Cruising around Europe: Amsterdam

As a result of quite a bit of luck, my in-laws' generosity, and the fact that my wife, Cindy, and I are both educators with long summer vacations, we found ourselves on board two cruises this month- one to the Baltic Sea and the other to the Mediterranean.  Over the next few days, I'll be posting pictures, commentary, and the conclusion of that rant about tourists.  We left Harwick, England at the end of June on board the Celebrity Constellation en route to Amsterdam and eventually the Baltic. 

I lived just outside The Hague for three years, but hadn't been back to the Netherlands for a while and I was really looking forward to having 8 hours in port to take Cin down to see the Ridderzaal area and the beach at Schevenigen, but Celebrity Cruises had their own ideas. Apparently the A'dam cruise terminal charges by the hour and the cruise line couldn't imagine anyone actually leaving A'dam.  So we ended up just wandering around Dam Square and eating frits met fritsaus.  Most passengers were fine with this.  What else is there in Holland, except the Red Light District, right?  

Well, if your idea of a good vacation is getting so blitzed you can't see straight, then- as almost all Dutchmen and -women would likely agree- write the name of your hotel/cruise ship on your forehead and please stay within the Red Light District.  However, if you'd like to do almost anything else, once you've 1) done a canal tour of the Jordan neighborhood, 2) seen Anne Frank's house, and 3) the Rijkssmuseum/ Van Gogh Museums, go back to Centraal Station and hop on a train headed south. 

My suggestion: take the train from A'dam to Den Haag (The Hague) and you'll watch some of the most beautiful scenery in the world pass by your window as the train go through Haarlem and the tulip fields.  For a country with one of the highest population densities in the world, the Netherlands has a LOT of open, rural land- the result of proper (and rather inflexible) central planning after World War II.  

Get off your train at Den Haag Centraal and follow the shopping street to its end at a large open area surrounding a lake.  And oh, right. There's a castle in the middle.  Now used as Parliamentary offices, the Binnenhof surrounds the Ridderzaal, a medieval throne room/ adminstrative center for the Counts of Holland and still the place from which the Dutch monarch opens Parliament every year.  During the annual week-long Queen's Day celebrations, the area around the Binnenhof becomes an open air amusement park, with carousels, snack vendors, and spinning/jerking/twisting rides of all kinds, late into the night. 

If you want a relaxing trip to the beach, take a tram to Schevenigen.  You'll pass the Staten Kwartier, where most embassies are; the Peace Palace, where the International Court of Justice has sat since it was founded; and Madurodam, which is a rather vast model of Holland that lets you walk through miniature versions of Amsterdam, The Hague, and Delft.  (On sunny days, this is great for kids- they can play Godzilla stomping through major cities.)  At the end of the line is the Kurhaus, a beautiful old hotel right on the beach.  During the summer, temporary restaurants and bars set up shop on the sand below the (stone) boardwalk.