Photos and happenings from Tim. Mostly photos.
March – Mt. Lemon
April – Wisconsin – test of new 20mm lens
May
Trip to Northfield/Duluth/Silver Bay
Stereo Grotto with Mani2 speakers
Tundra Sale pics
June
Lake Geneva Family reunion
New roof for Southwick
July
Epic Campus tour #1
Old photo scans
Geo Pro ad pics
iphone 15 pics on a walk
Weber Octave Mando sale pics
Walnut Grove 4th of July in the park
From Amsterdam we trained to Brugges. Paid big $$ to ride a bullet train, which returned the favor by steaming by us (and many others) in the station without stopping. No one, including professional help, seemed to know where to board this train. We hopped on the next one, a commuter. Ok ride, but slow, stopped multiple times. Started picking up many people. Pretty soon it was packed, standing room in the aisle. It gets better. Some kerfuffel on a track. The system shut down for about 45 minutes. Out train didn’t move.
What was supposed to be a 2 hour ride turned into 5. But we made it, took a cab to our Airbnb. Turned out we were only 2 miles from the city center, bike paths the whole way (does it even need to be said?) The airbnb offered us two bikes. Mine was an ancient 3-speed. Wait – make that a one speed, stuck in a gear so high I could not start it from a dead stop.
I complained to our non-sociable, hermetic host. He secretly put out another bike for me. His own personal ride! The guy must be 6’4″ tall. I could barely stand over this bike, and better yet, it didn’t have hand brakes! Coaster brakes. I hadn’t used coaster brakes since I was 10. Given that I was sitting high off the ground like a Penny Farthing, I had tough choices. I could either brake to a stop, then tump over, or I could get down off the saddle before I came to a complete stop and deploy the bottom of my shoes as backup. Try it some time in heavy pedestrian traffic.
We did the usual sight seeing on day 1. On day 2 we circumnavigated the entire circle around town, barely made it to our chocolate making class, then had beers with friends we’d make on our river cruise at an obscure Belgian Beer Bar that claimed to be the oldest in town. Their bottled Belgian Beer list went on for pages.
The crowds in the main area were pretty intense, made especially so by multiple tour groups consisting of a good 50 or more bodies.
Click here for pictures
All the videos in no particular order.
Amsterdam – everything we’d heard about (or were warned about). Large, dense, complicated. The most heavily used bike infrastructure on our trip.
Day 1 – off the boat, which docked near the main bus station. Found a direct tram to within a block of our airbnb. Typical approach to this unit, up a super steep, winding staircase with tiny step. We walked a nearby park that day and that’s about it.
Day 2 – got out and about, trained down to the thick of down town, walked around. Killed time before our afternoon bike tour. Bike tour was semi-nuts. Learned a lot, had a good guide. Bikes were “pure”, not electric. Maybe 15 people along, including a family with two younger kids. Not a great idea for them, they were way over their heads. We pedaled thru the thick of bicycle rush hour madness, crossed busy streets. Our group often got separated. I rode “sweep”, tried to keep everyone together.
The bike paths are for sure amazing. They’re everywhere, well marked, mostly separated from both cars and pedestrians. Painted red, there’s no mistaking them for a sidewalk. Americans are used to multi-use bike paths, bikes, walkers, skaters, anything goes. Not here. The bike paths are for two wheeled vehicles. The sheer number of miles pedaled in a day in this big city is incalculable. People seem to get along, but exposure and practice would make this easier. My main complaint is that electric motorcycles, and even gas powered scooters, commonly plow along these paths, often at high speeds. They probably aren’t supposed to, but who’s going to stop them. It was breathtaking to see Vespas burning thru heavy bike/people crowds at speeds faster than anyone else.
Day 3 – We had half a day before taking the train to Brugges. Hit the Rijksmuseim, lots of Dutch Masters paintings. Very crowded there.
Click here for photos of all three days
Several days before the end of our cruise, we were informed that our beloved boat, Jasper, needed some major repairs. In a day we would be floating by the very shipyard where it was built, so it was a no-brainer to have them do the work. The boat would have to be partially lifted out of the water. Gear boxes, drive shafts, and propellers were mentioned. And while it was allowed that passengers could choose to stay aboard for the day, it was discouraged. Several ad-hoc tours were arranged. Buses would carry us all away.
No one was happy about this, but the alternative of staying on board a ship that was half lifted out of the water, no A/C, no food, no open bar . . . well, everyone got with the program.
We chose a tour of Rotterdam (large) followed by Dordrecht (small) and got lucky. This turned out to be the most interesting day of the cruise, mostly due to “Jim”, our calm and informative tour guide. In his soothing NPR radio voice, he bedazzled us with all manner of background on the Netherlands as we bused through the countryside towards Rotterdam. So many subjects were broached: the stupendous hydraulics at work to make the Netherlands possible. The history of all these old windmills. The cultural, political, and financial contributions, or should we even say inventions, of the Dutch over the centuries.
Our bus took us through the section of the countryside with the highest concentration of vintage windmills. Dozens could be seen at times, all clustered together. None of them are operational, and many had been converted (at great expense) into individual houses. When the Germans invaded the Netherlands and stole all of the fuel needed to run modern pumps, all of these windmills were pressed back into service. We were told that without constant pumping, the sea would retake the Netherlands in just a matter of months.
Rotterdam is a modern, skyscraper city. The Germans bombed it flat in the early months of WWII, hence the lack of a traditional Very Old city center.
“Rotterdam was subjected to heavy aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe during the German invasion of the Netherlands during the Second World War. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch army to surrender. Bombing began at the outset of hostilities on 10 May and culminated with the destruction of the entire historic city centre on 14 May,[2] an event sometimes referred to as the Rotterdam Blitz. According to an official list published in 2022, at least 1,150 people were killed, with 711 deaths in the 14 May bombing alone,[2] and 85,000 more were left homeless.
The psychological and the physical success of the raid, from the German perspective, led the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL) to threaten to destroy the city of Utrecht if the Dutch command did not surrender. The Dutch surrendered in the late afternoon of 14 May and signed the capitulation early the next morning.[4]
Rotterdam was one of the few major Allied cities which were virtually totally destroyed, together with Warsaw, Manila, Southampton, and Milan. This is one of the primary reasons Rotterdam has a heavy presence of skyscrapers, as do the other cities listed, compared to Amsterdam, Krakow, and Rome in those same countries all of which have over one million residents but retain an ancient city centre.”
(more on this subject here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_bombing_of_Rotterdam)
Because the city center was completely destroyed, there would be no picture taking of ancient Sound-of-Music style buildings. Still, Rotterdam had an undeniably pleasant feel, not tight and pressed in like historical city designs, but rather more spacious. Admittedly we only spent a few hours in the city center.
Some pictures here
The next stop was Dordrecht, a smaller (120,000) town 30 minutes away. Quaint, relaxing. We had time to relax and a drink in a plaza.
Some pictures here