Wednesday we wanted to go to the Concertgebouw, as they have free lunchtime concerts in their small hall. We got there early, and the lady at the desk said the patrons would gather on the stairway at noon and the concert would start at 1230. It was about 10 and we didn’t want to leave, so we sat in the lobby. Then I got the bright idea of an early lunch at their café, so we went in and had some Viennese pastry and water and wine for 14 euro. This was the best pastry we had in Amsterdam. Alas, I had apparently left my favorite Amsterdam map in the waiting area and when we returned a small crowd had gathered. I asked about my map, but no one had seen it, and a tourist seated where my wife had been seated, who was reading a map that appeared to be identical, said the one he had was his. I wasn’t about to make a scene over such a small item, but I did put a hex on him, and he probably has no hair or teeth by now. Fortunately, I did have a backup map. The crowd continued to grow and soon we were maneuvering for space on the stairway, as the hall holds only 500 and they just let the first 500 in. When they finally opened the gate, we were off to the races. We did get good seats, and the hall looked full, but I don’t know if there were a few spaces open or if they had to turn people away, but if you decide to go, I suggest getting there early. The concert was music by Purcell, performed by the Spirit of Gambo. Old music on period instruments. I usually don’t appreciate Purcell, but there was something about the musicians, the music, and the hall, that made this performance lovely, and the audience really appeared to appreciate it. It was a relatively short concert, with five fantasias, but will stick with me as one of the high points of our visit.

Afterward we wandered about the canals and river, and took a million pictures of the skinny bridge, until we found the Rembrandthuis. With my museumcard, there was a 2 euro (apiece) charge for admission. It has been restored; they built a building next to it that they use for exhibits, one by Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughters when we were there. We spent a little time in this exhibit, but our main focus was on Rembrandt’s house, which has a lot of stairs and no elevator. It was interesting seeing the rooms he lived in, and some of the artifacts he had collected. His studio is intact, and includes some equipment and materials, such as those used to make his paints. My wife was very interested here, as she paints and draws, and is always studying how a work was created as much as how it looks.

We made a point of visiting the bloemenmarkt, but I don’t think I would again. The barges are permanently moored with buildings covering them so you don’t even know they are barges. There are a lot of bulbs, but relatively few cut flowers (which are widely available in, it seems, every neighborhood). I wanted some jonquils, but they had none because of the season. My wife picked out a Delftish bowl full of bulbs, but when I asked about the certificate necessary to get the bulbs through US customs, they said the certificates were only issued during two months (Summer months, to my recollection), so we didn’t buy any. Two vendors gave the same story. So I resolved to dig up and split the jonquils and tulips we already have, and were running out of flower space anyway. Cut flowers are very popular; at the flower stall at De Waag I would buy them to decorate our boat; I recall that two bundles of small roses (about 18 or 20 in a bundle) were only 5 euro.

By now we were tired, so we wandered back to De Waag, and then to our boat for a nap. Dinner that evening was at Ristorante Italia Oggi again. With a bottle of water, one good soup, an antipasto primo and a fillet of fish prima, a bottle of wine, and one desert, the charge was 72 euro. As previously the service was friendly and efficient, and the food quite good.

The next day we entrained to Haarlem, which turned out to be worth more than the single day we had allotted. My main objectives were the Great Church of St. Bavo’s and the Muller organ, the Hals Museum, and the Corrie ten Boom house. The walk from the station had some scenic spots, and that slowed us a bit. When we got to St. Bavo’s, it was scenic and we had to circle it a few times taking pictures, then we had to do a little shopping. I went to the church entrance and asked if the organ would be played that day, and they said yes, at 2. That left us with time for a long lunch, but not enough time to see anything before 2. We ate outside at L’Anders. A bottle of water, a glass of wine, a French onion soup, and two fairly large sandwiches were 21 euro. Perhaps I was starved, but the French onion soup was the best I have ever had, and both sandwiches were quite good, but bigger than we could eat.

We then returned, a bit early, to the church. On the way I resisted my wife’s attempts to get me into a medieval barber shop, because I know those barbers did surgery, too, and I didn’t want to risk a language problem. Admission to the church was 2 euro each, and they seemed almost apologetic about that. Big spending American that I am, I gave them a ten euro note and asked that they keep the change, but they didn’t seem to understand and insisted I take my change, so I put it in what I think was the poor box. The exterior of the church is beautiful, and the interior is better, but the organ is an absolute jewel. We walked around admiring everything, and soon one of a group of musicians climbed up to the keyboard and the playing started. There were player after player, with no program or announcement of what the music was, but the performance was a high point of our trip. If you have a chance to hear and see this organ, don’t let it escape you.

We stayed a bit past the end of the performance, since you don’t know when it is really over without a program. I was surprised how few people were there, but I guess the crowds are for the big name performers, rather than for just the quality of the music. Anyway, we then set out to find the Hals museum, and it was not as easy as the maps make it look, partly because there was some construction. But find it we did. We decided to take our time and enjoy the museum, as closing times were such that we could not be certain we could see the Corrie ten Boom house, even if we rushed. We enjoyed the Hals museum, but thoughts of the organ music were still ringing in my head and distracted me.

Saddened that we hadn’t been able to see the Corrie ten Boom house (Corrie ten Boom was the sole survivor of a family that helped many people avoid capture by the Gestapo, but was eventually captured itself and sent to the camps. She returned after the war and revealed their story, and their house is kept as a memorial), we returned to the train station and to Amsterdam.

We’ve met a number of people who stay in Haarlem rather than Amsterdam. It is a very pleasant town, and I understand lodging there costs less than in Amsterdam.

That evening we ate again at Hemelse Modder. We weren’t very hungry so we just had two entrees (my notes fail me), a bottle of good wine, and two deserts, with a tab of 82 euro.

Saturday. Rain and cold all day. We have seen everything in our plans that doesn’t require good weather, so we slept in, ran to a nearby grocer for ingredients for lunch, and spent the whole day on the boat watching CNN. I like the European version of CNN far more than the stateside; they have broader and less biased coverage, and their moderators are far more civilized than the arguing heads (who can’t even argue without screaming and interrupting each other) that infect the US version. Today they had a discussion with the Middle East media about coverage of the US election and it was quite interesting, especially when one made an unflattering comment about Clinton that would certainly have been cut here. With all the marginal cable broadcasting we have (why do I need two channels of taped horse races, and 50 channels of flavored elevator music), why can’t they toss in something like CNN international and let us learn a bit about the rest of the world?

The rain has stopped now, so we will venture across the canal for dinner.

I was concerned that there might be no space in the café, with all their outdoor tables out of service due to the weather, but the Café Captein, Binnen Bantammerstraat 27 had space. This is a neighborhood café, more bar than restaurant, and is somewhat raucous and smoky. Service is friendly but busy, and you sometimes have to go up to the bar to order your next course. We had a dish of mixed olives and a dish of bitterballen for starters. The olives were good, but I don’t see the attraction of bitterballen. We then had pretty good tomato soup (we have seen this on more menu’s than the famed pea soup). Pasta for one was the main course, and it was rich with cheese. We had blueberry cheesecake (for my wife, she liked the cheesecake but didn’t like the blueberry covering) and ice cream drowned in amoretto for me ( how could this not be good?) and a carafe of red Spanish house wine, all for 44.7.

For exercise after dinner we walked a block down the canal to get a close look at the clock tower that has been keeping time for us. According to the books, it is quite old and was often sketched by Rembrandt. It is a lovely tower, very well kept up, and keeps good time. Now we are back on the boat waving to the tourists in the tour boats as they pass by.

Sunday was cool but sunny, just the type of Spring weather we had prepared for. After a relaxed breakfast on the boat, we set out on a picture-taking and shopping walk. I had thought that most stores would be closed, but a surprising number were open. Alas, the Puccini Bombolini chocolate shop and the Geels tea store we liked were among the few closed. On the other hand, the whole town was decked out at a street sale, mostly books.

We started with the clock tower at the end of our canal, Waalseilandsgracht, and as it was before noon the crowds were not out and we got some good pictures of ourselves and the tower. We then walked a few blocks south along the Oudeschans, then cut over to De Waag Nieuw Markt, which was crowded as they were having a flea market, to catch St. Antoniesbreestraat which was lined with book vendors and a good crowd; I wanted to find De Klompenboer, which has toys and wooden shoes, planning to come back the next day if their window looked interesting. They were on that street, but the addresses were disordered, and as we were about to give up, I noticed a store with Wooden Shoes on the sign, which turned out to be it and, best of all, they were open. They had shoes that fit (I hope) kids, and an impressive display of toys and stuffed animals. I would rank them with the Gone with the wind, and De Beestenwinkel we had been to earlier.

We continued down this road to cross the Oudeschans and came again to Rembrandt’s house. Its strange how sometimes things are much easier to find when you aren’t looking for them. We then browsed through the flea market (it was a book market today) to Staalstraat and turned west only to find the chocolate shop closed (Puccini Bombolini actually has two locations, and this was closer to us). We went further west to find a bridge and cross the Amstel, then walked south almost to the famed skinny bridge (if it wasn’t the most photographed bridge in Amsterdam before, it is now) and turned right to walk along the Herengracht through the golden bend. That is a very scenic walk, and was not crowded. By this time we were hungry and there aren’t a lot of cafes along the Herengracht, so we turned toward the Dam at about Paleisstraat and looked along Spuistraat and Singel. Spuistraat, at least in those few blocks, was dreary, but Singel was much more pleasant, and we found a café (Café het Paleis, Paleisstraat 16) that had a good tuna melt (unlike any at home) and club sandwich (just like home) with a banana/coconut smoothie and a glass of white wine for 21 euro. It was a plain café, but for the scenery outside the windows, but we both enjoyed the food.

Our vigor restored, we set out to find the nine charming tiny streets that radiate from behind the Royal palace, for some shopping. Here I have a bone to pick with the Fodors guidebook. My understanding is that the Royal palace faces the Dam. No tourist map I have shows these unnamed nine streets, we wandered quite a bit and found small streets, but mostly filled with restaurants and cafes, and the boundaries described in the Fodors guidebook are quite some distance from the Royal palace, so we never found the elusive nine streets and its somewhat frustrating looking for something with directions that are lacking or defective.

We did find a shop where an artist sells very nice looking “Amsterdam” tee shirts, which I think our last two kids will enjoy, so our souveniring is officially complete with time left.

We then walked north on Nieuwendijk, a pedestrian shopping street, but it was very crowded and looked like any other mall in the world; I could have stayed home and had the same experience.

I wanted to avoid the central station area (construction there makes it a bit difficult to get where you want to go) so we just picked a street and headed east, crossing Damrak and venturing through the red light district to get to our home. The district was crowded, but not as active as at other times; they were probably all in church. Here I made a vital discovery. I love bakeries and tarts (legless tarts, to clarify) and while I had found a number of bakeries (none open until 0800, if you are shopping for breakfast), none had a good selection of the kind of pastry I like with breakfast. However, as we walked through the red light district (and I tried not to browse the lively merchandise), I noticed a large number of bakeries, all filled with just the kind of pastries I like; it could almost have been Paris in this respect. We didn’t buy any, as our hands were full.

Later we went back but were unable to find the bakeries. Then I reconstructed where we had been going from and to when we found them, and we were able to identify the street, and walk right to the bakeries. The pastries were relatively expensive (10 euro for two) and we discovered at breakfast the next day that they were not as good as they looked. I guess their cost was due to the atmosphere of the neighborhood where we found them.

We are back at the boat now, enjoying coffee and picking a venue for dinner. Our walk today was very pleasant, with good weather, pleasant scenery, and a lot to explore. This walk took about 5.5 hours (including down time for lunch), but walks depend so much on how fast one walks, and how much one stops to browse (we went into no museums today, as we have already been to the ones on our must see list, for example), I hesitate to give that as a guide. We did remark that now, as we wind down our second week, it is much easier to get around and we almost never use the trams anymore, as contrasted with our first days where we took trams frequently.

Monday, our last full day. We had nothing planned today, and didn’t have the energy for a day trip to Rotterdam. But in reviewing my material I found I had left the Hermitage museum off our list (when I had been planning, last year, it was reported to be partially closed for restoration until 2007). I tried calling them, but got no answer (that’s not definitive; I have difficulty making this T-mobile phone work overseas, and my wife’s does not work at all), so we set out to get some exercise and see the museum (it didn’t hurt that the route passed by the chocolatier we wanted to visit again. Alas, the museum is there, but is completely closed for extensive renovation; we couldn’t even visit the courtyard. The signs were all in Netherlandish, so I have no idea when it will reopen, but from the extent of work being done, I would guess 2010 at the earliest. We spent a few hours at the nearby flea market, but other than the sex toys and materials, it was very like a flea market back home. I thought, at least we can salvage a visit to the chocolatier’s out of this, but they too were undergoing construction and not open (it seemed a very temporary problem). We passed an interesting food store and stopped in and bought ingredients for lunch; including a bottle of white wine on sale, the cost was 15 euro, not much less than what we usually pay at a café, but there was a lot more decent wine than my usual one glass.

We went back to the boat and ate, and talked about what we had seen and what we should do that afternoon; the consensus was that we would nap, enjoy a good dinner, then pack and be ready to catch an early breakfast and train in the morning. I want to get to the airport early, as I have not found an available wireless connection, and my pc is nagging me constantly about not having my virus protection up to date. We walked over to De Waag for coffee and I took advantage of their free wifi to let my virus checker get updated and check that our airline had not gone out of business. For dinner we returned to Restaurant Guadalupe and the owner and the cat greeted us like old friends. We started with guacamole. My wife had the ribs again, while I had a Mexican plate. We had a good bottle of Argentinian wine, and two good deserts. The owner even treated us to two small glasses of a Spanish liqueur, the name of which I didn’t catch, but it was quite good. The tab was 75 euro.

Leaving went smoothly. Our flight was at 1330, but I like to be early. We packed, bade our hostess goodby, walked to Central Station and took the train to Schipol. Since it was late morning, the train was not even crowded. Security at the airport was very different. We signed in, passed through passport control, then looked around for the equivalent of the dreaded TSA line, but it wasn’t there. You go to the gate, and shortly before they open for boarding, their security people arrive and you are screened right there. That makes a lot of sense to me, because anyone who comes to see you off can be with you until you enter the boarding line, and of course the airport merchants have more customers than they would were they in the sterile zone. The flight arrived in EWR quite early. which gave us time to enjoy the entire immigration and customs experience.

I had to do the double check dance at passport control, as apparently someone using my name has gotten on their list; at least this time they let us go through this together; previous times they have made my wife wait out in the hall.

Almost all of the employees there were polite and friendly, but they persist in assigning a disgruntled employee to do the initial customs interview. This one appeared offended because we had checked yes as to animal products (cheese isn’t an animal product?) and then seemed not to know the difference between cured and uncured cheese. She referred us to the agricultural specialists, who smiled, ran our bags through a scanner, and wished us welcome home. My wife was nervously checking the bag we had everything we had listed in, as she was sure the bottles of calvados I had packed in my spare shoes would break and leak over everything, but as always, the shoes protected them from everything.

I would offer some inexpert thoughts on this visit.

First, I like fish, but enough is enough. The food there has more fish entrees than we are used to. We didn’t do the raw herring gobble, but did enjoy seeing other tourists talk themselves into it. There was a lot of good beer (alas, off my diet except in emergencies) but I saw no local wine, and the wine there did cost a bit more than other places in Europe we have visited. We were there in asparagus season, and the fat spears were quite impressive. Food portions were generally larger than we have found in other parts of Europe. Soups were very common and were universally excellent, but other parts of the meal were often more ordinary. Deserts were excellent, but pastry was often not that great, although there were exceptions. So while we really enjoyed this trip, I would not say it was a gourmet experience, but still we ate well.

As to the red light district, my wife thought it would be full of criminals, while I thought it was a small confined area that we would be able to avoid. Both of us were wrong.

We ended up passing through it frequently, and only once did we see the type of huckstering that is common in similar areas in our country, and I would guess that that one coarse man will not be employed very long, as he seemed really out of place. There were small groups of men who looked almost embarrassed as they stood across the narrow street from one of the open windows and talked to one of the prostitutes. We weren’t there at night, but during the daytime it seemed very like any other commercial neighborhood, and we never felt unsafe.

As to the boundaries, they seemed to be very fluid and I don’t think you could accurately say avoid this and that street and you will see nothing. Many of the sites a tourist would want to see have sex industry neighbors. I had understood that the windows were on the first (European) floor, but almost all we saw were at street level and consisted of a booth with a full glass door and a stool; often, perhaps due to the unseasonably warm weather during our visit, the doors are open. The streets are narrow and on one instance I was walking on the sidewalk (perhaps two feet wide) when we passed one house not realizing what it was. Suddenly there was movement to my right, and what I had thought was a mannikin turned out to be a prostitute, so close I could have picked her pocket, if she had had any. To an extent, this area has pretty much what we are used to seeing on commercials during ball games; attractive women scantily clothed. So my efforts to avoid the district were short lived, and we ended up walking through the district whenever we wanted to get somewhere on the other side, and experienced no bad effects. Because it is so shapeless and changing, I think trying to completely avoid it would take quite a bit of time and effort, and deprive you of visiting the sites and restaurants that are in or near it.

Sorry for the delay in finishing this report. I fell behind when I was ill and couldn’t hook up to the internet, so I’ve had to reconstruct a lot from our pictures and credit card receipts, and we had to catch up on a lot of Spring chores we had left undone because of the trip. Despite a bit of misfortune this time, we still had a very pleasant and fulfilling trip, and I would not hesitate to visit the Netherlands again.

Thank you so much for the rest of the report, clevelandbrown! Very enjoyable read. Sorry you got sick but sounds like you recovered fairly quickly. I need to go visit Haarlem next time, it sounds truly wonderful, and esp with the organ concert.

I would check the schedule for the organ music at Haarlem. I think it is scheduled for only one evening; while other performances are intermittent. I had checked and they said they were having them at 1500 the day we visited, but when we got there I checked again and they had been moved up to 1400. Whatever it takes, seeing and hearing that organ is memorable.

Great report! Thx!

Especially fun to read about my home-town Den Haag (The Hague). Glad you enjoyed it!
It is a city very often overlooked by tourists. But IMO it has a lot to offer and gives a little bit of 'big city with village charm'.
Funny to read that some guide-books call it 'small'. It is a city with around 400.000 inhabitants in The Hague itself and around a milion with surrounding cities!

If you want to find the 'negen straatjes' or 'nine streets' when you next visit Amsterdam: http://www.de9straatjes.nl/en/index.html