Luxembourg--just a few quick pix

Luxembourg, looking from the "upper town" to the "lower town" over the medieval fortified walls.

Maile in the Cathedral of Luxembourg next to the crypt of John the Blind (for some reason we found that amusing, like Eric the Red)

Relaxing with some refreshments in the main square of Luxembourg.  The store names are now in French instead of German.

Random pictures toward the end of the cruise...

Holland and Maile took a bike excursion offered by the cruise.  That's Tom on the left before they left with about twelve brave cruisemates on a two hour bike tour down the Moselle River near Berncastel, Germany.  They stopped at an old nunnery turned cafe before coming back to the ship.  Afterwards, several of their bike mates told us how nice and well behaved they were and one British lady said that the best thing about them was not just how sweet and polite they were to the adults, but how lovely they treated each other.  Jenn and Eric will be so proud!

Towards the end of the cruise we went to Trier, the oldest town in Germany which has some lovely Roman ruins.

H and M next to a model of the foot of an ancient statue of the Emperor Constantine.  Imagine how huge the whole statue would have been!

A restored castle at Cochem

This castle at Cochem, Germany, was restored in the 1970's by a wealthy businessman who wanted people to know what it would have looked like in the Middle Ages.  Most of the German castles are in ruins either having been bombed during the war or simply destroyed by time.  This one has been meticulously restored.  We toured the inside of the castle which sits on top of a hill looking over the delightful town of Cochem.  

Maile and Holland with one of the many armoured figures in the castle

Another view of the castle

The town of Cochem with its timbered houses

Looking down from the castle grounds over the Moselle River and the town

Another view from the top

Some pictures of the castles along the Rhein

 

This may look like any old rock but it is actually the rock of Lorelei, where the beautiful maiden Lorelei sat combing her long blonde hair while countless sailors, besotted with her beauty and having fallen in love with her, dashed their ships on the rock thus ensuring their untimely demises.  Such a sad story....

The Cruise

A little bit about the boat.  We are on an Avalon river cruise, which began in Amsterdam, detoured through Volendam and Edam and is now proceeding down the Rhine toward Trier where we will board a bullet train for Paris.   After three days in Amsterdam we made our way to the meeting place for the cruise ship, checked in, waited for what seemed like an endless time (although luckily we inquired of a local and found a really cool place for lunch), and finally boarded the ship, found our way to our staterooms where the luggage was magically in place, and had about an hour to get organized.  The kids have the room next to us and assured us they would be fine and I resisted the temptation to organize their lives for the week.  Now a couple of days later, we are all managing fine and the rooms are amazingly navigable with mostly a place for everything  and space to function.  The food has been surprisingly good, and Maile has her own private Gluten Free Consultant who seeks her out at every meal and tells her which dishes might be secretly harboring some gluten.  We were in the lounge yesterday during teatime and when there was nothing to eat but sandwiches, croissants and cakes, I asked the waiter if he could provide something gluten free for Maile and he delivered a lovely cheese and veggie sandwich that he said the chef himself had prepared.  All the staff has been very kind, and as you can imagine, the kids are a hit, being the youngest aboard by many decades.  There is one cute young Indonesian waitress in the restaurant who can hardly keep her hands off of Holland, she thinks he is so cute.  And a Filipino waiter always greets him and calls him "My Man" as in, "How is your day going, my man?"

The river is quite crowded with river cruising becoming so popular of late.  There are lines we have never heard of, as well as Viking, AMA or own Avalon and of course numerous freight ships and day sightseeing boats.  The director told us that even though the Rhein looks very calm and benign, it is actually a dangerous river and quite a few certifications are required before a captain is allowed to navigate it.  The river is dotted with islands, some visible and some just below the surface, and so the captain has a very important job avoiding a collision.

We have visited some beautiful and interesting ports.  Cologne has its magnificent cathedral which took about 800 years to complete and was miraculously spared from allied bombing during the war.  Our guide told us that it is widely believed that it was spared on purpose, but that is probably not true since bomb targets were not nearly so precise then as they are now.  An act of God maybe?

Yesterday we went to a lovely little town called Rudesheim and visited a mechanical musical instrument museum.  The gent explained how the music was transferred to scrolls which contain thousands of tiny holes that emulate the different instruments.  Musical cuckoo clocks, elaborate carved furniture which opened up to contain moving figures and every manner of music box, some hundreds of years old and all in working order were demonstrated for us.  Afterwards we were treated to coffee in a typical German Brauhaus with waitresses in costume and a small oompah band.  Corny, but lots of fun.  Then we walked around the charming town and poked our heads into the shops where every variety of souvenir, music box, or Hummel figure could be found.  Unhappily, there are no bargains to be had like in the old days.

Cologne and its Magnificent Cathedral

A portion of the Baroque Cologne Cathedral from the square

Inside the Cathedral

This is the view from the top of the Cathedral spire--Holland and Maile climbed the circular stairway, all 533 winding steps of it--and this picture proves it.  If you enlarge the picture, Tom and I are sitting on the fountain ledge just about in the middle waiting for them.  We had some enjoyable people watching while we were waiting, and we were quite happy foregoing the climbing.

Another picture Maile took of the upper reaches of the Cathedral.  I remember when Eric, their Dad, was about 12, he and I climbed to the top of Chartres Cathedral while Tom sat in a pew and waited for us.  It is definitely a feeling of accomplishment, but I no longer have the energy to expend on that particular exercise.

Pretty impressive, huh?  Let's have around of applause for Maile and Holland.  

Vollendam and Edam

Walking from Vollendam to Edam--a beautiful canalside community

In front of an Edam cheese shop.  Needless to say, they are everywhere, but we barely got a taste before moving on.

One of the  1,000 original windmills left in Holland.  The miller also served as a guide and was quite interesting explaining the history of the windmill.  This particular one is a water mill and the walls are made of thatch which lasts 100 years before it has to be replaced.

The inside of the mill.  It didn't look that old, but the miller said it was all original--about 350 years old.

The blades were going around like mad and although you can't tell from the picture, there was an illusion of one's head easily being chopped off by a whirling blade.  We were safely in front of the fence though.

More Pictures

A street scene in Amsterdam

The Westerkerk--a Calvinist Church, much more austere in design and decoration than the typical European Catholic Church

Holland (the country not the kid) is of course the home of Delft porcelain.  This papier mache cow holds court in front of the Delft Museum which we did not visit but had some beautiful examples in the windows.

A typical canal/street scene in Amsterdam

A cute little used book store

OK, I know you're dying to know.  Yes, the drugs and drug paraphernalia are quite evident on the street and in shops and coffee houses, but we actually didn't see any stoned behavior--at least none was evident--in fact except for the sports revelers, the people seemed pretty conservative both in dress and in manner. But here it is in one of its many forms--cannabis lollies.  Right next to the tulip bulbs.

A few random pictures...

Thanks to my resident computer guru (Holland) I am suddenly able to post pictures!  Mon Dieu!  Quelle Joie!  Let's just hope this good fortune lasts!

Topsy Turvy Amsterdam

There we are the four of us, a little difficult to see.  There are three of these "sculptures" in the city, one at the airport, one in Vondel Park and one that shows up randomly hither and yon, or so we were told.  Holland did a few rair-raising acrobatics but I was too nervous to take his picture.  Luckily, no one fell off.

This was my birthday dinner, our second day in A'dam.  It is the traditional Indonesian Rijstaffel which is also one of the traditional Dutch meals because of the colonization of Indonesia by the Dutch in the 17th Century.  The Rijstaffel consists of numerous small plates of various meats, veggies, condiments, rice, pickles and god-knows-what-else.  Definitely something for everybody.  The kids loved it and it still stands as the best meal we've had so far, although most of the food has been pretty good.

A photo op in the Van Gogh museum.  

A Chance Meeting

June 17

Something truly serendipitous happened on our first day in Amsterdam.  After checking into the  hotel and finding the room not ready (it was only about 9:00 AM after all), we freshened up in the hotel restrooms and I happened to notice three ladies who seemed to be of varying generations.  I wasn’t sure of their nationality and didn’t want to stare, but later out on the street in front of the hotel, there they were again and apparently heard us discussing Anne Frank and our anticipation of seeing her house.  The younger lady gestured toward the oldest lady and said to Maile, “Do you know who this is?” “No” we said.  “Well, This is Lise, Anne’s best friend. We are here from Israel to celebrate what would have been Anne’s 85^th birthday!” 

Well, even though I just read the book a few months ago, I couldn’t remember who was Lise, but Maile knew immediately and was actually shaken by the introduction!  Like being in the presence of royalty!  Or a rock star!  Lise, her pseudonym in The Diary, was actually Hannah Pick Goslar, also 85, who was Anne’s best friend before the confinement and who, miraculously ran across her again when they were both in the Bergen-Belsen camp shortly before Anne died.  Hannah (Lise) has written a book about her friendship with Anne and as we discovered later, plays a prominent role in the museum.  She is shown in a short film telling the story of their friendship and their chance meeting at Bergen-Belsen.   Hannah gave us her card and told us to look her up when we are in Jerusalem.  Ah, the wonders of happenstance!  We bought her book at the Museum Book Store and Maile has read it already.

Maile with her new friend, Hannah Goslar

The entrance to the Hotel Ambassade--understated elegance

Holland and Maile at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam

A Summary of our Few Days in Amsterdam

June 16:

This is the first day I’ve attempted to blog and we are already on the second day of the cruise.  My Nikon 1 V1 camera, which failed me on our Seabourn cruise last October, and which afterwards spent several months in the shop being repaired, has failed me again.  I am beyond furious and will never buy another Nikon.  Be warned.

However, being of an optimistic nature, I am making the best of it, and between Maile’s and my Iphone, we hope to produce at least a few decent pictures.  In the interim I will try not to dazzle you too much with my deathless prose.

We arrived in Amsterdam early morning June 12, pretty exhausted, and as expected, our hotel room was not ready, so we soldiered on and took a short canal cruise to get a feel for the city.  The endless canals, bordered on both sides by typical Dutch row houses and punctuated by arched tunnels and quaint bridges seemed a complicated maze to our glazed and tired eyes, but so beautiful.  We stopped at a sweet café right around the corner from the hotel on the way back to rejuvenate with coffee and tea. 

Our hotel, the Hotel Ambassade, recommended by a Dutch friend, proved the perfect choice, within walking distance of all the sights on our list and situated right on the Gentlemen’s Canal, Herengracht.  At first I was a tad dismayed because there was a lot of activity right outside our room which faced onto the street and canal—all sorts of boat traffic as well as pedestrians and cars whizzing by in both directions; and a cacophony of dissonant sounds.  But happily, the din quieted down and we were able to sleep undisturbed.

Unbelievable numbers of bicycles!  We learned later that there are about 780,000 people in the city of Amsterdam and more than a million bikes!  And surely they are all on the street at once! Practically everyone is barreling by on a bike, and let the unwary pedestrian beware because they slow down for no one.  Remarkably, we didn’t see a single accident although the close calls were myriad.  I was even politely admonished by one middle aged woman on a bike who informed me that I needed to watch where I was going.  Since the sidewalk, the bike path and the street are often indistinguishable one from the other, this is easier said than done! 

The normal traffic was enhanced by the fact that the World Cup was underway and the Netherlands was playing Spain!  Revelers were everywhere, dressed in orange, excitement at a feverish pitch and during the actual game it seemed that the whole city actually erupted into a palpable roar when “our” team scored.  As you know, the Netherlands beat Spain 5-1 ensuring that the partying would go on unabated until the wee hours.   

The best part about Amsterdam is walking around and enjoying the energy of the city.  It is a very manageable town—we never had to take a single taxi in our three days before boarding our river cruise yesterday afternoon.  of course it helped that our hotel is marvelously located in the City Center. We went to the Van Gogh Museum, Vondel Park, and the Anne Frank House, all within easy walks of the hotel.   We walked through Dam Square, the main square of the city, perused an authentic flea market, and sampled delicious Dutch cheese on the street.

Vondel Park, which I guess is comparable to Central Park in New York or Hyde Park in London, provides premier people watching and activity galore. Lots of locals as well as tourists go there to relax, spoon, walk their dogs, wheel their baby carriages, or simply sit on park benches and read.  We bought hot dogs from a rolling cart and sat on a stone wall to eat them.  One of the three giant I AM STERDAM signs is there and the brave ones like Holland climb to the top of the various letters to have their pictures taken. 

The Anne Frank House—thankfully I had purchased advance tickets—was sad and austere, but beautifully presented and effectively sobering.  The thought of the beautiful young Anne holed up in an Amsterdam rowhouse for more than two years with her family only to be exposed and to die anyway of typhus in a German concentration camp just one month before liberation is beyond tragic.  Her words reverberate through the walls of the building through the displays, vignettes and artifacts from the actual period.  If you haven’t read Anne’s diary, or if it has been years, I highly recommend it.  I read it for the first time just a few months ago and was astounded by her literary talent.  Had she lived she would have been a prolific and profound writer.  As it is, dead at fifteen, she would have just shaken her head at her fame and wondered what all the fuss was about.

Here we go!

A great adventure begins tomorrow. Tom and I are taking two of our grandchildren on their first trip to Europe!  They are very excited of course, but no more so than we two old folks are.  Introducing the kids to some of our most cherished memories is a dream come true.  We fly from Dallas to Amsterdam, arriving there the next morning, probably quite bedraggled but not to worry, we'll be fine.  Schiphol Airport alone is enough to get the weariest of travelers newly rejuvenated. But more of that later.  

Our two companions are Maile who will be turning 16 on June 24, and her brother Holland who just turned 14 last week. Perfect ages for understanding and appreciating the differences in culture that they will see.  

After a few days in Amsterdam on our own, we'll board an Avalon river cruise, sail down the Rhine for a week, and then take a fast train to Paris.  On the final leg of the journey, we will go by Chunnel from Paris to London where Maile and Holland will stay with their Aunt Allison and her husband and toddler.  Home again on June 30.

Sweet Maile