A trip to the Netherlands
questioning
Shipmate
in Heaven
Mr Q and I are planning a trip to the Netherlands in spring/summer of 2026. We're hoping to stay for about 3 weeks. For me, this is a trip to my ancestral land - which I have never visited. Both of my parents immigrated to Canada in the post-WW2 exodus from the Netherlands.
I'm hoping to visit areas around Goes (Zeeland), Arnhem, Hilversum, Ede, and possibly Zaamslag for family history reasons. I'm starting to explore accommodations, and would appreciate suggestions. I've been checking Airbnb, but am wondering whether any of you know of other platforms or effective ways to locate places to stay. I have no relatives in the Netherlands of whom I could ask these questions, so any insights from European shipmates would be most welcome!
Oh! We're also very interested in the possibility of staying at monasteries or convents. Is there a European directory of such places that someone could steer me to?
We're also planning to spend some time in Amsterdam because... museums! Are there other places that you would recommend we put on our itinerary?
One of the things that I, as a Canadian, cannot wrap my head around is how tiny the country is... It boggles my mind that Groningen to Maastricht is only 3.5 hours by car... The drive from the north border to the south border of my current diocese is almost 4 hours, and that's just a tiny corner of British Columbia.
I'm hoping to visit areas around Goes (Zeeland), Arnhem, Hilversum, Ede, and possibly Zaamslag for family history reasons. I'm starting to explore accommodations, and would appreciate suggestions. I've been checking Airbnb, but am wondering whether any of you know of other platforms or effective ways to locate places to stay. I have no relatives in the Netherlands of whom I could ask these questions, so any insights from European shipmates would be most welcome!
Oh! We're also very interested in the possibility of staying at monasteries or convents. Is there a European directory of such places that someone could steer me to?
We're also planning to spend some time in Amsterdam because... museums! Are there other places that you would recommend we put on our itinerary?
One of the things that I, as a Canadian, cannot wrap my head around is how tiny the country is... It boggles my mind that Groningen to Maastricht is only 3.5 hours by car... The drive from the north border to the south border of my current diocese is almost 4 hours, and that's just a tiny corner of British Columbia.
Comments
Also, the cheese market at Alkmaar even though mostly performed for tourists, is still an actual wholesale cheese exchange and fun to watch.
You might catch a glimpse of a strandbeest if you visit the pier and dunes around Scheveningen.
AFF
Also, be aware that smaller roads may be quite hard to tell apart from cycle tracks, which you should not be driving down, and even urban cycle lanes may be as wide as the road itself. Guess how I know... Read up on the signage, and keep your wits about you - if a car and a bicycle collide, it's automatically assumed that the driver is at fault unless/until you can prove otherwise.
I'll see what else I can think of, though as I go on cricket tour my knowledge is mostly of cricket grounds and bars, as I need to get up and out this morning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eise_Eisinga_Planetarium
This was before the days of airbnb or online booking, so we'd look out for Toucan hotels, as always reliable. We particularly liked their koffie met slagroom, which consisted of a cup of coffee and a large bowl of whipped cream.
And urban roads can be a bit terrifying when you have a wide expanse including cycle lanes, tramways and the odd canal, and no idea which bit you should be on.
I don't expect we'll be driving. The train service looks amazing. With trains, buses, bicycles, and feet, we should be fine
I'm excited to know that there are actual dedicated cycle tracks.
Spar stores seem to like to stock the more interesting beers, look out for Brouwerij T'ij* which really is in a windmill in old Amsterdam.
You may also find this helpful, especially as the writer is a Canadian living in the Netherlands.
*not speaking Dutch, I can't promise I have the spelling spot on.
Actually, they went to the Netherlands a year or two ago (they do both still have family there), so maybe I can ask them for travel advice I can provide.
It's a very rainy country - don't forget your umbrella.
All on the iAmsterdam card, though the Reijksmuseum is not.
Our hotel was amazing but tiny and expensive - a traditional Dutch house. Breakfast was local breads, meats and cheeses and the bar held jenever tastings.
This echoes my own first visit (and many subsequent visits) to one of Europe's most attractive cities. Be wary of the Jenever, however - it's a wonderfully warming and uplifting spirit, but more powerful than you may at first think...I know whereof I speak, and it is not a Good Idea to fall off a pavement onto a tram line (happily, no tram was passing at the time).
The clandestine RC church (Our Lord in the Attic/Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder) is well worth a visit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ons'_Lieve_Heer_op_Solder
It is, IIRC, in one of the streets that form part of the *ahem* much-visited Red Light District, unless things have changed since I was last in the area...
Oh! It didn’t when we went but that was a few years ago now.
Really? I've visited twice and both times just turned up. That was several years ago though
What do you particularly like about Leiden? Is there anything we should be paying extra attention to?
Oooh! The strandbeesten look wondrous. I hope we can catch sight of at least one.
We're contemplating taking a summer course in Utrecht, perhaps this one. That would land us in Utrecht and provide a bit of time to explore.
I'd never heard of orreries before. I've always been fascinated by planetariums (planetaria?). My mom highly recommends that we get up to Friesland, so this would be a great place to visit while we're there. Thanks for the suggestion.
I'll keep my eyes open for terpen. It appears that there are quite a few in Zeeland, too, so I may notice them there. At least now I'll know what I'm looking at!
I was raised Christian Reformed, so much of my youth was spent in Dutch-Canadian culture, including Christian Schools founded by Dutch immigrants. It took me quite a while to realize that in most school attendance charts, the letter "V" did not contain most of the student population
That looks like a brilliant purchase. I can't believe all the museums to which it gives access. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
That's probably why my mother's family was reasonable content when they settled in Vancouver, BC
Thanks to both of you for mentioning "Our Lord in the Attic." I doubt I would have come upon it on my own.
Ah, yes. It all boils down to who is telling the history, doesn't it? My husband and I are both Canadians. We lived in Boston for 4 years, and it was eye-opening to discover how Americans tell the same history completely differently from the way we learned it!
So, what's the difference between GIN and Jenever?
Mr Q is all in for the Brouwerij 'T IJ tour!
The link describes much of what I know from my childhood experiences, growing up in Dutch-Canadian subculture.
The taste. It's a blend of neutral and malt spirit as opposed to neutral+botanticals for gin.
We used to have bottles of Oliphant Jonge and Oliphant Oude* but like so much rare and precious in our lives, we drank them.
*Young and Old Elephant
Well there are a couple of things that tickle me to no end on the train ride from Schiphol. One is seeing sailboats parked in the middle of pastures. I know they're "in de sloot" but it's funny regardless. The other is a herd of alpacas in an enclosure, they are so cute with their pom pom heads.
Then Leiden itself is just uber cute. It's how you imagine life in Amsterdam would be except Amsertam stopped being like Leiden a hundred years ago. There's a functioning windmill right in the center of town, several canals with great canal tours, a great history of the siege of Leiden at the old Church, and the university which is one of the oldest in Europe, and St Peter's keys are everywhere it's like a game to spot them.
I just love to go and noodle around for a day and pretend I'm Dutch.
AFF
I don't know if they still do it, but some of the bridges required a toll to be paid, and the bridge keeper would lower a Clog on a string, in order to receive the required amount of guilders (as the Dutch currency was in those days).
Look out for the mechanical street organs (draaiorgels), whose owners/operators often have a lovely little polished brass begging-bowl in which grateful tourists can deposit small change...
I like the Netherlands, and only wish I'd been able to take up an opportunity to live there for a while. Alas! work here in the UK, and the need to earn £££, prevented it, but I would have been resident in central Amsterdam itself for several months, whilst the barge I was interested in buying was adapted and restored for my use...
Yes, our friends were also raised Christian Reformed. (They’re Presbyterian now; CRC churches are nonexistent in these parts, and RCA churches are rare.) They met while students at Calvin College (now Calvin University) in Michigan.
Neither has a surname starting with “V,” though.
I took my Goddaughter during half-term in February 2018, and had to book well in advance. When we got there, the pavement was marked out so that we stood in the right place in the queue for our time slot.
My Goddaughter, then aged 16, was fascinated to see items such as cannabis flavoured cheese openly for sale. When she spotted cannabis vodka for sale her eyes lit up - she felt her social cachet at school would be boosted no end by possession of such a thing. Boring Godmother said NO! In fact boring Godmother said NO! a lot that day.
I just watched this movie with Mr. Q and son. We all found Theo Jansen... eccentric, especially with his apparent hope that the strandbeesten will evolve to survive on their own. But they are spectacular!
Also got us pondering how much the Calvinism of the Netherlands has embedded itself into the Dutch psyche, so that even when folks would not describe themselves as religious in any way, they are still responding to, or living out of, a formative religious ethos that they've imbibed with their mothers' milk, so to speak.