Netherlands Bucket List

In a few weeks Grant will begin his senior year of high school which means that I probably have less than a year left of living in The Netherlands.  So I've started a list of things I want to see before I leave, my Netherland Bucket List.

Last weekend I joined the Sechlers to visit Den Bosch, known for three things:  St. Johns Cathedral, canal tours through the city and Bossche bollen.   We did two out of three; the canal tour line was too long.

St. Johns was built in the 1500's and is described by Wikipedia as "the height of gothic architecture in The Netherlands".  I agree, it is impressive.  Especially for a Dutch cathedral.

The organ casing featured beautifully carved wood.  

The cover on the baptismal font was so big that it required an ornamental davit to lift and swing it out of the way.  

"Angel with Mobile Phone" by Centralasian Creator:Ton Mooy 

In a recent restoration 25 new angels were added, including one wearing jeans and using a mobile phone.  The sculptor said the phone was a direct line to God.

Bossche Bollen are spherical pastries filled with whipped cream and coated with chocolate.  No calories there.  If you don't want to travel to den Bosch you can just go to your local Albert Heijn grocery store and buy them there.

This weekend I traveled to de Hoge Veluwe National Park in the center of Holland.  This park contains a variety of landscapes including marsh, sand and pine forests.  The landscape is almost rolling, a rare thing in this country.  

I wanted to beat the crowds so I got there at 8:00 when the park opened.  I was the only one.  

 One of the best features of the park is its 40 km of paved bike trails.  They encourage biking by providing 1700 free bikes stationed throughout the park.  You just grab a bike, ride to an interesting spot and leave it there.  When you're ready to go again, your bike may be there or it may not.  If not, just grab another one.  That's the theory anyway.  I took my own bike so I never tested that theory.

Some of the 1700 free white bikes.  

The trails were great

In some areas I felt like I was riding through the African savannah.  But I didn't see any herds of zebra or kudu or wildebeest.  In fact, despite a brochure that claimed the park "was known for its various species of wildlife" the only animal I saw was a bunny.  

That is a sand dune in the background.  And the park is 150 km from the North Sea.  

One problem with free bikes is that they get left in the middle of nowhere.  I saw these two at 8:30 so I'm pretty sure people hadn't ridden them in the morning.  Who knows where how they got back to their car.  

Only the Dutch would station a bike pump along the trail.  

These guys were sitting in the yard of a home in nearby Hoenderloo.  

The cycling in de Hoge Veluwe nice but the cycling is nice everywhere in Holland.  So why do people go there?  Because right in the center of the park is the Kroller-Muller Museum, home to the second largest collection of van Gogh paintings in the world.  At the beginning of the century Mrs. Kroller-Muller was quite an art collector.  She had over 10,000 pieces of art.  

"The Potato Eaters" is considered to be one of van Gogh's first hits.  The museum contains over 90 of his paintings.  And since this year is the 125th anniversary of his death, they had even more.  And when you go first thing on Saturday morning you can enjoy them almost by yourself.  Get as close as you want and really look at his brush strokes.  Plus there are some Picasso's and Monet's.  Not bad for a museum in Hoenderloo, The Netherlands.

The entrance to the park....a van Gogh in a field of sunflowers.  

But wait, there's more.  There is a sculpture garden with over 100 pieces spread throughout a beautiful green lawn.  

This guy reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock.  

Some sculptures were more bizarre than others.  

This statue looks a little out of place in this sandy area......

And in real life it's even more out of place.  Or should I say out of the way, in the middle of a sand dune.  

 From the brochure, "One of the most impressive works of art is undoubtedly the statue of General De Wet in the Otterlose Zand area, designed by Joseph Mendes Da Costa. Christiaan de Wet was a general during the South African Boer Wars in the late nineteenth century. De Wet was a close personal friend of the Kröller-Müllers. The statue can be found in the Otterlose Zand area, with General De Wet looking out over the sandy plains and steppes. The statue was deliberately placed here as the landscape bears a striking resemblance to that of South Africa. Incidentally, the general is facing in the direction of his homeland."  I still think it's an odd placement.  

The Kroll-Mullers also had a hunting lodge built on the grounds.  They had the tower built to provide a viewing place for their estate.  

At the park museum they displayed the root system of a 135 year old beech tree.  Not very deep; now we know why so many trees blew down several weeks ago.