Old silver tongue

Pete, we have discovered in the last little while, is a man of many languages. Last year we couldn’t help noticing that when we were in France he somehow spoke and understood French, with ease; and then, when needed, Spanish and Portuguese. This year, in just a few short weeks, he has become fluent in Dutch, German, and now, Czech. Amazing really. It certainly inspires confidence that he will easily handle the Slovakian, Hungarian and Austrian legs ahead of us. 

This from the bloke who managed not a Near Fail, but a Resounding Flunk, for French in his Junior exams. The guy repeated that study, ad nauseum, and fruitlessly, until, finally, he threw his hands up in defeat, and chose, instead, Pure Maths as the subject easiest to pass in order to matriculate. How does he do it then? Now? At this time of life? We haven’t quite sussed it out, yet, Bec and I, but we’re working on certain yet-to-be-confirmed theories. 

We think it could be an ‘age’ thing. For example, as one becomes increasingly more witless in one area: e.g. can’t remember to turn off the car lights, can’t find any set of keys for any function at all, can’t tell left from right directionally – one’s brain, quite possibly, percolates from having no task at all left to do in any of these dead areas. 

And somewhat like a sat nav simply refuses to roll over and die. It scrambles left-right, right-left, zig-zagging all over the place, until zooming, it finds a new direction, zeroes in on a specific target area, and focuses. Clearly. Acutely. Quickly. Specifically in the cognitive area of language in Pete’s case, we think. Once realigned, the brain, finding this new fast facility, sails, once more, purposefully along on its usual calm and relatively unflustered waters. 

Or it could be a ‘boy’ thing. We haven’t yet seen girls do this, so this is becoming a strong contender, as theory. Especially since this language facility has been spontaneous, off the wall, and speedy in its acquisition which are the usual indicators of elevated hormonal activity. So, that is quite feasible too. 

Fascinating it is to watch. We come to a campsite for a night, park, and wait, Bec and I. Before long there is Pete: mixing it with the best of them. He and just about every other male within cooee, end up clustered together in a chummy circle chatting, communicating. Volubly. Be it German, Czech, French, Spanish or Italian. 

There he is listening: arms folded, bouncing back and forth on his heels as he waits, champing at the bit while the others have their say. That’s him getting his two cents in: gesticulating wildly as usual, arms flailing north for this clarification, east for that. And they 'get' it. You can see them nodding, eyes all a’glitter, getting it. Getting him. Getting each other. Chewing the cud, cogitating, chatting for hours, they all could. And whomsoever maintained that language was a barrier to communication has never seen Pete, or these guys, in action. 

Kraals. We have even hypothesized that this may be a ‘kraal’ thing. The way men in South Africa gather for thoughts of the day around the kraal fire: discussing the meaning of life, and what to do about the morrow, and all the other morrows. 

Similar, somewhat, to the Italian ‘piazza’ theory, where, if you are an Italian male, all you really need in life is an open square, a piazza, an espresso in one fist, a table and chair, and someone's ear to bend. 

We haven’t a clue, but we are not really complaining. From these male bonding sessions he has learned how to fix every broken part of any defective piece of camping equipment known to man; found complex directions to specialist camping gaz suppliers which has saved us a fortune in new fixtures; been tipped off about the best out-of-the-way campgrounds known only to the favoured few; and discovered who is playing soccer in which Premier League in every single country on the planet. 

With nary a syllable of English being spoken by the others. Go figure.

Pete at the Dresden city market

 

 

 

 

A young Prince's dream: Dresden

A young royal princeling, Frederick Augustus, was encouraged to undertake a little architectural study following his grandfather’s advice. Augustus played at designing in wood, likely making models using matchsticks at first. He fast became smitten and was forever brimming with plans for clever pieces of construction. Chatting to his classmates in architecture and scupture he conceived of bigger ideas, grander designs, and when he became Prince Elector in 1694 he was able to begin commissioning his mates to realize the models he and they had dreamed. 

Here a castle, there a pavilion. Here a church in the central square, there a massive stable complex for the royal horses. Here an elegant palace for his mistress, there a tower to incarcerate and torment her, for a full forty-nine years given that she’d displeased him. Marketplaces for the masses, pleasure gardens for the gentry, fountains for all. Augustus, the Strong, as he became known, was the instigator.

As construction on the buildings proceeded on as grand a scale as ever there was, Augustus set about acquiring collectibles from all corners of the earth to fill the beautiful spaces: Oriental art, gold figurines, objet d’art, a la Louis XIV. 

Every building a masterpiece: some in ornate Baroque topped with many cloven hoofed satyrs, some with elaborate storytelling scenes laid out on exterior walls completely covered in expensive Meissen porcelain tiles, some compositions classical, elegant, pristine. Each building so beautifully conceived that the centre of Dresden itself became like a work of art. 

Then over two days, on the 13th and 14th February, 1945, flight after flight of English and American pilots dropped bomb after bomb after destructive bomb on downtown Dresden. People rushed from building to beautiful building for cover. Nowhere was safe. One after another of Augustus’s masterpieces exploded under shellfire and crumbled to the ground.

And in the awful aftermath 35,000 bodies of Dresden men, women and children lay in the rubble. Their bodies were buried. The buildings were not. They stood, charred, stubborn, mute memorials for long decades after the bombings. 

Then came the reunification of Germany in 1990. Dresden became the capital of the Free State of Saxony and she needed dressing to live up to the honour. Not new clothes, no need: her old ones, please. The city masters did not have far to search: the designs of Augustus had been stored and survived. They were dusted off and renewed, more than adequate for the job. 

The Tashenberg Palace and the magnificent Catholic Church of Our Lady were rebuilt in as much recovered stone as could be used -- as beautiful as they originally were – in time for Dresden’s 800th anniversary in 2006.

Every square metre of the city today is alive and under construction. The designs, the colours, the stones, are being placed exactly in place or are being sympathetically rebuilt as it was in Augustus’s time. Works of art again: even under the tarps of construction.

Dresden Frauenkirche, Church of Our Lady

Actors replicating how it once looked walking in Dresden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12,000 ton sandstone dome in Dresden Frauenkirche

Palatial buildings inside the Zwinger in Dresden 

Crown Gate Kronentor in the courtyard of the Zwinger Palace,  XVII century,  Dresden

Frauenkirche Dresden, Church of Our Lady

 Singing Drain Pipes in Kunsthofpassage, Dresden

Elegant fountains and gardens in the Zwinger courtyard in Dresden

Bell Chime and entrance to the Porcelain Collection at the Zwinger Palace consisting of 40 Bells made of the famous Meissen Porcelain

Mural of Saxony rulers, Dresden

Meissen and the water

We followed the River Elbe, to Meissen, then on to one of the most beautiful cities any of us has ever visited: Dresden.  Meissen first. Dresden later. 

Rivers in Germany, even today, display their ancient trading roots. Every few kilometers on both sides of most of the waterways  there seems to be a village, often with a ferry boat connecting the tiny settlements on opposite banks, and a church steeple rising -- and people. People are attracted to the water. 

We notice as we drive that the water edged routes are so much busier than the non-water routes. 

Meissen is a village on water– and further favoured, by kings, clergy and tradesfolk. Up steep sets of medieval stairs and narrow wobbly alleyways to the top of Meissen’s tiny hill sits a Gothic castle, Albrechtsburg, and a cathedral with its very own, very splendid, Bishopric, taking up much of the courtyard. 

From on high you peer down over tiny distant fields terraced for vineyards. From here came the grapes, came the wine, served in the local taverns to the patrons who flocked to this pretty little place in search of the internationally famous blue and white Meissen porcelain. 

Pieces of Meissenware are still sold in some of the pricier boutiques here in the village but its heyday has long passed. 

A Gala Night at the Opera is set to start in Meissen just after dusk, followed by a midnight buffet supper (for only €14.50 pp) to be served in the main square afterwards, lasting from 10pm until 2am. All the surrounding restaurants are participating with their signature dishes, excited about the event. Music and a midnight feast. 

If only we had the energy after a long day’s sightseeing to be still awake at 2 am. Instead, we end up camping beside a shallow stream tumbling over sharp rocks and the sound of water splashing kept us sleeping for twelve solid hours. Unbelievable how we can sleep on these trips. 

Tonight we’re parked, again beside the water: this time the fast-running Elbe, waving to river bargemen and to flyers of five or six hot air balloons floating high over our heads, advertising, as the evening light fades. Just metres from downtown Dresden. 

We came here for the cool of the water. Today has been hot. This May has been much warmer than any month in Europe last year. We will need to be camping by a polar glacier come July if this trend continues. Across the river a young boy strips off completely, bathes fully in the Elbe. Hot.  He dresses without drying. He joins two other young boys playing under the main rail bridge that crosses to the centre of Dresden. A stream of folk hike and bike along the footpath above them, opposite us. 

And the river traffic continues: quiet, humming, somnolent. Water is such an enticement.

Meissen on high

Meissen porcelain

Rathouse, Meissen

Finding Leipzig

Then we come to the area of east Germany, the old German Democratic Republic. Roads are shabbier, concrete block dwellings in dull communist grey are decorated only in ill-formed graffiti. Farms are smaller. Woodpiles, now, are not neat: pieces lie on the earth, haphazard, as they fall from the axe. A farmer is plowing a large field trailing his workhorse who is dragging behind him a simple home-made iron hoe, scouring out a single shallow furrow for this season’s crop. In the next field he can wave to his neighbour who is a day or two ahead: sowing his seed by hand from a cheap tin bucket. 

It is hard, in just these few driving kilometres, to make the mental adjustment needed to realise that this is still Germany. And then we come to Leipzig. 

The outskirts of Leipzig are ugly, ramshackled, unkempt. I doubt there is a pretty route from any direction to drive into the heart of Leipzig. But you do get the sense that things are changing. Downtown, the history of the place makes the trek through the desperate ugly burbs worthwhile. 

Here is the largest railway station in all of Europe, welded to the earth as if built by a giant playing with an unlimited supply of massive mechano pieces. Ugly, yet fascinating. Controlling commerce and communication in all directions. 

Here in this busy platz, in this long thronged thoroughfare of commerce, is one of the most beautiful churches in all of Germany, the Chuch of Saint Nicholas: where Bach was the organist and choir master for nearly a quarter of a century, and where many of his own compositions were first played. Everything in Nicolaikirche is painted white, even the wooden pews; the only soft touch of colour is high overhead: pale green palms topping the colonnades, and soft pink diamond plaster surrounds decorating the ceiling. 

Here, Goethe ate, drank and studied while at Leipzig university; and here he included this place in one of his scenes in Faust. 

Here, one of the most devastating events in Jewish history was played out on a brutal Kristallnacht in 1938. Never to be forgotten. 

Here, a whimsical shop-owner, today attempts to sell his expensive designer menswear by dressing himself up as an extravagant 18c aristocratic fop, wearing full white powdered wig, a beautifully tied cravat, stiff white starched collar points, pantaloons buttoned below the knee and stockings tucked into expensively buckled shoes, encouraging passersby to enter, to take a photo; to shop. Monkey see, monkey spend. 

Still a city of commerce. Still a city with history. And still a city with a sense of humour. 

Beautiful St Nicholas, where Bach played the organ

Plowing in the east of Germany

Leipzig university where Goethe wrote Faust

Fairytales and enchantment

For a time we are following the German Fairytale Route. It brought us to Hamelin. Thirty years ago, we brought the girls here. We’ve returned to see what, if anything, we remember. Only the tiny boy Pied Piper statue in the main drag, in truth, but the rest we should have recalled, because it is so charming, with its predominantly 16th and 17th century half timbered homes, beautifully maintained, many gilt with Germanic writing over the lintels which ofttimes tells who lived there, and when. 

And, this year, too, we again seem to have all the luck! Not ten minutes after we arrived in town and investigated a gathering outside the Rathouse (Mayoralty) lo and behold! we came upon an open air live play of the Pied Piper tale, performed by local actors, all dressed up with a tale to tell. Just as the play finished, a clock-tower in the main square retold the tale, this time in a peal of carillon bells with mechanical moving figures for the piper, the rats, and children popping in and out of the copper windows. Such a beautiful part of Germany this: rich in fairytales and other treasures. 

Fields were blinding bright in canola yellow. The Weser ran full and fast with its fat spring melt. Farms were larger than we remembered, much larger, and far more prosperous, we think. Above the Weser was one of the north’s treasures, the beautiful Schloss Hamelschenburg. While downriver, period spa villages with pink-tiled roofs toppled down its slopes to bask in Sunday’s late afternoon sun. 

Strauss was being played on a piano in an indoor café in Bad Karlshafen, echoing out into its tiny square overlooking a lake. So old fashioned, yet so appropriate. On a bed of reeds at the lake’s edge a pair of preening swans awaited the birth of their cygnets. Couples everywhere were promenading around the square in the romantic evening light: soaking it in. An older lady in a floor length white coat over slim white trousers was hugging the arm of a white haired gentleman. They looked Austrian: expensive, elegant, and demanded attention, so we watched and smiled. 

There was an open-air opera concert in Bad Gandersheim the following evening, and we were personally invited by an organiser who approached us during our afternoon walk. When we arrived she remembered us and we were granted a kiss of welcome, perfect strangers in a sea of locals. For hours, music filled an outdoor alcove that became a makeshift auditorium, surrounded on three sides by Juliet balconies overflowing with red geranium window boxes under high walls thickly coated in ancient creeping ivy, that absorbed the music as well today as it probably has done for centuries. 

All just a couple of hundred metres from the Stellplatz in the centre of the village where our motorhome was parked for the night. It is magical. 

On to the lovely town of Goslar, with its tin-mining rich burghur homes clothed in fine charcoal-coloured slate tiles. These ragged-edged rectangular slates are pasted solidly over all exterior top floors and thickly hug roof high dormer windows, and march symmetrically over all the curved roof tops. Not satisfied with spending a fortune on their homes the burghers banded together to build themselves a brightly coloured guildhall in the main square which they decorated with near lifesize statues of beautiful wood carved emperors in bright-coloured clothing. 

And lo! at noon, the clock tower windows opened, tin puppets popped out telling the tale of the proud tin-mining history of Goslar all to the tune of old mining songs played out on the carillon. Each clock tower we come to now Bec expects a fairytale reenactment. 

Bad Harzburg, the Noosa of the Hartz Mountain region, our next stop, was filled with expensive boulevard cafes, very expensive ladies' dress shops and terribly expensive hotels all clad in smart upmarket white clap boards. The perfect place to see, and be seen. We were the outstanding exhibit in our jeans and sneakers. Not even a patch of white linen or a bit of bling between us. Still we enjoyed it. 

Germany is often so under-rated. Folk rarely say: we are off to Germany for our holiday. Yet, rarely have we been more enchanted.

Fairytale enchantment

Pied Piper of Hamelin

Slate covered homes in the streets of Goslar

Rathouse,   Goslar

Hotel Kaiserworth, Goslar

Market square, Goslar

Gold was mined for 1,000 years in the mountain just south of Goslar

Abstract head statue pierced with large nails, Goslar

Rathouse Glockenspeil, Goslar

Gilded figure on historic guild house in world heritage city of Goslar

Gilded eagle on market fountain in Goslar

Our morning coffee in the beautiful square

Five star camping

There is no border post, these days, between Holland and Germany and you might not even realize that you have changed countries, though you sense a difference. Things are bigger in Germany. Actual physical spaces seem grander, wider, thicker, higher, larger. 

In Holland the roads (the ones that we mainly travel on, anyway) are mostly narrow, even somewhat claustrophobic. They usually have only one lane each way (often with a minuscule excuse for a shoulder), then a big flat green patch of grassy median strip each side, then a bicycle path large enough for a horse and goodly-sized cart to negotiate. Bicycles, left and right, get as much money spent on their tracks in Holland as do motorists on their roads. 

And, there are many smaller roads in Holland with only a single lane, shared by to and fro traffic, which moves off the centre driving lane for oncoming traffic into the marked coloured bicycle lanes that are painted on either side of the bitumen. It is a small country, this is a sensible solution to space shortage. 

In Germany, bicycles are not the feature. The roads for vehicles are prime, and larger. The paddocks suddenly grow larger, as do homes, farmhouses, farms. and the vistas go on into forever. Such rural roads took us fast to our first five star campground experience ever in Europe: in a little pretty town, Barntrup. Wow! Double wow! We would have been happy staying in its Stellplatz, which happened to be a beautiful hardstanding space, off a little park, with access to power and the village swimming pool if you so wished it. 

Stellplatz are special parking lots throughout Germany for motorhomes. Sometimes these are free, sometimes you pay a token for 240v power for a few hours, sometimes you might pay a charge, something like €10 a night, depending on the community providing such parking spaces. In France, similar spaces for motorhomes are called Aires. 

Curious cats that we are, we drove past the Stellplatz area in Barntrup to the actual motorhome section of the campground and were so wooed we instantly booked in. For €20 a night. Brilliant! There were 9 parking spots for motorhomes: each with its own large rectangle of green, plush, artificial turf laid out for those inclined to sunbathe, and finished off with its own individual garden with a standard metre high May bush shrub as a feature, underplanted with tiny layers of smaller plants. 

Our motorhome sat on tiny crunchy stones that were (blessedly!) level: no need for chocks. We also had own power plug, our own water reel, our own massive European barbecue. No need for sharing. 

Then we checked out the other amenities, and few homes could possibly be lovelier. We walked up a central foyer of a half timbered building into a contemporary spa-like entrance to the bathroom amenities. The vestibule was decorated in soft white tiles with iced lemon and pastel green tiles as occasional feature contrasts, sumptuous with pots of tall, thick, green plants marking out spaces. Muzak was piped into speakers beside overhead downlights. Subtle little cubicles, veered off into beautiful architectural spaces left and right: here a designer shower enclave, there a designer toilet. And there were even the occasional individual combined toilet, shower, and loo cominations. Larger than our master bathroom at home. 

I could have moved in and been left for the summer. So luxurious, it was quite unbelievable. All kitted out with designer tiles, Groehne tapware and heavy sumptuous German stainless steel. It is hard to imagine too many hotels in Germany being nicer. So, far we’ve had three nights like this on the trot. We may never come home.

Spacious and luxurious camping

Pool for campers

Beautiful square in Bad Gandersheim 

Peonies blooming in Bad Gandersheim 

Windmills, water and more water

I adore Silvio Rivier on Global Village, SBS. His is one of those rare television shows I bother to watch any chance I get. He shows all the amazing UNESCO sites, which we attempt to follow, whereever possible: Kinderdijk being one of these. 

Kinderdijk, near Rotterdam, albeit already outdated is here to show how things once were. Kinderdijk started on a small dyke scale in the Middle Ages. Its premise simple: to hold back tidal river water inundating the land. 

Back then, farmers were attempting agriculture on peat bog land that kept flooding as the rivers kept rising, overflowing. So they started to set up tiny dams, holding back the rising river, and, for a time, that seemed to work. 

But their newly made land dried out, sank lower, and the river overflowed and flooded it again. Ever hopeful, they dug deeper and deeper channels, recovering their needed land for agriculture. 

Then, when water mills with their big scoop wheels for pulling water were invented in the 1400s they clapped their hands. A permanent solution to their water invasion problem had been divined, they thought.  

So they built waterwheel-mills-cum-family-homes: folk lived downstairs in tiny rural mill rooms, as they once did in similar remote Australian lighthouses. Upstairs was given over to the sails, cogs and wheels creaking out the water. Picturesque, thatched, rounded, peaceful, iconic. 

Hundreds of years later tourists flock to see row upon row of these delightfully fashioned windmills. And marvel at the times, the ingenuity, the stamina. 

And for a long time farmers thought they had the problem licked. By now they had level upon level of land being pumped free of water, much like a complicated canal lock system: pumping water from the polder level (deep below sea level, where their agriculture took place) to a slightly higher boezem level, then up even further, to a storage reservoir level. 

When the river ran high it would not let the farmers pump their waste water into it, to drain out to sea, so with their little mill waterwheels they’d pump the water over their shoulders and throw it into man-made cachment areas: tiny channel reservoirs, narrow holding places for water that was too high, too much, and forever coming. From this reservoir level the bog farmers could attempt to pump the water out to the river then on to the sea whenever the river tide levels lowered. 

So went the theory. But still the rivers rose. Still flooding and water problems plagued them, so the problem was not resolved. 

Today, the gorgeous windmills are mere figureheads only. Some are even dilapidated. One lone beauty waves her huge graceful sails purely to show greedy tourists she works well. As she ever did. 

Today water is pumped megafast out to sea with the help of computers. There are mechanical power pumps, hidden in large ugly buildings set up near the estuaries that pump out a million and a half litres of water a minute. Still the land sinks. Still the water rises. All over Holland. As it ever did. Waiting for another disaster to happen.

 

 

Waterwheel farmer's clog boot

 

 

The fragile polder system

 

 

 

Picturesque Kinderdijk

 

 

 

 

Small towns and large

50 kilometres is a hell of a long way in Holland. We find ourselves intending to cover such a journey, then drive only 5km, a trek between Bergen and Alkmaar, or Volendam and Monickendam--but end up spending a half a day in each spot, then wondering why at the end of a day, we get nowhere very slowly.

Small towns in Holland are utterly charming. There are narrow canals with picturesque canal boats and lock bridges to explore, just five steps and you're across. There are village trees, heavily pruned in May, espaliered to a fine manicure in all the tiny streets allowing traffic to pass without paint scratches. Leafy trees that arch right across streets so narrow they look more like bicycle tracks than any village road. Bicycles. Bicyles everywhere. Some with cavernous covered pram fronts as well us upright toddler backs. Tiered brick property facades often with exquisitely painted front doors with the owner's name beautifully outlined in gold, black or white signature ink. Small town museums, always open. Ancient burghur dwellings in perfect nick. Sixteenth century properties leaning crookedly on to crooked little streets just as they always did. 

In between there are black and white cows, baby lambs wobbling after mother sheep; windmills--even tiny Aussie-type varieties; more dykes and canals that show up on our satellite navigator than can be seen by a naked eye, cow parsley; green pastures that smell newly munched.

Then we arrive in Amsterdam. Our home here is a camp ground under an ugly city bridge, just five tram stops from Central Station. We chose it sentimentally, because once we stayed here (we think!) thirty years ago when it had some charm. Today it is all graffiti strewn and litter laden. Old hulks are strangling the canals, yet two swans have a leafy nest filled with tiny chicks on a nest of reeds. So new life happens. But it needs much love and more money than there is at the moment, it seems. 

Much of downtown Amsterdam is like a building demolition site at present. Like something out of Van Gogh's early Dark Period: grim, stiff, forbidding. Central Stations in most cities are notoriously ugly and Amsterdam's main station district is no better. You have a sense you need to clutch your treasured possessions close, very close, and your instincts would be right. Already, today, we've spoken to folk who, unwittingly, have lost their bags, credit cards, purses: so astonishingly quickly and so effectively they are almost in awe at the skill.

We head to Museumplein, which has a much better air about it. The canals are not much cleaner, the tall, mostly characterless, essentially Protestant-upright architecture there (and all over the city) needs a good sand-blast, truth be told, but the mood of the plein is not so forbidding. But there are hundreds of tourists still. 

We spent the day visiting the phenomenal Van Gogh museum which we actually came for. I would still be there, in truth. I was dragged away when closing time came. I may yet return tomorrow. 

Little things added to the pleasure of the Van Gogh exhibition. A vase he used for a wildflower still-life was saved by Theo and Jo, and is with us today. Plaster casts of figurines: human and animal that he used to practise his craft have been saved. And letters, chock-filled with little drawings of his conceptualisations and his communications. 

Sad, lonely, genius, driven Vincent. 

It was worth worrying whether we'd return to our motorhome in time to see it still in one piece to spend the day visiting his works. I hope they don't get stolen.

Monickendam canal

Busy Amsterdam street

Heavily pruned trees at this time of the year

Tulips and cheese as in the days of yore

We came to Holland for tulips for Miss Bec, but the fields even this early in May were virtually finished, cut surgically clean. April has evidently been 'so mild', we’re told, a good omen for a fine summer, it seems. 

Thank god for Keukenhof Gardens, then. Which are the largest and most famous tulip gardens in the world, and when we visited they still had every imaginable tulip variety that a girl could wish for. Curly kale edges, pristine elegant stiff petals, and the double leaf and variegated varieties. 

Imagine a massive many-faceted Japanese garden filled with every kind of perfectly formed azalea, tulip, hyacinth, and any other pretty spring bulb that takes your fancy. Add lawn and water sculptures, sun dappled lakes rippling with white swans paddling after crumbs, themed gardens and picture postcard prettiness, and you have a super tourist magnet. Keukenhof. 

Extremely pretty, beautifully maintained, and well worth the trek around many acres of floral land. We went for just an hour, but we stayed for most of a day. 

We also came to Holland for the cheese, and our most pressing need when we drove off the ferry at the Hook was to make the early-next-morning cheese market at Alkmaar in Holland’s Northlands. 

This market is famous worldwide as it reflects its medieval Dutch traditions. Not much different today. So, of course, hundreds of tourists were there, as at Keukenhof. But again, so worth the effort. 

Cheese makers, since medieval days, have brought their small, mostly semi-hard cows-milk, fresh wheels of cheese to market at Alkmaar either via canal boats, horse and cart, or loaded on their backs. 

The cheeses are laid out in neat piles in the main market square, haggled over by merchants until a price is agreed, carried then in wooden sleds to the weighing master for assessment, transferred then to the buyer’s carts for loading and dispersal. 

All this haggling, colour and movement was enacted at Alkmaar while we watched and when the business of selling was done a large clock tower in the market square set up an amazing peal of carillons while we partook of a demitasse of delicious espresso in a character-filled pub with ancient worn wooden tables. As in days of yore. 

 

 

Ancient cheese market at Alkmaar

 

 

 

 

Alkmaar canal

 

Tulips at Keukenhof

Knobbly pruned trees in Spring in the Netherlands 

Iconic windmills 

Delightful haystacks

 

Delighful campsite

Eten, Drinken & Slapen

For years I have been praising the functionality and efficiency of bus transport in Australia and elsewhere. Buses rule! From Victoria Coach Station, London, we took the National Express to Cheshire for £6.00 a piece. Enroute to Cheshire we had two coach stops: a fifteen minute coffee break and a 30 minute lunch break. And a smooth as silk ride. The entire jaunt took 4 hours, faster than a flying hire car out of London. Faster than the other option: public transport to Heathrow, followed by a flight to Manchester, and a maxitaxi to Cheshire. And, certainly, as cheap as chips. 

We arrived to pick up our motorhome: calm, smiling, relaxed. Dumb to do otherwise. We filled our little motorhome with our stuff, dumped our empty duffel bags with friends, and shipped ourselves off for our first night’s camp on a rural farm high on the gloomy moors just a couple of miles out of Leek: in cold, bleak, misty-wet, soft, moor-like weather. We love the English moors: the moodier the moors, the more Sir Arthur Conan Doyle they are to me. 

Once we’d caught up with our friends we headed off to Holland. Enroute, we spied asparagus in season. Thin, green British asparagus in bunches as big as a fist. To eat these for lunch in Cambridge, in a restaurant overhanging the Cam, cost £7.50 a person. Naught else to accompany it.

Just a few kilometers out of Cambridge, enroute to Harwich (pron: Har-ritch) to catch the ferry to the Hook of Holland, we found them perfect, green and snappy fresh, in an organic farmyard sale for £3.50 a large bunch. That night Pete flashed just half a bunch in a fry pan with hot butter and topped it with shaved parmesan, and that fed three of us as a vegetable. To die for. A bargain. 

This is such a time of year to arrive in Europe. In Holland, on our first day, the asparagus was white, not green. I have been so looking forward to it. This has become an annual pilgrimage almost, finding the early white asparagus. Thick as the biggest thumb, but longer, fresher, crispy-crunch-fresh, and sold as a main course special in Wonder’s Eten and Drinken restaurant in the town of Bergen as soon as they get it. What a lunch! The Dutch really know how to serve freshly harvested asparagus. It comes topped with delicious slices of salted parma ham, three tiny jars of accompanying melted butter, snipped parsley and chopped boiled eggs, along with a side dish of tiny new potatoes in warm parsley butter. €15.00--and yumptious.

Tonight I noticed a restaurant just down the road from where we are camping that advertises Eten, Drinken and Slapen! But, I can see that our motorhome pressure cooker is on steaming with chicken doused in red wine: a discarded plonk vintage from a superstore in England that I refused flatly to drink. It is now being used as a stock. Frugal Pete. I had thought that having tried out the Eten & Drinken place for lunch I was wont to find out what the Slapen was. But, not tonight, Josephine!

Wonder's asparagus lunch was wonderful

Thin green British asparagus

Fat white Dutch asparagus

Delicious Dutch asperges meal