On to the Netherlands

Monday, October 20, 2014

With mixed feelings, we left Bruges this morning. It's hard to leave a great place, but we're looking forward to what's ahead -- specifically, Amsterdam.

But first, an interesting road trip that illustrated dramatically why the meaning of The Netherlands is Low Country.  We drove along a "coastal" route that actually took us along, on top of, and through part of the country's efforts to deal with the fact that, while it has a long North Sea frontage, it is actually below sea level.  After 1800 people lost their lives in flooding in 1953, it was evident that the centuries-old system of dikes that had once held the sea at bay needed to be upgraded.  A new system of dikes and levees, along with electronic monitoring of sea levels now keeps the dry land dry.  We drove along causeways, dunes, a tunnel and bridges that are part of the land-sea demarcation; at times, we were driving on a roadway that was in a slight valley between large berms.  The Dutch long ago learned to reclaim their land from rivers and seas by using windmills to lift dammed water, channel it into canals, and drain the land.  The fertile farm land that makes up much of the country was painstakingly developed as farmers planted crops that removed salt from the soil; this now-productive earth is known as polder. We saw lots of windmills, both old school and high tech, on today's drive.

We stopped at a beautiful beach -- long, probably the widest we've ever seen, and almost certainly the windiest.  Kite flyers, parasailers, wind surfers, and carts propelled by sail and parasail were crowded along the gorgeous stretch of sand, and on the water. 
It was quite a sight!  At that point, the road we were traveling on was atop a levee, with the beach quite a distance below us.
Europe's largest port is Rotterdam, and its size was apparent as we bypassed it on the highway.Also impressively extensive were the nearby oil refinery and gasoline storage facilities that went on for miles; it the New Jersey turnpike tank farms seemed to pale in comparison.

In marked contrast was our stop in the pretty city of Delft, proud home of the 17th century painter Vermeer and the famous Royal Delft Pottery.  We wandered around the canals, bridges and quiet brick streets of the old town, which seems like a Dutch version of Bruges.

Then, it was on to our apartment in Amsterdam's southeast outskirts. We're in a quiet neighborhood, with easy parking and access to the Metro, which we'll take into the center city tomorrow.  Meanwhile, we're delighted that our apartment has now only a washing machine, but a clothes dryer, probably the first we've ever encountered in Europe!