back in action

The queue at the Nespresso shop was out of the door when it opened at 10 and I turned up to buy some more capsules. Apparently they had a special offer on, and a friendly fellow in the queue told me “We Dutch are cheap, you know.” I assured him the right words were frugal, or careful. Anyway, eventually we got in and replenished vital supplies.

Then it was off again, heading along the canal that winds right through the centre of Utrecht, fortunately with bridges high enough for us to pass under. Here are some shots:

There was a bit of a holdup at the lock at the top of the town, but fortunately it is a big one and so all nine waiting boats were able to fit in with ease. Then it was off up the River Vecht, which lives up to its reputation for charm and attractiveness, even if at the beginning it is lined with houseboats:

There was plenty of traffic on the river, in both directions, and some delays at lifting bridges. Riverside homes looked expensive, though quite a few were for sale. Plenty of colourful and well-tended gardens …

… and even the odd castle:

Another lock - charging 5 euro - brought us to the Loosdrecht lagoon:

Where we refueled and met up with Leslie and Ethan, mooring in a marina right in front of their hotel. Tomorrow morning they collect their hire boat, and we will set off in convoy. Not sure where - planning meeting tonight over dinner!

A curate's egg of a day

Utrecht is really a very nice city. We walked to the centre, which is not very far from where we are moored for a couple of nights (we did end up having to pay for both mooring and electricity, but not very much and it is worth it). The city is dominated by the immensely high Dom tower:

You can pay to climb the 465 stairs to get to see the view from the top, but we decided to pass on that this time. As we wandered, we were amused to see a very professional garbage collecting boat on the canal that goes right through the centre, along which we will be passing tomorrow:

Also this Dutch take on the Lady Godiva story (perhaps)

And a stall possibly specializing in cocktails – Bloody Mary anyone?

However our main aim in the morning was to visit the Rietveld Schröderhuis, which as everyone knows, of course, is a UNESCO World Heritage site; a house designed by famed Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld. 

However our efforts turned up certain failings in the Utrecht city tourist information  system. First, the official tourist map indicated a walk of 10 minute: actually it took half an hour, with intermittent showers along the way. Second, the official brochure didn’t mention that you have to make a reservation to visit the house. You can’t just walk in off the street as we did.  Unfortunately there were no free slots for a long time, so after photographing a cabinet full of models of the Rietveld furniture …

… and watching a rather uninspiring video seated on excruciatingly uncomfortable Rietveld chairs, we headed back to the centre, this time by bus. We then lunched at a pleasant café, and walked down to the Centraal Museum, which is supposedly the best in town, and is also quite close to our mooring. However, maybe because we have been seeing too many great museums and galleries on this trip, but this time we were definitely underwhelmed, though we did enjoy seeing some original Rietveld chairs ...

... and trying out some replicas, though they were not all particularly comfortable. We also enjoyed a large and intricate doll’s house – every room furnished and peopled:

Then it was back to the boat to recover from our exertions and make contact with Lesley and Ethan, and arrange to rendezvous tomorrow. We will aim to moor in the marina right outside their hotel at Loosdrecht.

Utrecht tonight

Here we are at Utrecht, after a day of extreme changes in the weather. A lashing thunderstorm shortly after we had got up and breakfasted in bright sunshine. But then we set off down the river/canal, discussing the clouds and the sky, and how it is easier to understand Dutch landscape painting after you have spent some time here in conditions like this.

Here are some clouds:

And here are some more

A high point of the day was calling at the marina where we will be leaving Saskia for the winter. It is a new port, with room for 300 boats in the water and another 180 in four enormous heated hangars: Saskia will be in one of those after we leave her there at the end of August.  They will clean the hull and superstructure, and winterize and eventually de-winterize the engine - which means changing the oil, filters etc. We also met a painter to discuss doing some touching up on the rust that is inevitably showing through the paintwork: the boat is, after all, more than 50 years old. He will e-mail me an estimate, which will doubtless be enormous. But doing the maintenance before things get too bad is sensible and should save money in the long run, and I hope that keeping the boat inside over the winter will also reduce the progress of rust etc. And the port at St Jean de Losne, where we expect to return next year, has just built a dry store too, which is good news.

After lunch at a not very distinguished quayside, we progressed to Utrecht, and found a nice place on a pontoon along a grassy bank, with electricity, apparently free, though no water. We will have to shower carefully!

Here’s a lifting bridge, lifting, on the way into Utrecht, with more clouds in the background.

Tomorrow we will be doing more culture stuff, then heading north to Loosdrecht to meet up with our California friends Lesley and Ethan, who are hiring a boat there for a week. We will be cruising in company – not sure where! However, we are universally assured that the Dutch summer is going to start this weekend, with the temperature reaching 31 degrees on Monday.

Witching hour

Sorry to go on about the weather, but it really was very cold and wet when we set off this morning, although it did clear up later in the day.  After the first bridge, we had to go through a rare lock to get to the Hollandsche Ijssel river, where we are now. Naturally it rained in the lock, but we were able to use our favourite grappling hook to hang on, holding the rope from inside the wheel-house.

Oddities along the river included a Venetian gondola, which we passed too quickly to photograph well:

Some of the lifting bridges collect a fee, by dangling a mini clog on the end of a fishing pole as you pass through:

The rate was 4.50 Euro, which seemed quite steep, but on the other hand almost everything here in Holland has been completely free, so we shouldn’t grumble.

We stopped in late morning at the little town of Oudewater, which is mainly famous as being the place where women accused of being witches, or who wanted to avoid such accusation, could get themselves weighed and certified as being of normal weight for their build. The point being that it was believed that witches had to be unnaturally light to fly around on broomsticks, and Oudewater was rare in having the reputation for honest weighing.

We walked into town and located the little museum, where the original scales are to be found: you can get yourself weighed and certified even today!

And upstairs, where there was quite a harrowing audio-visual, there was also a photo of the late Queen Juliana on the scales:

Once again we bought fried fish at a mobile stall in the square, and carried it back to the boat for an early lunch. Very delicious it was too. After that we headed on, towards the next town, Montfoort, which is where we are now moored up for the night, having done a biggish shop at a convenient supermarket close by, and also visited a wine shop. Along the river there was more evidence of storm damage, including this fallen tree.

And to conclude, more pix of Saskia. The galley - note the Nespresso machine, though unfortunately it only works when we are plugged into shore power. Also the washing machine and fridge.:

And the larder (newly replenished):

Gridlock on the canal

It was an extremely busy day on the canal: it seemed as if every Dutch person with a cabin cruiser - or indeed sail boat - was heading somewhere for their holidays, with a few commercial barges adding to the mixture. We were delayed right from the start but finally went through the first bridge. We enjoyed cruising through the outskirts of town: there seems to be a boat for every house:

Along the way we saw a couple of people reaching into the canal with a pole, then calling and waving to us frantically. At first we feared someone in the water but it turned out to be a seat cushion and we were able to nudge it back to the bank so they could retrieve it. They were extravagantly grateful:

We spotted an unusual thatched cottage – not a material much used here any more, as in England I think, also a converted water tower, which must have a fine view from the top.

Then we hit the mega traffic jam, with a swing bridge temporarily out of action in the middle of the small town of Alphem. There were more than a dozen boats queuing when we got there and many more came up behind.

The situation, already tricky with a blustery wind - lots of whirring bow-thrusters - was further confused by the arrival of this fellow, who naturally felt he should take precedence over everyone else: might is right, after all!

But eventually we got through and made our way to Gouda, famous for its cheeses and stained glass windows – well, everyone has to be famous for something. Didn’t Andy Warhol say that? As in many of these Dutch towns, the city hall is located right in the middle of the market square:

At its height apparently more than a thousand farmers would come to the square to sell their cheeses. Not so many these days, and certainly not on a Monday. Anyway, across the square we found the cheese museum, with a nice bas relief of the cheese weighing process:

And naturally we bought some good unpasteurized cheese to replenish our supplies, before pausing for a beer, and then heading for the cathedral, which is dedicated to John the Baptist and has an amazing series of 16^th stained glass windows telling his life story. They are indeed very fine, the faces in particular. Here he is at the end of his life:

And we could resist a last glimpse of Jesus on his way to heaven.

Not sure how far we will go tomorrow – depends a bit on the weather. The CNN 10-day forecast is not too reassuring, varying from rain to showers to cloudy to thunder storms to more rain. However the lady in the cheese museum said it would be sunny on Wednesday. We will see. And we are not complaining – we did, after all, come north to avoid the great Mediterranean heatwave.

After the storm

It was a quiet night when the wind finally died down, and the day dawned bright and sunny, which was a relief. We set off for Leiden through a series of lifting bridges, all controlled from a central point. The system works very well, with few delays. After a while we even came to a lock, in the middle of a small town, with cafés on the lock wall.

On the way out, after going down all of 35 centimetres,  there were a couple of bronze statues to admire.

The owner of the sailboat locking through with us said that yesterday’s storm was the worst summer storm recorded in Holland since 1914, while apparently Reuters says it was the worst July storm ever recorded in the Netherlands, with one person killed and much disruption to transport. If Reuters says so, it must be true! Certainly we saw a lot of tree branches down along the canal. At lunchtime we found our way to the municipal moorings in Leiden and found a space to tie up. After lunch it was the walk into the centre heading for the Botanical Gardens, which are some of the oldest in the world.

The gardens are attached to the university, and are bordered on one side by a canal. They are delightful, even if many of the flowers had passed their best. In the vast glasshouses, there were orchids and other exotics to enjoy.

There was also storm damage here:

Our next target was a museum in a windmill, another longish walk across town, but well worth it:

We hadn’t realized how many different functions the mills had, not just milling, but pumping water to keep the land dry, cutting timber into planks and all sorts of other things. The family lived on the lower floors:

And you don’t really appreciate the size of the sails until you get up onto the platform:

When we emerged, it was starting to rain again – I hope the fine weather hasn’t gone for good. We could do without another storm.

As a postscript, in response to popular demand, i.e. a comment from Claudia, here are a couple of pix of Saskia’s main cabin, by day …

… and ready for bed:

Storm bound in den Haag

The day started badly, with a massive thunderstorm in the night, and got worse. However, undeterred, we set off for our cultural experience – a long walk to the station through rather uninspiring cityscape. Then a five minute train ride to the centre that cost 3.50 euro each, which seemed on the steep side, but it was better than walking. At the central station, we could appreciate how the Dutch maybe avoid paying such fares:

We struggled our way through increasing rain and howling wind to our main target, which was the Royal Collection at Mauritshuis – rich guys were really rich in those days!

Inside we found a really terrific collection, along with other refugees from the storm. Holbein, van Dyke, Rembrandts aplenty, Vermeer, of course, Franz Hals and all the other great Dutch painters of the 17^th century. Vermeer’s Delft scene included the gate we passed and photographed yesterday:

And of course, this instantly recognizeable young woman was the subject of many a selfie:

Altogether it was a thoroughly satisfying visit, including finding The Goldfinch, subject of Donna Tartt's novel, which Diana has recently read. That photo did not come out well, but the house was magnificent:

Emerging into increasingly vile weather, we headed for the City Hall building designed and executed by the sometimes controversial American architect Richard Meier. We have greatly appreciated his Millennium church in Rome and also his Ara Pacis building, though many hate that, and last summer we came across a gallery of his in Germany, which we liked. So here’s the massive building from the outside:

And a charming sculpture which seemed to have a good message about inclusiveness and integration:

Inside, the building, in which 2,500 civil servants toil away (though not at the weekend), has a massive 10-storey atrium. It was a wonderful airy space, including an outside café where we paused for a refreshing beer.

Then it was back into the storm, clinging to each other to avoid being blown over by the gusts roaring round the corners of the high-rise building. The wet paving was slippery and it was a perilous walk back to the station. We took the expensive train ride back, and then the long walk, in wind and lashing rain, to the boat, arriving completely soaked through. The storm was doing a fair amount of damage including this tree branch:

Finally we reached the harbour, where we met an intrepid mariner who told us that it was blowing force 9 out at sea. He was going home to drink beer. Actually it felt like it here. There was no question of setting sail today: the problem with high winds in confined spaces is controlling the boat without doing damage to others, and also what to do when you have to stop to wait, in this case for a bridge to open, or elsewhere for a lock. So we were relieved to find Saskia reasonably comfortable, and dry, and immediately fired up the central heating, poured some wine and had a late lunch.

By late afternoon the storm seemed to be easing, so perhaps tomorrow morning we will get away to Leiden. Meanwhile we will run the engine for a while so we get hot water for a shower in the morning.