DAY TRIPS
FLOWERS IN THE SPRING—Visit Holland in springtime and you’ll find the entire region west of Amsterdam a bright patchwork of brilliant hues as bulbs come into bloom. The season lasts from late March to early May, a wonderful time to visit parks and gardens in the area. Supreme above all else is the magnificent Keukenhof Gardens, near Lisse (open late March to late May). The facts and figures just hint at what’s in store for you at this 15th-century hunting ground turned spectacular public garden: 79 acres containing over 7 million flowers, including 4.5 million tulips of 100 varieties. For a lower-key experience, visit the ancient Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Garden) attached to Leiden University, where the botanist Carolus Clusius planted the first tulips in Holland, imported from Turkey, in 1593. Or simply cycle the Bulb Route, a 19-mile course through gorgeous flower fields between Haarlem and Sassenheim (near Leiden). Alternatively, take a barge cruise on the Dutch waterways, stopping off at picturesque towns en route, including (in springtime) Keukenhof and other flower-filled sights. Get up early enough and you can visit the Aalsmeer Flower Auction, 16 miles south of Amsterdam (sales start at 6:30 A.M.). It’s one of the busiest in the world, with around 20 million flowers from all over the globe auctioned every day. WHERE: Keukenhof is 22 miles/35 km southwest of Amsterdam. Tel 31/252-465-555; www.keukenhof.nl. HORTUS BOTANICUS: Tel 31/71-527-7249; www.hortus.leidenuniv.nl. TULIP CRUISES: contact Barge Lady, in the U.S., 800-880-0071 or 312-245-0900; www.bargelady.com. Cost: $4,500 for a 7-day cruise. AALSMEER FLOWER AUCTION: Tel 31/297-39-3939; www.flora.nl.
Keukenhof is the largest bulb garden in the world.
ZAANSE SCHANS—See working windmills up close and experience historical Holland firsthand at this open-air museum near the town of Zaandam. Twelve windmills churn away beside a little cluster of green wooden houses dating largely from the 17th and 18th centuries, transported here in the 1950s to reconstruct a traditional village. The windmills—just a hint of what life here must have been like when more than 1,000 were at work in the area—are still engaged in their original activities. One grinds mustard seeds, another produces cooking oil, and a third grinds pigments for paint. There’s also a working dairy, pewterer, and clog maker—and the first-ever Albert Heijn grocery store, now the name you see above almost every supermarket in the country. WHERE: 13 miles/20 km northeast of Amsterdam. INFO: Tel 31/75-681-0000; www.zaanseschans.nl.
Splendid Marriage of Art and Nature
DE HOGE VELUWE NATIONAL PARK
Apeldoorn, Netherlands
The industrialist Anton Kröller loved nature; his wife, Helene (née Müller), loved art. He bought tracts of wild land; she was one of the first-ever collectors of Vincent van Gogh. Together they left the nation a treasure—13,000 acres of duneland and meadows, fens and forests that became De Hoge Veluwe, Holland’s largest national park, with the Kröller-Müller Museum at its heart, home to 278 of Van Gogh’s works. Jump on one of the free white bicycles left about for public use and explore the property (keeping an eye open for deer and wild boar). Drop in Jachthuis St. Hubertus, the hunting lodge designed for the couple by the father of modern Dutch architecture, H. P. Berlage. The home’s early-20th-century features and fittings, from furniture to decorative tiling, remain beautifully intact.
The Kröller-Müller Museum will be your visit’s highlight. Together with the collection in Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum (see p. 227), the works here constitute nearly the entire oeuvre of the 19th-century Dutch artist, including one of the Sunflowers paintings, The Bridge at Arles, and L’Arlesienne, with some superb sketches and works on paper too. Kröller-Müller went on to collect work by other major artists, predominantly of the 19th and 20th centuries: Courbet, Seurat, Picasso, and Mondrian, to name a few. Surrounding the museum is one of Europe’s largest outdoor sculpture gardens, 47 acres of works by 20th-century sculptors such as Henry Moore, Richard Serra, and Claes Oldenburg.
Trade your white bike in for a car for the short drive to Het Loo, an exquisitely restored royal palace. It was built in the late 17th century by the prince and princess of Orange, who would thereafter take over the throne of England as William and Mary. A small-scale Versailles, the palace houses a museum celebrating the history of the House of Orange, but the formal Baroque gardens are the jewel in this royal crown.
WHERE: 56 miles/89 km southeast of Amsterdam. Tel 31/55-378-8119; www.hogeveluwe.nl. KRÖLLER-MÜLLER MUSEUM: Tel 31/318-591241; www.kmm.nl. HET LOO: Tel 31/55-577-2400; www.paleishetloo.nl. BEST TIME: Helene Kröller-Müller loved autumn colors and purposefully planted trees to display a spectrum of shades of foliage throughout the park; spring for tulips.
Blue Porcelain and the House of Orange
DELFT
Netherlands
Delft’s delicate gables, tree-lined canals, bridges, and ancient spires transport you straight back to the world so exquisitely captured in the canvases of Jan Vermeer and Pieter de Hoogh. Perhaps more so than in any other city in the country, the 16th and 17th centuries are preserved in this town whose name is known worldwide for its characteristic blue-and-white china. Still made and hand painted here, delftware’s timeless patterns and color scheme have survived the passage of centuries and collectors’ trends. When the sea of day-trippers heads back to Amsterdam or The Hague and the town returns to serenity, or as the morning sun touches church steeples and takes on a soft, focused quality, you can imagine yourself in Vermeer’s time. Not a prolific artist, none of his original work hangs in Delft now—for that you need to make a pilgrimage to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum (see p. 227) or The Hague’s Mauritshuis (see p. 235)—but a brand-new Vermeer Center not only displays his paintings but also has exhibits that reveal how he dealt with light and color.
Located on the attractive market square is the 14th-century Gothic Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), where William I, founder of the royal House of Orange and a kind of Dutch George Washington, lies in a magnificent marble and alabaster mausoleum surrounded by 22 columns; most Dutch monarchs and members of the royal house since him have been brought here for burial as well. A marvelous panoramic view from the church tower provides a glimpse of The Hague on a clear day. The nearby Oude Kerk (Old Church), founded around 1200, is the final resting place of Vermeer.
A stroll along the tree-lined Oude Delft, possibly the first city canal (and arguably the prettiest) in the Netherlands, brings you to the town’s most famous site: the Prinsenhof, a former 15th-century royal residence where William lived and was assassinated in 1584 (the bullet hole is still visible). Today it houses a museum dedicated to the history of the Dutch Republic, along with some prime pieces of delftware and other prized objects from the 17th-century golden age of Delft. In the former storerooms of the Prinsenhof, with an entrance on a small alleyway off the Oude Delft canal, is an atmospheric restaurant, De Prinsenkelder, promising the end to a perfect day in the town that inspired some of Holland’s greatest artists.
Delftware got its start in the 16th century.
WHERE: 9 miles/14 km southeast of The Hague. VERMEER CENTER: Tel 31/15-213-8588; www.vermeerdelft.nl. PRINSENHOF MUSEUM: Tel 31/15-260-2358; www.prinsenhof-delft.nl. DE PRINSENKELDER: Tel 31/15-212-1860; www.de-prinsenkelder.nl. Cost: dinner $75. BEST TIMES: Thurs for market day in the central square, with a flower market along the canal at Brabantse Turfmarkt; Apr–Sep for Sat flea market along canals.
Southern Style and Charisma
THE EUROPEAN FINE ARTS FAIR
Maastricht, Netherlands
The ancient Roman town of Maastricht is known for its bon vivant ambience and excellent food, all to be enjoyed amid rich cultural offerings and venerable history—along with the city’s charm, sophistication, and high-end shopping. Here at Holland’s southernmost point, wedged in between Belgium and Germany, languages, customs, and trends flow freely across borders. Lively eateries—from the sublime Beluga restaurant and its food-as-art to the more casual wood-paneled De Bóbbel café—are at their most vivacious during the late-winter Carnival celebration with parades
of elaborate floats, parties, and fancy dress.
The city barely has time to catch its breath before connoisseurs roll into town every March to pick up an extra Rembrandt etching or add to their collection of Gobelin tapestries, at the prestigious European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF)—billed as the world’s leading art and antiques fair. More than 250 dealers from over a dozen countries arrive to show works of art to aficionados, collectors, and curators. Major museums from around the globe are regularly represented among the expert buyers at the fair, assured by the team of international experts who examine all objects for authenticity, provenance, and condition.
But Maastricht packs a year-round cultural punch too. The Bonnefantenmuseum, housed in a spectacular new building with a bullet-shaped dome designed by Italian architect Also Rossi, houses a collection of medieval religious carvings unequalled anywhere in the country. Take in such glories as Basiliek van Onze Lieve Vrouw (Basilica of Our Beloved Lady), a Romanesque church that dates to before the year 1000 and is a pilgrimage church even today, then spend the night in a former 15th-century monastery, the Kruisherenhotel, where the Gothic building has been given a sleek contemporary redesign. Alternatively, check into an elegant boutique hotel, such as Hotel Les Charmes, or head out of town to one of Holland’s most luxurious country hotels, Château St. Gerlach. The exceptional estate has been reborn with hand-loomed Venetian fabrics and precious antiques, all surrounded by Baroque gardens that blend into a natural preserve.
WHERE: 130 miles/207 km southeast of Amsterdam. BELUGA: Tel 31/43-321-3364; www.rest-beluga.com. Cost: dinner $125. DE BÓBBEL: Tel 31/43-321-7413; www.debobbel.com. Cost: lunch $30. TEFAF: Tel 31/411-64-5090; www.tefaf.com. When: 1 week mid-Mar. BONNEFANTENMUSEUM: Tel 31/43-329-0190; www.bonnefanten.nl. KRUISHERENHOTEL: Tel 31/43-329-2020; www.chateauhotels.nl. Cost: from $290. HOTEL LES CHARMES: Tel 31/43-321-7400; www.hotellescharmes.nl. Cost: from $210. CHTEAU ST. GERLACH: Tel 31/43-608-8888; www.chateauhotels.nl. Cost: from $220. BEST TIMES: Feb or Mar for Maastricht’s famous Carnival; late Aug for prominent Preuvenemint food fair.
A Feast of Fine Art
HET MAURITSHUIS
The Hague, Netherlands
Vermeer’s signature painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring, together with other gems such as Rembrandt’s graphic Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (the first canvas to bring him recognition), form the core of a small collection of the great 17th-century Dutch masters in the Mauritshuis museum. Long acknowledged as one of the world’s finest small museums, it occupies the beautiful, Palladian-inspired mansion of Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, the 17th-century Dutch governor-general of Brazil. Inside, it’s almost like viewing a private collection, while outside a small, tree-shaded pond is crisscrossed by resident swans. Tour groups are uncommon, and most art lovers linger on the upper floor, home to other works by Vermeer (including his View of Delft, which moved the French writer Marcel Proust to call it the most beautiful painting in the world), Rembrandt, and Jan Steen. The heart of the Mauritshuis collection comes from the private art horde of Prince William V of Orange, who in 1773 built a gallery in his palace (just across the pond from the Mauritshuis) and allowed the public in 3 days a week. In 2010, the Galerij Prins Willem V reopened to the public after a magnificent restoration. The cream of the collection’s crop had been transferred to the Mauritshuis decades ago, and remains there, but the Galerij has the edge when it comes to grandeur, with its high, Louis XVI stucco ceilings.
As the seat of government for the Netherlands and home to the monarch, The Hague is a prosperous and dignified city. Some of this stateliness is captured at high tea in the magnificent lounge of the city’s Hotel des Indes, built in 1856 for the private adviser to King William III. It was in this lavish former baronial town house that Mata Hari practiced her subtle subterfuge during the dark days of World War I, when the hotel was used as Allied headquarters.
Vermeer’s masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring remained unknown until 1882, when it was sold for nearly nothing.
WHERE: 31 miles/50 km southwest of Amsterdam. HET MAURITSHUIS: Tel 31/70-302-3456; www.mauritshuis.nl. GALERIJ PRINS WILLEM V: Tel 31/70-302-3435; www.mauritshuis.nl. HOTEL DES INDES: Tel 31/70-361-2345; in the U.S., 888-625-5144; www.hoteldesindesthehague.com. Cost: from $250 (off-peak), from $340 (peak); high tea $50. BEST TIME: late May–early Jun for Tong Tong Fair, a popular festival of Euro-Indonesian food and culture.
The Essence of the Low Countries
ZEELAND
Netherlands
Travelers to Amsterdam who leave the Netherlands without a foray into the Low Country for a glimpse of this gentle farmland, the waterland teeming with birds, the long beaches and pretty towns—and most especially for a taste of just-caught culinary offerings from the North Sea—are missing out on a real Dutch treat. This patchwork of land and water forms the appropriately named province of Zeeland (“Sea-Land”). The complex system of dams, dikes, and levies that comprises the Delta Works storm-surge barrier, built following a disastrous flood in 1953 to protect Zeeland from another such inundation, is itself an impressive sight—the longest barrier stretching 5.6 miles across the water.
Visit pretty medieval towns like Zierikzee, Veere, and Middelburg, which date back to the time when the wide rivers that run into Zeeland were busy channels of trade. Take a bicycle ride across table-flat farmland dotted with windmills amid apple and pear orchards. Then stop off in the waterside village of Yerseke, famed for its mussels and oysters. Though you frequently hear that much of the Netherlands is below sea level, it is rarely as evident as here. At the cozy bistro Nolet’s, you can tuck into great bowls of mussels and, a few minutes’ walk away, climb the bank of a dike and see where they grow. There’s even finer dining just a few miles away at Inter Scaldes. People find their way from all parts to the dramatic thatch-roofed farmhouse now an inn-restaurant and English-style gardens created by a local husband-and-wife team. They come not only for some of Europe’s tastiest shellfish, but for conversation-stopping preparations of lobster and langoustine and for lamb raised in seaside pastures down the road.
WHERE: 75 miles/120 km south of The Hague. NOLET’S VISTRO: Tel 31/113-572-101; www.vistro.nl. Cost: lunch $55. INTER SCALDES: Tel 31/113-381-753; www.interscaldes.eu. Cost: from $300; 4-course dinner $135. BEST TIMES: early spring for the orchard blossoms; late Aug for Yerseke’s Mussel Festival.
Hilltop Castles in Ancient Border Towns
ESTREMOZ AND MARVÃO
Alentejo, Portugal
East of Lisbon, rolling red-earth plains bear miles of vineyards and great swaths of wheat, giving the Alentejo a tranquil look that belies its stormy history. Moors and Christians, Portuguese and Spaniards fought over this enchanting countryside, and there is a medieval fort or castle on every hilltop to prove it. By far the grandest structure in Estremoz is the 13th-century castle constructed by King Dinis for his child queen—the sainted Isabel—and rebuilt after an 18th-century fire. It is now the Rainha Santa Isabel, probably the most gracious of the 45 government-owned pousadas (inns) scattered across Portugal. The views still entrance and the castle-inn retains its regal mien, with museum-quality antiques and tapestries and grand public areas with 22-foot ceilings, monumental staircases, and plenty of marble from the famed Alentejo quarries. An attentive staff brings warmth to the banquet hall where the restaurant serves Alentejano specialties—such as pork stewed with vegetables and potatoes, and rabbit braised with turnips—and boasts a cellar of superb local Borba wines. Rugs from nearby Arraiolos and canopied four-poster beds lavishly decorate the 30 guest rooms. The room where Saint Isabel died in 1336 escaped the fire and is now a small chapel open to the public.
Almost within shouting distance of the Spanish border, tiny Marvão (population 300) is one of Portugal’s most charming and dramatic border towns. Built around a 13th-century castle that offers 360-degree views, the town’s small white buildings crouch on its hilltop, reminiscent of the flocks of white birds that can be found nesting in the surrounding Natural Park of Serra de S�
�o Mamede. Marvão’s Pousada de Santa Maria has a winning modesty. Converted from adjoining 18th-century houses, the inn has handsome beamed ceilings and stone fireplaces decorated with azulejo tiles, but it’s the views over the ridges to Spain that will take your breath away. A panorama of countryside spreads out beneath the 3,000-foot-high hill town—the perfect spot to be alone with your thoughts and “look down on the eagles,” as one Portuguese poet wrote.
Marvão Castle’s turrets afford magnificent views of the Serra de Ossa and Serra de São Mamede Mountains, and to Spain just beyond.
WHERE: Estremoz is 90 miles/145 km east of Lisbon; Marvão is 140 miles/224 km northeast of Lisbon. POUSADA RAINHA SANTA ISABEL and POUSADA DE SANTA MARIA: Tel 351/258-82-1751; in the U.S., 800-223-1356; www.pousadasofportugal.com. Cost: from $250; dinner at Rainha Santa Isabel $50. BEST TIMES: Apr–May and Sep–Oct; Sat in Estremoz for the market on the central plaza.
An Open-Air Museum of Portuguese Architecture
1,000 Places to See Before You Die Page 39