We arrive by boat in Maarsden

Writing from the town of Maarsden, a small and charming place. We arrived yesterday afternoon after boating for a couple of hours from the mooring just outside of Vinkeveen, where we'd gotten the boat and our training the day before. There are moorings all over the place, some with services, others without. 

I am going to backtrack and describe some of the other things we did in den Bosch, our first location, before hopefully catching up to where we are now, on our third day out from Vinkeveen.  

Between parade viewings, we visited several other local sites. First, the Bosch museum. Sadly, most of Bosch's original paintings are not in den Bosch or even in the Netherlands. His most famous work, the Garden of Earthly Delights, is in El Prado in Madrid. As are several other of his paintings. But this museum has high quality reproductions, in accurate size. In a way, it is better to be able to view all of them in one setting, even though they aren't the originals. There are some short films, other works inspired by Bosch, and a pretty amazing clock that operates once an hour. It's not old, created in 2010, with Bosch as inspiration. There are little figures that come out of a door in a procession, and then exit throught another door. Then other naked bodies emerge in a different space and dive into what seems to be the mouths of demons. Very Boschesque. The clock face has all kinds of dials and symbols to indicate night and days, the day of the year, astrological symbol, more. You can peer into the back of the clock to see the intricate gears and workings. 

We also went to visit Bosch's house, where he'd grown up, and took a self guided tour with video stations in each room. It's pretty small, and they only let a few people at a time, which was fine. I asked where the inhabitants had slept. The man answered that they don't know for sure, can only guess. There is an elevator which I took advantage of, because the steps are pretty steep. But I did walk down the staircase that was original and hence where Bosch himself had trod. There was one small alcove above the entryway that had two lifesize figures, and I guessed that was where some of the family, maybe the parents, had slept. One of thehistorical novels I've been reading that takes place in the 17th century, a little after Bosch's time, talks about box beds. I am guessing the ones at his house may be that. I'll have to check.

We left den Bosch for Vinkeveen by private car, about an hour's drive. Distances between places here are very short by car. But much longer by boat via the canals on the leisurely boat trip we are taking. 

Eating and reading

We are coming to the end of our Dutch sojourn. Tonight we are back on the lake at Vinkeveen. At the other side of the lake is the marina where LeBoat, the rental company, is located. We plan to stay here tonite, very close to where we spent our first night out of Vinkeveen. And tomorrow night we will stay at the marina, pack up, and catch a taxi to the airport in the morning. 

All in all it's been a great trip, despite the issues with the extreme heat that totally changed our plans. But before I catch up, a little about what we ate and what we've read. We've done a lot of both. 

Whenever we travel we try to find literature that takes place in or reflects the places we are visiting. There's a lot of historic novels that take place in the Netherlands. We tried to pick a few. Most of them seem to take place in the 17th century, and most seem to feature a young woman and a painting or paintings. Maybe it's what I'll call the Pearl Earring Girl effect. You probably remember either the book or the movie or both. I loved the book, but it's also the only time I can think of that I found the movie even better. It was either Scarlett Johanssen's first film  or at least the one that first made her famous. About the famous Vermeer painting, the Girl With the Pearl Earring. It's in the Riksmuseum in Amsterdam. We never made it into Amsterdam, and I didn't really intend to, although I would like to have spent at least part of a day there to see either the Rijks or the Van Gogh museum. But it sounds so crowded and overtouristed that it wasn't high on my list. 

The books I read set here were A History of the Netherlands in Thirty Objects, a clever approach to the culture, Midnight Blue, about a young woman who becomes a painter of the famous blue pottery Delft and other places are famous for. Next, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which takes places in modern times and the 17th century and involves the forgery of a painting. Loring is reading that now, as I write. I am currently reading a book about three teenage women who defied the Nazis called Three Ordinary Girls. I haven't read any Holocaust related books in a long time. So far this one is intriguing, because it depicts the country from the viewpoint of non Jewish citizens. And it is frighteningly similar to current events in our own country. 

I had read the Miniaturist a few years ago and recommended it to Loring. And we saw an elaborate dollhouse at the Utrecht museum that may well have been its inspiration. 

He started another 17th century romance that was so cringeworthy a romance that he soon gave it up, and I didn't even look at it. I think that one was The Colorist.  

And we both read a book called The Dutch Waterways which was descriptive of exactly what it says. 

I have probably left out one or two. 

Now, on to food. We have largely eaten and cooked on the boat, which has been great fun. We've shopped at supermarkets at several places along the way. For the first three days we were in a hotel in den Bosch, so ate in restaurants. Breakfasts were in cafes, mostly pastries and cappuccinos for me,  breakfasty sandwiches and coffee for Loring. On our boat journey, we didn't eat often in restaurants, just once in a while for lunch. Onboard, it was either granola with yogurt and bananas or bakery bread and eggs cooked on our stove. For lunches or dinners we often had bread or crackers with cheese, cucumbers and tomatoes, and either smoked salmon (more smoked than lox) and prosciutto or something similar. Our dinners onboard were most often pasta with spinach and cheese, which is what we will have tonite. This is like a dream come true for me. It is rare and startling for Loring to concede and even recommend pasta, whereas I can eat it endlessly. We've had both fresh and dried pasta, and found the dried in shapes we don't have at home. We've bought frozen spinach which here comes in adorable little cubes. And either packaged or fresh cheese or cheese sauce. I'm getting hungry as I write. 

Many have their own specialty sweets. In den Bosch it is Boschbollen, which I've previously posted photos of and maybe described too. It's a ball of pastry filled with cream and covered in chocolate. Incredibly good. Yesterday in a different town I saw them in a bakery and ordered one. It was good but not nearly as good as the ones in den Bosch. Only the top was covered in chocolate and the pastry wasn't nearly as good as in the town they are named for. Aren't I erudite? Or is it snobbish?

OUr refrigerator is filled with the things I've mentioned. We have gouda cheese from Gouda, which I have to confess we don't like as much as the cheese we got in the supermarket. Then again   there were at least a couple dozen varieties the the Gouda cheese store, so maybe we just didn't choose the right one. Even though we tried almost every one. In Gouda, in additon to cheese, they are famous for a pastry called sirupwafel, two waffle cookies with a caramel filling in between. I may have already written about them in a previous post. We have some of those, as well as delicious chocolate cookies that I am hoping to take some home of. 

I previously mentioned bitterballen, which are a kind of bar food, and really good. Yesterday I ordered a lunch of croquettes which were basically bitterballen in a different elongated shape. 

There are foods I remember from my visits here over fifty years ago, mostly for their names. There's the rijstaffel and nasi and bami goreng. They are all Indonesian-Dutch foods, from the time that the Netherlands colonized Indonesia. The rijstaffel is a spread of about 20 small dishes with rice. The nasi and bami are rice and noodle dishes, although I can't remember which is which. I would like to have tried them again on this trip, but Loring isn't as big on either noodles or rice( except for our onboard pasta/spinach/cheese concoctions.)

And then there's jenever, which is a gin-like alcohol that I am drinking right now as I write.   I have been drinking it with club soda most every night. I think I remember it originally from Belgium rather than here, but am not sure. 

Loring has tried to order his usual martini when wev'e been in restaurants, but they seem to only be familiar with it as a mixed drink it a can, and don't know how to makea it. Oh well. Beer and jenever will do.

I will stop now and cook our typical (to us) pasta dinner. 

No Experience Needed, No License Required

 

That's the slogan of LeBoat, the company we've rented our boat from. It's a large company, with locations in a number of countries, France, Scotland,  Canada, a few more. I wonder if the no license part is true in all the countries. 

Our boat is the smallest they have, the Cirrus B. It's great for two, or a family with a couple of kids. They have a number of larger boats, some of which we've seen in our travels. I'm not sure I'd recommend the trip to  someone with no experience. Loring has some, with smaller day boats like the Boston whaler we had in the Bahamas, and the one his family had in New Hampshire. That one was about half the length of this one, and much easier to manouever. Here you need to be able to navigate through bridges, and locks, and it's not so easy to dock either. And I am of little use, can barely toss the ropes ashore and only if we are very close to the dock. I am a happy passenger but not a very helpful boater. Luckily there has often been someone on shore, another boater or someone personing the lock, to help. 

And I feel like the slogan, written on the side of the boat, brands us as newcomers. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. 

We are now docked in Breukelin, have been here overnight. It's the original town for which Brooklyn New York was named.  It's another charming little town, with a number of restaurants, at least half of them with Asian cuisine.   We did find one with more Dutch style food, which included a lot of steak dishes, so not exactly local cuisine. Had a nice meal of a steak salad, sauteed vegetables, mushrooms, and fries. It's actually the first time we've had fries here, although they are very popular, served in a paper cone on the street. They eat them with mayonnaise, which is the way I eat them at home too. I think the Dutch spelling is frietes. Did you know that French fries is a misnomer, because they actually originated in Belgium?  And who remembers when our over patriotic government renamed them Freedom Fries after France refused to support the Iraq war?  

Breukelin also has a number of shops, most of them women's clothing, shoe stores, etc. Outside one shoe store was a rack of Dutch souvenirs, almost entirely miniature wooden shoes. But I spied a magnet that had both Breukelin names, and bought it for Aaron and Ilana who live in Brooklyn. Do you think anyone else has ever given a refrigerator magnet as a wedding present? There are also several barber and hair salons, which seems to be the case in evert town. And wellness spas seem common too.

We will soon leave Breukelin for Weesp, which will probably be our last stop before returning to Vinkeveen and returning the boat on our last night. I think we have three nights left. It's hard to keep track.  Loring had plotted out our route back to Vinkeveen from Weesp, before he called the leBoat office this morning to reserve a taxi back to the airport. Lucky he asked them about the route, because they told him that the planned route was impassable because of weeds, and that there was an X on the map they gave us to indicate that. The online app he's mostly been using  doesn't indicate that, although it's got lots of information. So it's certainly a good thing the subject came up or we'd have been in for a very long and frustrating last day. Of course, who knows what's in store for us for the next few days. One thing we've learned on this trip is to be very flexible. Although I doubt that the recent heat wave has been much of a problem, if any, in the past. 

 

Life on the water

We are now anchored in Nieuwegein for the night, after spending one more night at the marina. We have basically been backtracking our original route, where we had intended to do a circle clockwise from where we started and will return in Winkeveen, outside Amsterdam. But that has all been changed by the bridges not being in operation. So we spent several days back and forth between the marina and Montfoord, and now do not have enough time to continue through Delft, Leiden, Haarlem, possibly Amsterdam and a couple of other stops we'd had in mind if there was time. 

Our new plan: up to Breuklin tomorrow, then Weesp, maybe a foray or two by bus or train to Leiden and perhaps another place. Weesp is between Amsterdam and Vinkeveen, where we have to return the boat and then head to the airport and home. We haven't hit half the places we'd hoped to, and have spent more time in a couple than we'd have liked to. The marina isn't in the town and isn't particularly aesthetic. Then again, we'd not have experienced the wedding at the marina between the Dutch man and the woman from Cameroon. Or the teens  jumping from the bridge in the extreme heat. Or Loring jumping off the boat to swim, as he did daily in the heat, while the wedding goers posing for pictures on the bridge looked when they heard the splash. 

I haven't written much about life on the boat. It's been quite enjoyable, wherever we've been. There's a quiet calm about travelling on the water. Loring, who's responsible for steering, getting us under bridges and through locks, probably wouldn't agree about the calmness. I get to just sit on the bow or up top with Loring and watch the scenes go by.  It's been fascinating to see the homes go by as we motor along. Even the parts we've travelled a few times between the bridges we couldn't pass thru have been enjoyable to observe repeatedly. There's a fair amount of bird life along the canals, mostly ducks of various kinds, some geese, and at the marina, two beautiful black swans. And other songbirds in the trees that I hear more than see. 

The homes, in town and along the canals, are for the most part aesthetically pleasing. They seem to follow a fairly traditional form, although some are more modern with lots of glass and starker designs. It's hard for me to discern from what time period they are. In den Bosch some buildings were so well kept that I assumed they were modern in traditional style. Until I saw the dates, in some cases from the 17th century. They have either been incredibly well kept or restored. 

Everyone waves. People on other boats, people on shore walking their dogs or sitting on their decks. Today a women waved to me from inside her second floor window as we tooled along on the canal. 

 Bicycles. They are the predominant mode of transportation, and you see them everywhere. Sitting in a cafe there's a constant parade of people pedalling by. Some are electric, most are not, many have only one gear. And many of them are carrying more than one passenger. There are many families on bikes, often with a child in back, even more often a bucket in front with one or a couple of children. And lots of fairly young kids riding on their own. And people our age. There are also people riding electric mobility scooters or trikes. They are many more than you'd see at home, and they blend in more with all the other vehicles on wheels. 

And there are many less cars. In some city streets they are not allowed at all, or only delivery trucks and maybe residents are.  There are bike paths everywhere, and walkers need to stay clear of the bicylists. 

When we pass through a bridge and I see the bike and car traffic waiting, I wonder if people are frustrated by being held up by us, like we are by a train at home. Or maybe they just accept it as a natural part of their lives. 

I find living on a boat very appealing. Everything is compact but there is space for everything. We have a double bed and several cabinets in the bedroom at the rear. Then there's the bathroom and several closets and cabinets. Near the front is the kitchen and living area. There's a table and enough seating for at least four, and two cushioned benches that convert into beds that would work great for children. Sink, refrigerator, stove, even an oven. There's a surprising amount of space for clothes, food, etc.  More than in your typical hotel room by far. It's a pleasure to have your possessions with you and not have to cart them from location to location. And there's room fore and aft to sit as well as up above where the steering wheel is. There's a second wheel inside for bad weather, but we haven't had to use it. I imagine that RVers must feel the same kind of pleasure and satisfaction in bringing your accomodations along with you. But to me this seems more appealing because you are on the water, and in a scenic setting.

I'll stop here for today. Time to start a new book. As always, we try to choose literature appropriate to where we are travelling. This time, we have several historical novels, all set in the 17th century. I'm getting a bit tired of those, will try next a novel called the Black Tulip, by  Dumas, author of The Three Muskateers. Don't know if I'll get into it, we'll see. I'll try to write some more about what we've been reading in a future post. 

Stranded!

 Well, nothing has gone quite according to plan on our adventure. As I've said earlier on, the extreme heatwave here has affected our travels seriously. On any trip on the canals here, you are limited by the height of your boat and the height of the multiple bridges you need to pass under or through. Small day boats can pass under many of them. We are neither the smallest nor anywhere near the largest on the waters. At every bridge below the very largest, on the highways, the height is listed on the waterways app, Waterkaarten. Unless there is a person at the bridge full time, one needs to telephone on arrival to request the bridge to open. It's fun, up to a certain point. ( of course I can easily say that as I am not the one piloting the boat. Some bridges will then automatically open. At others you need to wait for the bridge person to come. More than once we've had the same person arrive on bicycle, then move up to open the next bridge.  There are light signals to indicate one can go under if you can clear the bridge, red and green to indicate the bridge is about to open, then green when it's okay to go through. This is complicated by tahe fact that when you call you get a recording naming a number of bridges and which number to push for each bridge. All in Dutch, of course. But we are getting better at understanding the numbers and the names of the bridges. 

All of this is just prelude to what has left us seriously stranded for days. The bridge that would ha²ve let us pass beyond Monfoort and continue on our journey has been inoperable for days due to the extreme heat. So have many other bridges been. So we basically tooled back and forth between Monfoort and  the marina at IJsselstein where there is electricity, showers, water to refillll our tank, and a pumpout for the waste tank, all important. We are not really using electricity for much, except the refrigerator, but it wouldn't be fun to not have cold drinks, especially during the heat wave. And we do have other food requiring refrigeration, like yogurt, cheese, butter. 

So our plan changed out of necessity. The distances by road here are actually much shorter, though not as scenic or pleasant. So we took busses from Montfoord to different towns on two days, to Ouldewater one day, and to Gouda on another. Gouda, the famous cheese town, had been on our itinerary. We would probably just have passed through Oudewater on our original plan. It is actually a quite pleasant town, lots of typical architecture, small canals, and a history of witches that the town capitalizes on, of course. The people immediately reacted when we mentioned we were from the city next to Salem, MA. The man noticed Loring's t shirt from the Salem film festival, which Loring hadn't even realized he was wearing.  The small museum was originally a weighing house, and the original large scale was still there. 

It turns out that Oudewater was known for its tolerance, and that women accused of witchcraft went there to prove their innocence by being weighed. Witches were supposed to be very light in weight, which enabled them to fly. If you were heavy enough you weren't a witch and would be issued a certificate to say so. Now, visitors can get on the scale to be weighed and are then issued a certificate to say they weren't a witch. So we both now are certified as free of witchiness. It was all done with equal measures of seriousness and tongue-in-cheekness. 

I tried to explain there are people in Salem and elsewhere today that consider themselves witches, or Wiccans, but that they use their powers for good. I don't think they really believed me. And in the back of my mind I kept hearing Glinda's question of "are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

Gouda, our next destination by bus, was a little beyond Oudewater, but only about a half hour from Montfoord. It's a tourist town, for sure, with lots of cheese shops and also siropwafels,  the other food for which the town is famous. They are waffle cookies with a caramel like layer sandwiched between two cookies. At about 10am the town was remarkably quiet, but within an hour or two many more people were on the streets, both visitors and locals. Thursdays are the days when the cheese market takes place, and I am sure it's much more crowded then. From what I've seen and read it's somewhat of a ritualistic and touristic event, but also a real market that has been taking place for centuries. There's some kind of slapping that goes along with people purchasing the huge cheese wheels, which I haven't quite figured out. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that we missed the market day. 

Gouda has a church that is the longest church in the country, 123  meters and lined with impressive stained glass windows  ranging from the 16th century up to nearly the present. One from 1945 depicted concentration camp survivors in one panel of a window depicting victory. Another one showed the defeat of tyranny in a much older century. During WWII the panels of the old windows were dissassembled, stored in wooden crates in various places, and reinstalled after the war. The church had originally been Catholic, but then became Protestant, and still is. I don't know how common that is, I hadn't heard about anything like that before. But then there's a lot about religion that I don't understand. I'll have to check with AI. 

We had bought a combined ticket for the church and the town museum, as the person at the church had suggested. But when we got to the museum, we discovered that it's closed on Mondays. Luckily the church was just around the corner, so we went back. The woman was apologetic and they promptly refunded our money. I think she was new and/or didn't realize the museum was closed that day. Too bad, as I realized later that the museum has a wonderful tile collection. The town of Delft, which I'd hoped to  go to, is famous for its blue and white tile and ceramics. But in fact it was also produced in Gouda, and, I think, a few other nearby towns.

Just as we were strolling through town and Loring mentioned that he didn't mind sitting and reading when we didn't have a particular agenda, I spotted a second hand clothing store. I mean literally at the same moment. So, he spent probably a half hour sitting and reading while I found several appealing and very reasonable pieces of clothing. One from the three euro bin, which I am wearing right now. 

Hot days on the water

 We a

re currently anchored at a marina in IJstellstein, where we spent last night. This was not in the plan, tentative though it's been. The day before we'd left Maarssen for Montfoord, going under and through numerous bridges and a lock or two. We spent the night there, in a charming smalll town, stocked up on groceriess, cooked dinner on the boat. But....

Well the heat wave that's hit Europe has created the highest temperatures ever recorded in the Netherlands. One effect that has directly affected us is that the low bridge in the town, which we would need opened to pass through, is stuck closed due to the heat. Yesterday it hit 100 F. So we decided to backtrack an hour or so to where we are now.

The bridge is still closed, as are many others. It's good that we've been somewhat flexible in our plans, and do not have a set series of destinations. But there are towns that we definitely want to visit, including Gouda, Delft, and Leiden. Gouda, famous for its cheese (the correct pronunciation is Chowda, with a gutteral ch, or just Howda for those of us who can't do the gutteral sound. It doesn't exist in English, but does in Hebrew and other languages like Arabic.) That's probably why I can pronounce it and Loring and most Americans can't. By the way, this sound is also the proper pronunciation of van Gogh, with end sound the same gutteral. So if you want to impress people, or, more likely, amuse them try pronouncing the cheese or the painter with the hard ch sound next time the subject comes up. 

So here we are at this marina, not sure there even is a town here. One good thing is that they have showers here, and toilets, and a restaurant. We do have a shower, or at least a showerhead, onboard, but we haven't yet used it. It seems that it will flood the entire bathroom, which probably isn't a terrible thing. But with the heat, I've just been having Loring dump buckets of water from the canal over my head. And he has just been jumping in the water at every opportunity. I would probably go in the water too if I had a way to get out. The bottom rung on our boat's ladder is too high for me, nearly too high for Loring to hoist himself out. 

One source of entertainment while we've been docked here is watching people jump from  the bridge. This is one of the high ones that many, but not all boats can pass under. It's about 15 feet high. Every bridge's height is indicated on the boating app, and also every boat's height is written on it. Ours is about 8 and a half feet at the height of the upper deck and steering wheel. All afternoon yesterday a group of teenagers, mostly boys, jumped repeatedly into the water. Once, the adults staying in the camper right next to us(there are folks camping here as well as boaters) people probably in their 30s, jumped in as well. They are here in two campers, a younger and and an older couple, I am guessing the parents of one of the younger one. 

I wonder how much people normally jump in or even just go in the water, and how much is due to the extreme heat. 

And there's a fairly constant parade of boats in the canal, of all sizes. Some with couples, some with families, some with groups of young adults and lots of beer. Everyone is very friendly, nearly everyone waves or says hi as they pass by. There are periodically people on paddleboards. But we've seen nearly no one in a kayak or a canoe. 

Everyone we've come across is Dutch. They speak to us in Dutch, which makes me glad that we don't stick out as tourists.  And everyone speaks English, very good English.

Our boat is labelled on the side, with their slogan of No license necessary, no experience necessary. Which does make me feel branded as a novice. 

Today we will go back to Monfoort, on our original path, although we don't think the bridge is open. There's no practical other route by boat to Gouda. Most likely we will stay there again tonight, and with luck the bridge will be open tomorrow. The heat is finally supposed to subside by then. We are wondering if there will be a backup of boats waiting to go through. 

Alternately, there's the land route. If necessary we could go by bus or uber from Montfoord to Gouda.  But that takes all the fun out of it. 

Two delightful days in Marssen.

 We tied up in the center of the town. Both sides of the canal were lined with beautiful and meticulously maintained houses, and some estates. Our Other boats were on either side of us. Most everyone we've met, on the streets, in shops, on the water, are Dutch. But the folks docked next to us, in a boat much bigger than ours, were American. We asked where they were from, and they said Florida, and New York. But they had sold their house to buy the boat, and spent several months of the year on it.  When we came back from dinner, in a cafe on the other side of the canal, they invited us aboard for a drink. But I was exhausted and begged out. The next morning they were gone. I would have loved to know more about their lifestyle, where they spent the rest of the year, where they left the boat when they weren't on it, etc. But never got to ask. Oh well. 

They were one of the very few Americans we've run into.

Our dinner at the cafe had been more appetizers than dinner, all fried foods, as the waiter had explained . He said most restaurants were  closed Mondays and Tuesdays, because there wasn't enough business. And they only served the fried foods. I had a limoncello spritz, and Loring has been drinking gin and tonic because they don't seem to be familiar with martinis except as a canned pre mixed drink, which they didn't have.

Our full day in Marrssen we actually spent in Utrecht. It's a two bus ride from Marrssen, which we managed to mostly handle. You needed to pay by credit card and use a different card for each person. I am not sure why. And you need to check out when you leave or you are subject to a fine. Thexdrivers were very accommodating when our second card, an amex, didn't work, and just waved us thru, and then we snuck thru the exit gate together. 

Utrecht is the Dutch town I spent time in over 50 years ago. I don't think I ever went beyond the beautiful old city. I remember being able see the famous Dom tower from my friends ' house. What we saw of the old town is still beautiful.  We mostly spent our time at the Central Museum. We are in the middle of a heat wave. More about that later. And so our goal was to spend as much time as possible in an air condoned environment. 

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