Dutch Courage
After a week spent acclimatising and familiarising ourselves with the Dutch way of life, which involved a lot of vertical smock windmills and vegan soused herring, we decided to dive into the beating heart and capital of the country: Amsterdam. I say dive, we parked about as far away from the centre as was still practically commutable in order to avoid unwittingly navigating into a canal or getting stranded in the Red-Light District with no method of extraction, for that would be a disaster. As we learned when searching for a secure parking spot on the outskirts of Barcelona, the last stop around metro lines often offers up useful hideaways and a similar approach in the Dutch capital worked once more with our only disturbance across our time there coming from a brazen bird with diarrhoea (I think her name was Susan).
While Amsterdam is undoubtedly most well-known for its mischief and tomfoolery, it also has the highest concentration of museums per square metre of any city in the world and it was at its largest and most loved that I began my exploration in earnest. The Rijksmuseum is recognised far and wide for its priceless collection of Dutch works by the likes of Hals, Vermeer, Van Goch (although his nearby eponymous museum would be a better choice for those specifically searching for sunflowers), and, most notably, Rembrandt. In fact, the enormous hall hosting his most iconic work, The Night Watch, is almost as impressive as the painting itself.
Placed on a raised stage inside a bullet-proof glass chamber, the enormous artwork is so precious that it can be instantly lowered through a trapdoor should any danger be suspected. Hoping to see this mechanism in action I had to refrain from lobbing a tin of Heinz Tomato Soup at its centre and loudly berating Rishi’s decision to grant new North Sea oil licenses. However, I had to make do with beholding a few self-portraits, the museum library, and a bit of Delftware pottery instead. With my heritage health bar at its highest point since my trip to the Penny-Farthing Museum in Knutsford, Cheshire, I considered it absolutely essential that I lowered it immediately by walking five minutes south-east and booking Lowri and me onto a tour of the Heineken brewery.
Although this comprised far more heritage, and far less drinking, than I imagined, and I was soon versed in the names of every Dutch master brewer since the 1870s and the exact dates the beer was introduced to every country in Sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso in 1973). Concerned this would soon replace far more useful information we skipped the remainder of the tour, cashed in our beer vouchers in the basement bar, and joined our included barge city tour. We got off to a rough start, though, getting ploughed into from an adjoining boat, smashing a window, and covering an apoplectic Australian in a thousand shards, all of which had to be resolved, and passengers compensated with copious cans, before we could commence.
Observing Amsterdam from its myriad waterways is essential in understanding why the city exists at all and, more importantly, where the famous footballers live and the grand houses where politicians hide their mistresses. It also afforded us the opportunity to select some of the bars we wanted to frequent later in the evening, and the following two, which we did with great gusto. I must say that, despite the hype and attention it receives, the city certainly lives up to its spectacular reputation and now ranks very highly on my venerable list of Cities with the highest frequency of Dingy Bars per square mile. This, is a good thing.
After less noteworthy stops in the small town of Vianen and the city of Utrecht, beautiful though they assuredly were, it was our final Dutchish destination that provided the biggest thrill. The geographical mess that is Baarle-Nassau, or Baarle-Hertog if Belgian, is a settlement in the south of the country that comprises more borders than a frame manufacturer and is a nirvana for anyone geeky enough to find an enclave-inside-an-exclave-inside-an-enclave equally, if not more, entertaining than the Red-Light District on a Friday night. After following the border straight through Pasha’s Kebab Shop and into his living room, Lowri felt we had had enough geographical joy for one day and we returned to the road, crossing the border for the final time, and entering our next nation…
J
