Wednesday, 12 April, Amsterdam: historic Haarlem

Written 28 June 2023

We were scheduled to arrive in Amsterdam about 7 am, the city was apparently experiencing a traffic jam of cruise ships, and we had no place to park there, so it was announced the night before that we would be mooring at Zaandam instead, on the North Sea canal, a little seaward of Amsterdam. For those who wanted to spend time in the city, Viking provided a shuttle bus service.

We, on the other hand, had chosen to spend the morning on a second trip to Keukenhof gardens and the afternoon touring historic Haarlem. The logistics were such that we'd have lunch in Haarlem rather than coming back to the ship at midday.

Zaandam seems to have shipyards. Out my window, I could see a small floating dry dock with a ship in it (left) and a larger one a little farther along (right), apparently empty.

To reach the buses, we had to disembark over the top of another cruise ship, of some other company. I wonder whether this is the same giant chess set we encountered earlier on this trip or just a different ship of the same company.

We boarded and took off for the gardens at 8:30 am.

On the way out of town, we spotted a series of three of these bright-red structures, which appear to be houses, or maybe offices, built out of old shipping containers! The one at the right is topped by a screened or glassed-enclosed room with tables, chairs, lamps, and maybe a piano. I can't tell if it's separate or connected to the stack of containers behind it.

But it didn't take long before we were out in the flower fields. The two weeks since our last visit to the area made a huge difference. Many more tulips were out, but hyacinths and daffodils still predominated. From the colors, I'd guess these two photos are mostly pink and purple hyacinths.

Hyacinths again at the left, but I think we're getting into tulips on the right.

Definitely a band of those purple hyacinths in the left-hand shot, but the right-hand photo is all daffodils all the time.

I love that color of hyacinths.

And here's the Keukenhof windmill, viewed across the flower fields from outside the gardens as we approached the entrance to the parking lot.

Here's the flower mound inside the entrance that I showed the last time we were there. All the crocuses and most of the daffodils have disappeared, replaced by first wave of tulips.

At the right is a nearby deck outside the gift shop, with pots of daffodils, Scilla, tulips, and hyacinths. Flowering cherry in the background.

Here are a couple of beds we passed on our way to the central pavilion.

And here are four shots of beds inside the pavillion.

The fourth, at the right here, is included to show that it's all all tulips. In this planting, I spot primroses, gardenias, caladiums, chrysanthemums, tradescantia, begonias, maranta, and a philodendron.

Here's Rachel, again standing next to the windmill, with the fields of flowers outside the garden behind her.

At the right, a rhododendron in full bloom.

At the left here is a strange variety of daffodil that was all corona and almost no tepals—odd, and not really to my taste.

At the right, fritillary lilies.

Suffice it to say that the gardens were magnificient. If you want to see more photos than I've posted here, let me know—I got a million of 'em.

Back in the buses, we headed for Haarlem. On the way, we passed this massive building, but I have no idea what it is or was. A church maybe?

Along the way we learned:

• A scheduled passenger service on tow-boats used to run along hte canals between Amsterdam and Leiden. Sailing barges also used the canal.
• In 1839, the railway arrived, and Amsterdam was on the first railway line. Canals began to lose passengers after that.
• For part of our trip, the canal, the rail line, and the highway all ran parallel.
• We passed the building of the water board of Rhineland. I didn't get a photo, but the coats of arms of all the cities under its jurisdiction appear on the building.
• The Netherlands has 22 water boards but only 12 provinces.
• A water board is an independent political organization, and it more or less corresponds to provinces but more importantly to watercourses. Water boards date back to the 1300s.
• The last and largest polder to be drained was 30 by 40 km. it was the last one emptied, because it could only be done by steam power, so it didn't get done until (I think he said) 1895. Before that, it was called Haarlem Lake.
• Draining it yielded 100 square kilometers of new land, and it's now the site of Schipol Airport, as well the highway we were traveling.

Our first stop in Haarlem was for lunch at 66 Spaarne. The waiter brought us our preordered menu on the little slate at the right.

The pumpkin lentil soup was pretty good. It had shreds of what the waiter called "vegetarian chicken" in it.

The steak was also good.

I don't seem to have gotten a photo of the dessert, which as I recall was a fine chocolate mousse but had nothing "millefeuille" about it.

After lunch, we set out for our short walking tour of the old town before visiting the Franz Hals museum. Just outside the restaurant, the guide pointed out this gray building on the corner shown here at the left. It's the old weighing house, where goods were weighed and taxed accordingly. Directly in front of it was an see-saw crane for unloading ships, but I think it's hidden by the bus in this shot. Of course, the building is now a pub, and surprisingly, Simon and Garfunkle started their singing career there in the 1960s.

At the right is the tower of the church on the main market square.

He started to lead us to the main market square, in front of the church, but unfortunately, a carnival had set itself up there, filling the space from wall to wall and making a terrific din, so he led us around a corner to a quieter spot to show us the old fish market and to deliver his introductory talk.

The fish market, to which he is pointing, was built in 1831 and renovated in 1905. In a row of sandstone rectangles above the windows, those two dates flank a relief of a sturgeon.

At first glance it looks like Dutch renaissance style (sandstone reinforcement next to the windows and doors, stepped gables), but the dates reveal that it is actually neo Dutch renaissance. Behind the stepped gable façade is an ordinary slooped tile roof; the step gables were decorative.

Haarlem, it seems, is the capital of North Holland. It's on the north-south road along the river. On the inland side it was swampy; on the other side it was swales and dunes, which is where the city is, then real dunes, then the North Sea. Haarlem got city rights several decades before Amsterdam; the count built a castle on the dunes as a toll collection place.

In 1245, Haarlem received city rights from Count Willem II. He was slow in handing out city rights because he gave up some of his power each time time. He would give the out piecemeal, a weekly market here, a yearly market there, toll rights, right to render judgement and life sentences. Willem became emperor but went and fought a battle and got killed before he was crowned.

The church with the carnival in front of it is St. Bavo. Its located on the spot of sand which was the first marketplace; it was the first church and the beginning of Haarlem. The pub, the church, and the city hall would would all be on the market square. A color difference in the stone of the church shows that they added a story later. St. Bavo is a good example of late gothic. Its organ is one of the biggest and best of the Netherlands.

The building shown here in two views is real Dutch renaissance. It's the meat hall, and it shows the characteristic sandstone stripes, sandstone trim, sandstone gutters, stepped gables, etc. In particular, its windows of very small panes of greenish glass reveal its age.

The small huts built along its sides below the windows, visible in the right-hand photo, were for butchering and sale of "lesser" meats, like small poultry and beef offal.

Similar small buildings built against the side the the church, at the left here, were rented out, either as welfare housing or to provide income for the church. Now at least one of them is clearly selling ice cream.

The church's bells are named Damiata, for a battle in which a ship from Haarlem broke the chain across the harbor and conquered a city named Damiata. Those bells started ringing 15 minutes before 9 pm each evening and continued ringing until 9 pm sharp, when the city gates were closed and locked. If you wanted to be inside the for the night, the bells were your warning.

At the left is St. Elisabeths-of Groote Gasthius, originally a charity hospital, I think. Now it's a museum and architecture center.

The oldest streets of Haarlem, in the very center, are carefully preserved and called its "golden streets." The doors are all painted green because they used the paint left over from painting the boats. The two steets shown here are residential, but at least one of them is commercial and has been named the best shopping street in the Netherlands. Needless to say, it includes no large chain stores. Where golden streets are wide enough, pleached lindens provide shade on their sunny sides.

In the old greenmarket, near the church, was the welfare house. When a worker died, his guild would provide for his widow and children there.

At one point the guide showed us a beautiful interior courtyard—I wish I had gotten a picture. He said the city has 40 such courtyards.

The last stop on our tour was the Frans Hals museum. Hals was born in Antwerp, but he settled in Haarlem and is closely associated with the city. Painters in those days tended to specialize—to paint only portraits, or landscapes, or still lives, or whatever. Strangely, portraitists had less prestige, as, it was said, they just copied what they saw in front of them. The highest prestige went to painters of mythological or allegorican scenes, since they had to make it up as well as paint it.

The museum includes a good deal of non-Hals art, including the gentleman at the left by Isaac Israels; I rally am becoming a fan of Israels.

And it also has a good sprinkling of "Mannerism." According to the information panels, young artists often followed their apprenticeships with travel to Italy to study art there, and around 1600 many of them decided they could do the Italian artists one better, presenting their subjects in more contorted poses, and exaggerating their muscles even more—the result was Mannerism, which also triggered a fad among portrait subjects for having themselves portrayed in classical settings or as gods or historical figures. At the right here is the son of Haarlem lawyer Johan Colterman, portrayed (by Hendrick Goltzius in 1613) as Hercules, who has just defeated the giant Cacus. Johan commissioned the portrait, and he and the son were apparently pleased with the result. Yeesh.

Anyway, Hals was a portrait painter. He did a bunch of individual portraits, but like other artists of the day, he was often commissioned to do group portraits. The two here are not by Hals, but starting with them shows the progression of style from Jan van Scorel in 1528, painting "Twelve Members of the Haarlem Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims," through Frans de Grebber in 1619, painting "Banquet of the Officers and Subalterns of the St. George Civic Guard . . .

. . . to Hals in 1633, painting "Civic Guardsmen of the Company of District 11 in Amsterdam."

The information panels also pointed out how quickly the fashion changed, in just 13 years, from the ruffled "millstone" collars to collars of flat lace.

The painting at the right ("Banquet of the Officers of the Collivermen Civic Guard," 1627) is all Hals, but the 1633 painting was finished by someone else. The guard from Amsterdam commissioned it from Hals—unusual enough that they would go so far afield for their artist—and he arranged the composition and had made considerable progress on it, especially on the left side when he had a dispute with his clients and left it unfinished. They hired Pieter Codde to finish it, which he did in 1647. Apparently experts feel he did a good job of immitating Hals's brushwork.

One that I found unusual was this 1641 portrait of the Regentesses of St. Elisabeths Hospital at Haarlem, by Johannes Verspronck. (The regentesses supervised the hospital staff.)

But for the protrait of the regents (right) the same year, they hired Hals.

At the left here is a 1696 painting of the market square, with St. Bavo's church, by Gerrit Berckheyde. That's where the carnival was the day we were there.

At the right is the weighing house—remember the gray building on the corner where Simon and Garfunkel sang? This view of it, by the same artist at about the same time, shows the wooden crane. Apparently the blue granite that gave the building its color was expensive and prestigious.

The museum also presents several period-furnished rooms, some dishes, a magnificant dollhouse, and this item that caught my fancy. Above the fireplace is a mirror, and above the mirror is a flat surface painted with this amazing illustion of a three-dimensional sculpture. I love trompe l'oeuil!

Then it was back into the buses one more time for the trip back to the ship for dinner.

The regional-specialty starter of the evening was the excellent creamy Dutch Gouda soup again.

The vegetarian main course was the horseradish and beet slice appeared again as a regular starter; I don't remember who ordered it.

The main course was the roasted veal sirloin with Parmesan crusted polenta, which I had been waiting for—it was just as good as last time. I don't think anybody ordered the Thai green vegetable curry.

I don't seem to have gotten a photo of the apple crumble pie.

Then it was time to go back to our staterooms and pack. The Viking Daily contained the departure schedule that showed we must have our bags packed and set outside our stateroom by 5 am for the trip to the airport. We then had an hour to get breakfast before catching the bus at 6 am. We actually planned the early departure on purpose, since the last time we passed through Schipol at that hour, there were no lines.

We said our good-byes to Rachel in the evening—she was going on to Viking's two-day extension in the Hague, so she didn't need to catch the bus until 8:30 am.