I promised a few days ago that I would tell about our 2-day trip to The Netherlands. Here goes.
We arrived by train from Paris, non-stop to Brussels then on to Amsterdam. It was the only time on our trip when we got a meal on the train. Like you used to get on airplanes. We got into Amsterdam late in the afternoon, then took a local train about 10 miles west to the city of Haarlem (yes, that's where Harlem in New York City got its name; NYC used to be a Dutch colony).
When we got to Haarlem, we walked maybe 10 blocks to our hotel, which was in the central square close by the "Groote Kerk," the Great Church, which at one time was Roman Catholic but became Reformed when Holland gained its indpendence from Spain. These days the Reformed Church is the state church of The Netherlands, in the same way that the Anglican Church is the state church of England. The official designation doesn't seem to count for much. Holland feels so secular that "church" would be in the past tense if it wasn't a noun.
The next morning we took a short walk to the house where Corrie Ten Boom used to live. If you don't know about Corrie Ten Boom, I highly recommend her book The Hiding Place or the very fine film by the same name that was made in 1975. Together with her father and sister, she hid Jews in her house until they were discovered in 1944. Subsequently, her whole family was sent to concentration camps, where her sister and father died. Corrie became a traveling evangelist after the war and continued that work until shortly before she died. The house and the tour were quite impressive. We saw where people were hidden, the great lengths that were taken to protect those who hid, and the danger involved in this kind of activity. Our tour guide was a older woman who was very frank about Corrie's Christian commitment and the importance of accepting Christ as one's savior. We spent a very edifying hour there.
That afternoon we took the train into Amsterdam and visited the Rijksmuseum, something that Connie had been anticipating for some time. She loves the Dutch masters: Rembrandt, Vermeer, etc., so we spent a very enjoyable time looking at the Rijksmuseum's outstanding collection. Later we wandered through some of Amsterdam's beautiful older neighborhoods (no, we didn't go to its infamous red light district!), along canals, on cobblestone streets. We walked past the house where Anne Frank took refuge during the war. We would have gone in but there was a large crowd waiting to be admitted.
One thing I must comment on is the staggering number of bicycles one sees in Holland. They say there are as many bikes there as people and I believe it. One reason, I suppose, is that the country is pretty much flat as a pancake, and thus conducive to this mode of transportation. The other reason (which Holland shares with every other country we've been to) is that gas costs about 8 dollars a gallon, which makes you think twice about getting in your car (assuming you own one).
We only spent two nights in Holland, so the next morning we got up and (ahem) took the bus to England. This was one part of our trip that we didn't plan very well. If we had shopped early, we could have flown from Amsterdam to London for about $60 apiece. That price had climbed considerably by the time we got ready to buy, so the bus became our cheapest alternative. Twelve hours through every Tom, Dick and Harry town in Holland, Belgium and northern France. We saw lots of country and got our first real taste of European freeway driving. However, we don't recommend this mode of travel. It just took too long.
But the "chunnel" from France to England was sort of interesting. We arrived at the embarkation point, where we had to go through French customs. They made us take all our baggage off the bus and run it through their x-ray machines. Frederick, our driver, informed us that sometimes they do this, sometimes they don't. Which was okay. But then we got on the bus, drove 50 yards, got off the bus and went through British customs. At least they didn't want to look at our luggage. So finally we go to go in the chunnel. Only it wasn't what I expected. I can't speak for cars or trains, but buses that go through the chunnel are loaded onto long trains. You drive into what looks like an incredibly long trailer (ours stretched maybe a quarter-mile), only there are train tracks beneath it. The bus drives as far to the front as possible. Then dividers come down in front and in back of the bus, separating it from vehicles in front and in back of it. Finally the train starts to move. At first you csee light through the little windows on the sides of the train. Then everything goes black as you enter the chunnel. It takes about half an hour to get to the other side (the English Channel is 20 miles wide at its narrowest point). Then when you come out you're in England! I had great admiration for our driver, Frederick. As soon as we left the train, he had to switch from driving on the right side of the road (Europe) to the left side (England). He handled it like a pro. From there it took us about an hour to get to London.
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