campground we stay at.

We are now fully stocked up with Thai and other Asian, sauces, spices, and noodles. We also picked up some frozen fish balls which are an important ingredient in a lot of Thai noodle dishes. One of the groceries also has barbecue pork in their deli that Ton has declared the best she has tasted outside of Thailand.

After taking care of our Asian food needs we headed over to an Albert Heijn which is one of the biggest grocery store chains in the Netherlands. After an hour we found ourselves well stocked with the other necessities of life like milk, bread, eggs, and meat.

We then headed back to the campground where Ton played Tetris with our little refrigerator and our limited shelf space. She somehow manages to squeeze an amazing amount of stuff into a little bit of space.

I spent time trying to figure out why the toilet was not dispensing water, unfortunately I was not successful. It looks like the pump may have seized up so a stop at a RV dealer is in our future.

We are still fighting a bit of jet lag, but we are thinking a sojourn into Amsterdam proper may be in the cards for tomorrow.

We did not leave the campground today. We are both jet lagged from yesterday but it is hitting us differently. Ton woke up in the middle of the night and tossed and turned. She finally fell asleep near dawn and slept in until about 10. I slept thru the night, but crashed about 1 pm until 4:30 pm.

We took a walk in the evening and did a census of the vans in the campground. About 250 vans in a campground that holds 450, but it is only March. The population is about 85% German, and there are more kids than normal so we are guessing German schools are on Easter holiday.

The top picture is of the automatic pizza machine that was doing a booming business as we went by. Also, since we were here last they have automated the camp store so there are no humans. You punch a code to get into the store, and pick what you want and checkout at a automatic cashier. I guess this is progress. They have also added an automatic check in machine, though they do open their reception for limited hours of the day for the old timers who prefer to interact with humans.

We traveled to Amsterdam to start our spring trip. The trip today was the smoothest ever. This time we routed ourselves Portland to New York to Amsterdam. The flight from Portland was early and we arrived earlier than usual due to all of the TSA troubles from the government shutdown. There was no line at all so we were thru in record time. Both of the flights arrived very early so our tight connection in New York become a comfortable connection. Our flight to Amsterdam arrived 45 minutes early and we were one of the first international flights of the day so there was no line at immigration and we were thru in under 10 minutes. If all travel days could be so smooth…

We had contacted our storage place to see what time we could arrive. They told us to come as early as we like. They said they would leave the keys in a place that is easy to find but pretty secure. Our Uber driver was a nice guy from Morocco.

The upshot was we arrived at François at 6:15 am. The only glitch was the earliest we could check into the campground was noon. We spent the next three hours unpacking our bags and the plastic boxes we store our left over food in to deter mouse invasions. When I say we the distribution of work is about 90% Ton and 10% Ron.

About 9:15 Ton declared close enough. We decided to take a nap until 10:30 and then head over to Lidl for our first shopping of this trip. We arrived at the campground at high noon and joined a line of 5 German vans. But the check in went quickly and we were parked up 15 minutes after arrival.

Today was as easy as it gets when transiting two countries.

Our fall trip ended as they all do when we dropped François off at the storage. We had plenty of time in the morning to wrap up a few things to prepare François. The place we stayed in Stein was nice, a lot of farmers in the Netherlands seem to have set up side businesses as campgrounds. This one is nice and very new. It made for a good place to spend the last few days.

The one issue with the small campgrounds is that in all three we have stayed at the final kilometer or two to get there are on dike roads. Netherlands is rightfully famous for its systems of pumps and dikes that have allowed it to reclaim a lot of land. This land makes for great farm land. The dikes are pretty tall and narrow and usually there is water on one side. The single lane on top is two way and there are pull outs to allow vehicles to pass. People manage to get around each other using the pull outs and driveways of the farms and homes .

As we were leaving google routed us on a dike road for about 7 kilometers. We were doing fine until I came to a point where there were road signs saying restricted to vehicles less than 2.2 meters wide. François is about 2.4 meters wide. I sat there contemplating what to do. The narrow road did get a slight bit narrower but I thought we would make it. At that point luck intervened and a tractor pulling farm equipment went by me that was wider than François. I took off after him figuring if he could make it we certainly could and I had the added benefit of having him clear other traffic out of the way as long as I stayed close.

Things were going well until I saw a line of cars going the same direction as us stopped on the dike ahead. After a few minutes of idling I saw the farmer get out of the tractor and go ahead to see what was going on. He came back in a few minutes and asked me to follow him into a drive way to get out of the road. We both had to back across a narrow bridge into someones driveway.

He then set off to help direct traffic while Ton and I talked to the owner of the home whose driveway we had occupied. After 20 minutes or so the farmer came back and asked if I could move further down the road to another farm. When we got to the farm we had to get a couple of cars to move so we could go back by the barn and turn around. With the help of the owner of the farm we turned François around and when we were pointed in the right direction the semi-truck had gone by and it was smooth sailing. This whole event took about an hour, and I was impressed about how nonchalant everyone was about the whole thing, the homeowner and farmer were totally nonplussed to have us show up on their property. I guess it happens enough that they are used to it.

The rest of the day was uneventful.

This is always my least favorite day of the trip. Ton spends most of the day packing our bags. I try to help where I can but am mostly useless except to occasionally lift something heavy. Tonight we will be our last night in François for this trip.

One unexpected complication for this trip that I realized today is the fact that we left the Schengen zone when we were in Morocco. This means our 180 day clock restarted when we reentered Spain on October 20, not when we arrived in Amsterdam on September 7. This means our spring trip will have to start later or be shorter than normal. I will be spending more time than normal over the winter using Schengen travel calculators to decide on flight dates. That is a bit of a bummer.

Well after procrastinating as long as we could we finally turned north and are now near Amsterdam. The two places we normally stay at around Amsterdam have both shortened their season and are closed, so I picked a place open year round at random. It is a nice small campground on a farm-and it turns out a historical site.

At the site of the campground there used to be a monastery that for a few years was the home of the philosopher and scholar Erasmus. In the mid-1400’s he was a leading philosopher within the Catholic Church. Before he got to that point he spent several years in Stein as a poor monk in a monastery that used to occupy the site our campground is on. He is a big enough deal in Europe that the program within the EU that allows students to attend any University in the EU no matter their nationality is called the Erasmus project.

We arrived early and Ton spent a couple of hours sorting thru what is going to stay and what is going to get packed tomorrow. I contributed little except to explore the campground and the immediate surrounding areas where I learned about Erasmus.

After Ton had everything sorted we set off to find an ATM as we need some Euros to pay for François’ storage for next year. After accomplishing that we returned to François for a big supper. We have a lot of food to eat in the next day and a half before we head to the hotel at the airport.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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.

There was a nice corner where people could leave dedications to their 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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.