Not the usual grand tour, we wrapped things up in the Low Countries

Our European wanderings ended in Belgium and the Netherlands.  This might seem a surprising choice, but we were thinking value for money.  We'd splashed out on Eurail tickets, and there are few places on the continent where so many major sights are packed in such a small area.  

Wednesday, July 10, 1986

Amsterdam.  We bought a museum card that lasts for all of 1986.  It's a good deal.  $7.50 for a student (my ID still works) and $20 for mom.  It gets you into all the museums in the country.

We started with the Rijksmuseum Van Gogh.  He's not my top artist, but the museum is impressive.  Over half of all his paintings are here, kept and passed down by his brother.  The museum is now run by a nephew.  The museum is a big, modern cube with lots of natural light.  Paintings are arranged chronologically, and there's plenty of room to back up and appreciate things from afar.

Back to the main Rijksmuseum with room after room of old masters, Dutch history and furniture.  I was particularly captivated by the magnificent ship's models.  Then to Dam Square.  Into the main church there, which has a magnificent pulpit and organ, but is plain otherwise.  For the first time in this trip we encountered the horrible scourge of Protestantism, stripping away all beauty.  The royal palace on the square is a dingy place with bums asleep under its stairs.

In fact, the whole town is grubby.  When we checked into the hotel the bell hop asked if we wanted to know where the Red Light district was.  Why in the world would a middle-aged mother and her daughter want to go look at that?  There's so much culture here, but it sits side by side with legal prostitution and drugs, making it a more tawdry and dangerous place than anywhere else we've seen.

In another square there is a flower market with such color and variety, and amazingly cheap flower bulbs.  We found delicious broodjes (Dutch sandwiches) and pastries to eat in Rembrandt Square, then we walked to his house.  It's not what I expected, in that it's not furnished, but rather a gallery with a collection of his drawings.  I was more impressed by the Hinlopen Huis museum, a magnificent 17th century town house on the Keizersgracht canal.  It gives a sense of how the wealthy lived.  Its marble stairs and foyer are gorgeous, and there's one blue room that's especially beautiful.

Afterwards we rented a canal bike, a paddle boat you can use on the canals.  They're $7 an hour and you can get everywhere.  It's a very tranquil way to explore, and good exercise.

July 11
We took an early train to to Delft.  What peace there is here!  We explored the Het Prinsenhof, an old palace of the House of Orange.

And here the diary ends.  I know we loitered in the china shops in Delft and went home with tiles; they eventually ended up set into the shower in the master suite at my mother's house.  We spent a couple more days in the Netherlands.  We went to The Hague and toured the government buildings there.  I remember Ghent, where we went primarily to see the altarpiece by van Eyck but discovered the magnificent Castle of the Counts.  We spent another day in Bruges, beguiled by its charming canals and grand medieval architecture.  I remember gawping at all the most famous Flemish art in the Groeninge Museum and seeing Michaelangelo's only work outside of Italy, a perfect madonna and child, in the Church of Our Lady.  I don't know if it would have made the diary, but what I remember most is tasting Belgian chocolate for the first time:  White and dark striped sea shells, sold in paper cones by a little old man off a canal-side cart.

We moved on to Brussels, where I recall the Grand Place, tasting French fries with mustard/mayo sauce for the first time, and springing for a proper dinner in a fancy restaurant since we were nearing the end of our trip.   I remember few sights in Brussels, but do remember leaving my grandmother's umbrella in that restaurant after hauling it all over Europe with me.

And I remember the luggage getting heavier and heavier.  Clearly, these were the days before weight limits.  Bavarian carvings, German beer steins, Austrian clothing, swiss watches, Italian jewellery, Delft tiles, big bags of tulip bulbs and stacks of guidebooks.  I can still recall running for a train in Amsterdam, carrying all those bags, and my heart almost bursting with the effort.

We ended our trip back in Luxembourg, from where we needed to get our Iceland Air flight.  We stayed in what's now the Sofitel, and what was then a newly-opened luxury hotel offering introductory deals to travel agents.  We were exhausted and the room was gorgeous.  We never left it.  After more than a month in Europe, mostly sightseeing at an aggressive pace, I didn't need to see anything else.  Luxembourg would be left for another time.  I never would have guessed that, more than 20 years later, it would be come the familiar home of dear friends.

There were so many reasons not to take this trip.  We didn't have the money.  The world was a dangerous place.  A month was excessive.  ANY international travel was wildly extravagant, and I should have been getting straight to work after getting my degree.  My mother's sister and brother in law, playing pater familias, expressed the gravest disapproval.  Mom didn't care.  She wanted me to have a proper "Grand Tour" and she wanted to come.  She was convinced that such travel would have an enduring effect on the rest of my life.

You know, I think she was right.