Our Hometown
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Holland...the land of my ancestors The land is flat, the grass is green and lush, and the people are friendly. On this waterway cruise, my friend Joanne DeVries and I were on a ship called Salvina and enjoyed a restful, leisurly tour in this tiny country on broad, flowing canals. At first, I imagined that the canals would be like the ones we saw in the cities, but these were wide and flowing and reminded me of our Erie Canal. The sides are shored up and water splashes up on the shore as barges of all kinds, family yachts, and even motor boats and kayaks go by. The large, long barges churn up the canal bottom making the water a chocolate brown. Along the banks we saw cows and horses grazing, sheep eating, swans, ducks and blue herons in the wide farm fields. Fences are few as the fields are separated by ditches. In the distance were lovely old villages and fortified towns with their church spires and old brick buildings, some dating as far back as the early 13th century. All gardens are painstakingly maintained and sparkle with yellow daffodils, lilacs, showy tulips of many colors, and other spring flowers. Roads, lanes, and property are lined by thousands of trees, stretching as far as you can see (not like in Marion where the game is "find a tree and cut it down"). After going aboard our home for the week, all arrangements were taken care of - Rooms, meals, entertainment, and even church services Sunday. Breakfasts are typically Dutch. Strong, hot coffee or tea, juice, assorted cereals, all types of breads, meats and cheeses, scrambled eggs and hard-boiled eggs, salty bacon, crepes and delicious Dutch sweet breads with jams, all ending with a collection of fresh fruits. Lunch was sandwiches with a hot entree or delicious sausage and fresh fruits, once again. Dinner was and appetizer, salads, vegetables, french fries, a meat/gravy serving and a special dessert to top off the meal. Morning and afternoon tea or coffee was served in the roomy, beautiful lounge or on the ship's deck, accompanied with a mouth-watering Dutch cookie or pastry. Optional tours were offered so those wishing to the see the historical sites and cities offerings were able to partake. This included the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam where you can see the outstanding paintings of the Old Dutch Masters artists such as Rembrandt's Night Watch. It may be the most valuable painting in the world. At Dam Square is the Royal Palace and the Liberation Monument. Another one of the most beautiful stops is Keukenhof Tulip Gardens, a marvelous 69 acre park with all kinds of flowering bulbs, creating magnificent patches of color. It is truly impossible to get a bad photo shot in this lovely setting. Some chose to attend the group visiting the Corrie ten Boom Musuem where the Dutch ten Boom family offered refuge to Dutch Jews and others during the Nazi occupation. We encountered many locks, sometimes having to wait a short while for our turn. Other times we breezed along after the bridge attendant raised the bridge for us to pass. Cars line up on both sides waiting patiently for the bridge to come down, or swing back, as really there is no place to go while this is re-enacted time. Since the terrain is so flat, it is perfect for biking, and biking is what they do in Holland. Each street has a pedestrian lane, a path for bikes and motorbike travel, and then the street where the smaller sized cars whiz by, all made of brick or cut stone (gas is $4.50 a gallon). On this Northern waterway tour, I was especially interested in the Friesland area, as it is the homeland of Joanne. She was born in the town of Wyemirdum, and her mother and grandmother were from the Hindeloopen area which is known for its colorful schilderwerk and near the town of Makkum, the home oi the Tichelaar Royal Pottery and Tile Factory. Joannes grandparents home has been moved to the ZuiderZee Musuem and is now a restaurant showing a typical home of yesteryear. We were entertained on the ship one evening by a group of dancers from this area. All were dressed in typical, beautiful Frasian costumes. Other optional tours included a bus tour to Palace Het Lool, the former home and gardens of Queen Wilhelmina. Another tour was an interesting journey to Arnhem, the site of a mammouth airborne attack in World War II and the Oosterbeek's Airborne Musuem, including an Allied Cemetery and some of the World War II battlefields around the Arnhem area. We were enthralled with the Gold Silver and Clock Musuem and sailed past the collection of stately windmills at Kinderdijk before heading to Rotterdam, the world's largest harbor. On our last day in the Netherlends, we toured the Aalsmeer Flower Auction where millions of flowers are auctioned each day, excluding weekends. The building is 120 football fields long. You can hardly imagine that there are that many flowers anywhere, much less to realize this occurs five days a week. Flowers auctioned there are shipped all over the world and can be on your table at dinner time. We are planning to repeat this tour next year plus an added week's cruise to the southern part of Holland, which includes the province of Zeeland, where our family and many of the Marion folks originally come from. I took pictures and bought postcards that I would love to show you, plus a new video for our files. We could get together over a plate of mouth-watering poffertjes! Copyright © 1999 |
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