Alkmaar today

We woke early with the sun pouring in. It was an idyllic morning, though lots of dew on the grass, so we had our coffee inside. We set off quite punctually, but quickly hit a lock that didn’t open till 9.00. Never mind. The run down to Alkmaar was smooth, without dredging delays or others. Even the rail bridge opened quite quickly. It is quite an impressive arrival:

Like so many of these Dutch towns and cities, there are plenty of people living in floating homes along the canals and rivers on the way in. This one had two stories, which is more than most:

We lunched on an outer quayside, but were soon visited by a rather formidable young women who told us where to go – into an inner harbour, where we are now comfortably moored up for a couple of days:

There was a bit of drama right opposite shortly after we arrived. Not sure exactly what happened, but somehow a young women jumped or fell from a first-floor window. The ambulance and police were already on the scene when it happened, so she was quickly attended too. Our harbour-mistress said she thought it was a drug-related incident. Sad.

After that excitement, we headed out into the town, and once again found it to be a handsome place …

… with busy, narrow streets. No cars, but lots of bicycles, and indeed mobility scooters, which travel silently and at great speed in Holland.

We found the Great Church, which is now more of a museum, but there was a wedding being celebrated, at the west rather than east end. A civil ceremony, we thought. Plenty of glasses and bottles were being laid out in the main aisle.  Both bride and groom made their entrances to distinctly modern and non-religious music. We particularly admired the younger bridesmaid for refusing to wear shoes!

The town is evidently getting ready for a funfair over the weekend, and we're hoping it will be far enough away from us so we get some sleep. Not sure if the town hall was getting a brush up as part of the preparations:

We ended up in the cheese market square – given over to bars and cafés today:

Then back to the boat. Altogether a most attractive town:

Tomorrow the plan is to take in the cheese market display, and then hop on a train to Amsterdam to have a look at the tall ships assembled there – and also buy more oatcakes from Marks and Spencer! We are contemplating joining the procession on Sunday when the ships return down the North Sea canal to Ijmuiden.

Castles in Holland

We woke at the usual time, to blessed silence from the barge across the harbour inhabited by high-spirited teenagers on some kind of summer camp. They were quite shrill last night, especially showing off when a drone came over:

Rather spooky actually. Is this the future? Or maybe they were interested in our plutocratic neighbour:

Anyway, off we set to explore the town, which is quite small. Several cafés, many clothes shops, a few food shops. We appreciated this lady taking her family to wherever:

Then it was time to head for the castle, which opens at 11 – like so many things in the Netherlands. We had to wait for several yachts to pass through the lifting bridge to get out of the harbour – the other side of the coin:

The castle, originally built in the 14^th century, but subsequently destroyed and rebuilt in the 16^th, is quite impressive, situated at the mouth of the harbour:

While we were waiting for it to open we saw the summer camp kids labouring to raise the mizzen on their barge – they eventually managed it, hangovers presumably cast aside:

The castle was fun, though not massively exciting. A high point, bizarrely, was an exhibition of lingerie – ladies’ undergarments – from the middle ages to the present day:

That was certainly original. I cannot think of seeing anything like it. This poor fellow in the gaol cell was obviously overcome by the excitement:

So we returned to the boat and headed back up the canals – the locks to get out of the harbour worked very smoothly in our favour. We lunched on the way, finding a mooring with a flat quayside for us to set up table and chairs in the sun (yes sun, they do sometimes have it in Holland). Then we tackled the low bridge, and it had another go at the masthead light, which now looks distinctly sad and battered. But now we are moored up on a grassy bank at Kolhorn, deck chairs out and enjoying yet more sunshine.

Tomorrow should be Alkmaar and the cheese fair on Friday.

Through to West Friesland

To our great surprise, when we woke up this morning it wasn’t raining! It had been during the night, and we suffered a few drips in bed, but actually these were, I think, more down to condensation on the windows than the rain getting in.

But enough of the weather – which anyway improved this afternoon. After breakfast we headed into town to check out the museum: a not entirely successful excursion. We found the sail-through auction house ...

... and were intrigued and wanted to get in. But it turned out you couldn’t do that: the only option was a 16 euro ticket, including an hour-long boat trip – starting in an hour – round the lagoon of islands where the vegetables are grown, then a fashion show, then a mock auction. The whole thing taking up most of the day. So sadly, we declined and decided to get going.

Around the first bend, we had another dredging incident …

… this time complicated by the barge unloading dirt to reinforce the dyke. Two other cruisers arrived shortly after us, and eventually we all got through. We stopped for lunch, and then dropped down a surprisingly deep lock …

… into the West Friesland polder. About five metres below where we were, and, as we discovered, even more below sea level. Most of the bridges on this canal were high enough for us, fortunately because they are fixed, not lifting. One was a tight squeeze, and the masthead light – already suffering from a previous encounter – touched again. However the barbecue survived, which is the most important item.

To get into Medemblik, which is a former fishing port, now a big yachting centre, meant two more locks, which were time-consuming, but eventually we found an excellent spot on the outer end of a pontoon. Twice the price of last night, but never mind. On with the central heating once again to warm up after a chilly day, and no need for ice in the whisky.

Medemblik also boasts a castle, which we will try to explore tomorrow.

The rain, it raineth every day ...

This will be a short blog post. The main thing to report is that it rains a lot in Holland: it rained all last night and all day today, so far. The locals blame the British – after all, the UK sits to the west of Holland, and that’s where the weather is coming from. We just keep hoping for sunshine one day soon.

 After a sortie to the nearby supermarket, we sailed through a couple of lifting bridges that didn’t keep us waiting, and onto the North Holland Canal (Noordhollandsch Kanal) – a wide commercial waterway, though we didn’t see many barges. Given the conditions, at first there was hardly any traffic, and in the first hour the only other boat we saw was flying an Australian flag.  It was a question of closing the windows and switching on the wiper:

Trying to get a view of the passing landscape - let alone photograph anything - was not easy:

We made good time, though, and stopped for lunch just short of Alkmaar, which we will be visiting properly later in the week for the Friday cheese market. We thought we might make it up to Kolhorn, but an hour-long delay at a lifting railway bridge scuppered that plan: the computerized navigation system, which takes into account things like bridge opening times, decided we wouldn’t get there until tomorrow morning! There was also a brief delay when the floating suction boom of a dredger drifted across the channel – in fact this was the most exciting thing that happened all day:

A couple of toots on the horn alerted the guys, and one came speeding out in his motor launch to push it out of our way:

Good to the see the canals getting the maintenance they need – but then the Dutch do take everything to do with water seriously.

We decided to stop for the day at the village of Broek op Langedijk, which is apparently famous for its floating vegetable gardens and auction market. We haven’t investigated yet, given the rain, but plan to do so in the morning, for which the forecast is marginally better. At least the municipal port is comfortable, with electricity and water to hand.

Fishy days at Volendam

It was wet again in the night, and grey this morning, but nothing daunted we set off for the bus station – only a step away in fact - to catch a bus for Volendam. This is a twin town with Edam, has a nice little port, and is a favourite Dutch tourist destination. The bus journey was short and easy, and we strolled into the town, which lies below the level of the Ijsselmeer, and up onto the dyke, to be met by this formidable lady:

The port was quite busy, with a river cruise ship tied up, but pleasant enough. Some old sailing barges too, and a replica pirate ship.

Several yachts were heading out onto the meer and hoisting sails – the wind was quite gentle and it looked fun, even if the sky was very grey.

We sat on the dyke contemplating the scene for a while, to be joined by this optimist:

And plenty like this unidentifiable one, which our one Dutch reader later told us was a starling:

Volendam is famous for its fish, and there were plenty of shops and stalls offering their wares. We found this one which looked reasonably authentic, and tucked into a nourishing mid-morning snack.

That worked up a bit of a thirst, so we relaxed at a café before the arduous walk back to the bus stop. Meanwhile the town was filling up with tourist groups – plenty of Japanese, but we also heard Spanish, Italian and others unknown.

It resumed raining shortly after we got back to the boat, so we had lunch in the hope that it would stop, but it didn’t really, so we set off anyway for the short trip round to Purmerend, where we are now tucked up. They even had to raise the railway bridge to let us in:

Tomorrow further north – in search of the sun!

Pufferjies in Edam

It was something of a relief to leave Amsterdam. An amazing city, with amazing things to visit and see – many of which we did – but unbelievably crowded at this time of year. Without question the most touristy place we have visited on the trip so far, and we are not really used to that. The congestion in the marina reflected the general overcrowdedness: many boats were trying to leave,  but the way latecomers had been crammed in yesterday meant that it was 11.30 before we finally reached open water. One delay came when the lady on a large yacht blocking the way out was found to be taking a shower!

Good humour prevailed, however, and eventually it all came good. We set off up a small canal heading for Edam. At first we passed a line of rather hippyish looking boats, many openly growing cannabis in pots on deck. There were canoeists out too, and we wondered what the English health and safety brigade would say about this little fellow's equipment:

Finally we managed to photograph one of the constructions that have intrigued me in Holland, which is the device for keeping the rain off your hay stack. The roof can be wound up and down on pulleys at the top of the four posts at the corners. Very clever, these Dutch:

Much of the time we were cruising along above, indeed well above, the level of the surrounding countryside. Unexpected to be looking down on the cows:

We arrived at Edam in mid-afternoon, to find that the lifting bridge giving access to the centre only lifts once an hour, and we had just missed one opening. So we decided to moor up anyway and walk in – it is not a large town. To our delight we found that they were having their big day of the year – a sort of car boot sale, or vide grenier in French. Dozens of families laying out their unwanted stuff along the streets and canals and hoping to make a bob or two. The children entered enthusiastically into the spirit of the thing, bawling out their special offers:

This stall caught the eye – perhaps for the wrong reasons:

But the big moment came when we came across a stall selling pufferjies, a kind of little puffy pancake that you can eat with honey or chocolate, though we chose the classic butter and icing sugar. We had read about this national dish, which is a specialty for holidays, fairs and parties, but always failed to find them. The mother and daughter selling them from a little van had nearly run out, so we were definitely lucky – and they were delicious:

The main square had a comfortable café for refreshment ...

... then it was back to the boat via a cheese shop that also sold wine and ham and chocolate:

Arty Amsterdam

Apologies to disappointed readers for lack of a post yesterday, but – well, we got back from a hard day of culture rather hot and exhausted, and I convinced myself that it would be unkind to subject you to two days of culture posts, so I would put it all together today. That’s the story, anyway.

We set off yesterday morning eager to join the fray, but our enthusiasm was tempered slightly when we saw the immensely long queue for the Van Gogh museum from the tram - reminded us of the queue for the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. A little discouraged, we decided to visit the Stedelijk Museum next door first. This proved an excellent choice. They had a terrific Matisse exhibition on, about to finish, showing his development through his career, and his relationships with contemporary artists - with good examples of their work alongside his -  and how they influenced each other, and later diverged. There were splendid examples of his work, such as this pair – sea and air:

We were also lucky enough to catch an hour-long documentary telling the story of his relationship with a young (then) nun, who persuaded him to design, build and decorate a chapel for her convent at Vence.

Here is Sister Jacque Marie at the time of the film, about 10 or 15 years ago. She was interviewed at length in the film:

And here is a portrait Matisse painted of her as a young women who he met when she took a job nursing him after an operation:

.

After Matisse, we grabbed a bite of lunch to gather strength for Van Gogh. The queue was still very long:

Either an hour and a half for people arriving on spec, or 45 minutes for those with some advantage, which included our Citycard, we were told. In fact we got in after about 30 minutes. Once in, the paintings were, of course, fabulous, but the crowds of people taking photographs of them, rather than actually looking at them, made the experience somewhat claustrophobic. The trend today seems to be to provide the audio guide via a tablet that shows a picture of the picture being discussed: the result was that many people were standing in front of a painting, looking intently at the tablet.

After those two experiences we decided we had done culture for the day, and cut through the flower market on our way back to base: not only flowers on sale, this being Holland:

We had hoped to watch the meteor storm from the aft deck, but a massive thunderstorm intervened, and it was a very wet night. But fortunately no serious leaks. So this morning it was off again, to the Rijks Museum, the National Gallery.  Here the highlights are, of course, Rembrandt: The Night Watch

And a touching portraint of his son Titus:

Several Franz Hals paintings, and also a couple of wonderful Verneers

 – if you manage to get close enough to see them:

Then it was lunch again, mixed hot Dutch snacks were delicious:

After lunch we took a tram and walked a fair way to the Resistance Museum, which tells the story of Holland’s occupation during WWII, and the various ways in which people dealt with the situation: some collaborating, some just keeping their heads down, and some actively resisting. And then what happened to the resisters, and to the country’s Jewish population. Some of it was quite harrowing, but very well presented, and important for each generation.

Next we dropped in on Rembrandt’s house: interesting, but not a great deal to see. After that it was on through the Red Light district …

… with scantily glad ladies in glass windows and doorways, to the Oude Kerk, the oldest surviving building in the city, dating from the 14^th century.

One of those gavestones on the floor - there are apparently about 2,500 - is that of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia, for whom our Saskia is named. We located it, number 29, but it is a plain slab without inscription. Rather disappointing.

After all of that, it was time to wend our way wearily back to the ferry, and to the boat, feeling we had done the city well, and made full use of our Citycard.