We decided to spend a week in Cassis on a whim. Actually a friend had given us a calendar by an artist who painted beautiful pictures of places in France and Italy. Cassis was one of the prettiest. I decided that it might be a nice place to spend some time based entirely on an […]
Somehow, I have always felt that there is a conspiracy between hotel clerks, taxi drivers, restaurateurs and tour guides. When we checked into our hotel on Friday night, we asked when the shuttle train to the airport left in the morning. Our hotel clerk immediately said that the train was not running on Saturday because
This would be our last day in Gouda and our last day of biking in Holland – sigh!! I do love putting down roots, staying for a while, blending into the woodwork, as it were, and pretending that you have lived in a place all your life. Well, even three days, in a small place,
Although Holland is technically a flat country, there are head winds. As one cyclist put it, “In a country that builds windmills, you have to figure there is going to be wind.” So it was that we peddled back to Gouda into a driving force that kept pushing us back from whence we had come!
We had cycled to Haastrecht on a bike path that ran parallel to a busy road. No doubt our GPS, had it been working, would have taken us along a pretty country lane that also ran parallel to the road but far enough away that you barely saw or heard the cars. Sigh! Anyway, as
Our train left for Gouda from Utrecht at precisely the time our tickets said it would. There’s something to be said about northern Europe’s stoic adherence to the mechanics that make things work. There is no throwing up of hands, when trains do not arrive on time – Paris, cursing coach doors that won’t close
I think before it’s all said and done, I have to ride the Orient Express, because I love travelling by train and I love Agatha Christie!! There is something about going down to the station, with it’s spectacular glass ceiling, imposing iron girders, and maze of intersecting tracks that says, “awe.” From our apartment, we
On our last day in Amsterdam we went to the Van Gogh Museum. Although Vincent was born in Holland, he did most of his painting in the south of France. His brother, on the other hand, remained in The Netherlands, attempting to sell the artist’s paintings there. Perhaps this is why the museum has such an
In Amsterdam, you really don’t have to go to the “pot” cafes, where smoking marijuana is legal, you just have to inhale. OK, it was Saturday night on a long weekend. People were here to party, weren’t they? However, I got the distinct impression that smoking weed was like drinking coffee. It was there to
In Amsterdam, the weather was sunny, but cool. In fact, most of northern Europe was having a very cold Spring. Would this mean that I could still see the famous tulip fields in bloom? Although a late Spring may have prolonged the tulip season, Dutch precision determined that the massive Keukenhof tulip park would close,
