Day 6 - Amsterdam

After an eggs and salmon breakfast by one of the canals, headed to the Rijksmuseum, the best and largest art museum in The Netherlands.

A great museum indeed with great pieces and history.  It always amazes me good art has this power to make you be totally present, in the moment, just enjoying it.

Visited the 9 streets sector of the city and met Armando, who had finally arrived from Dusseldorf, for an early dinner on a sidewalk cafe by one of the canals.

Tomorrow, we do a grand tour of Holland's most picturesque villages.

A view of some of the canals in the 9 Streets district in Amsterdam

The chosen transportation for families with kids - you can put up to 4 kids in there

The Rijkmuseum!

A nice standalone house close to the museum

Amsterdam in the 1500's

A view of one of the galleries in the museum

Charles V wracked by illness in 1555 diving up the world between his sons.  Ferdinand (left) got the Holy Roman Empire and Philip got Spain (and all its territories) and The Netherlands.  On the bottom right is a depiction of America, Asia, and Africa which were also part of his empire.

Doll houses at the museum

The library at the museum - there are vasts basements not on view with more stuff

Dutch navy ships carry this seal

The most famous painting in the museum

Amsterdam canals

Are those house crooked?

People live permanently in these square-boxed house boats

Armando finally made it to Amsterdam on his BMW R1250GS

 

Day 5 - The Low Countries

After another nice French breakfast, headed north using only small roads to better experience the villages and open spaces as I made my way to Amsterdam.

Luxembourg is bigger than I thought with lots of green open spaces and farmland north of the capital.  I entered Belgium without noticing as no sign was posted anywhere.  The contrast was substantial.  A bit dirtier, the villages were poorer, busier, with more graffiti, and a lot more ethnically diverse.

My first stop for the day was Maastricht, a dutch city close to the border with Belgium.  A nice, beautiful university town.  The university was founded in 1976 (very new) and has 20,000 student of which 55% are foreign. 

Dutch cities are overrun by bicycles.  You have to look all around at every intersection when riding or walking to not be hit.  All streets are marked first for bicycles, then pedestrians, and last the lowly cars and motorcycles. Also all busses and trams are electric and there are Teslas, solar panels, and wind turbines everywhere.  Probably a vision of the future. 

Getting to my hotel in Amsterdam was tricky ... had to go over canal bridges, pedestrian streets, sidewalks, and alleys to finally get there.  The hotel is a nice old, very vertical, house in a narrow street. Very cool.

Went out to explore the town.  Lots to see.  A very unique place.  Nothing like it.  Tomorrow I have the whole day to explore the city starting with the Rijksmuseum which houses the largest collection of painting from the dutch golden age. 

In the Grund in Luxembourg before leaving.

Lost in the prairies of Belgium

Entering the Netherlands

Maastricht near the university

The view from my table at lunch in Maastricht

Sint Janskerk - with its red tower in Maastricht

My motorcycle on the left parked in front of the hotel in Amsterdam

Some of the canals in Amsterdam

These houses are so old in such wet lands that a lot of them are leaning

The red light district in Amsterdam

Amsterdam's Centraal train station

Amsterdam's trams

Thousands of bicycle in a multi-level parking structure at the Centraal

Wow - I have never seen some many bicycles in one place - the future?

A statue of Rembrandt

Day 4 - The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

 Woke up in the grand duchy of Luxembourg!  The French definitely know their food. The breakfast here was sooo good ... Germans still need to work at it.

After my great omelette, croissant and cappuccino breakfast feast, I headed out to explore the city.  First, the Casemates du Bock, miles of tunnels carved by the Spanish in 1600 inside the rocky walls around the city (closed because of Covid), then on to the Grand Ducal Palace, the Notre-Dame Cathedral (where I lit a candle for Pichicuaz (my grand baby)), and the high city.

The Grund (where I am staying) is the low part inside the carved walls of the city and the high area is where the rest of Luxembourg is. There is a nice elevator inside the rock walls that take you up and down (10+ stories high).   

This high part has a big pedestrian-only nice shopping, retail, and restaurant area where everybody congregates to socialize around the big plaza in the middle.  Outside the pedestrian area is were modern Luxembourg starts.  Tall glass buildings, very cosmopolitan - people from all nationalities walking in and out of very modern looking trains. 

Sat down at a restaurant in the plaza to watch people and to have the best salmon burger I have ever had, again the French and their food. 

In the afternoon, went to explore the Grund and all the ancient fortifications around the bottom part of the city.  There is a beautiful park there with nice landscaping where people chill, run, and ride bicycles by the river.

Tomorrow I head to Amsterdam with a stop for lunch in Maastricht. Over the years, I have tried to go to Holland 2 times and both trips were cancelled right before departure.  The third try is always the good one!

A nice view of the city

The Grand Ducal Palace

This is it - Congress!

Lit a candle for my new granddaughter at Notre Dame Cathedral

The main nave of the Cathedral

A view from the high part of the city

The big pedestrian area in the high city

My hotel built inside the walls of the Grund

Lunch time on the main plaza

Is this cool or what?

A view of the entrance to the Casemates du Bock on the walls 

A view back from one of the first fortifications

Day 3 - Cochem, Trier, and Luxembourg

After the de-rigueur German breakfast at the hotel, headed southwest towards Luxembourg with a couple of stops planned at Cochem and Trier, allegedly some of the most beautiful towns in this part of Germany.

The roads where just beautiful, through rolling hills and woods, lots of twisties, completely deserted of people and cars,  and no wider than 1.5 car widths. The GPS must know something to bring me through these beautiful parts : )  Temperatures dropped substantially from the previous days after last night's big storm.

It is so good to wake up in the morning, get on a motorcycle, not knowing what the day will bring, in a completely unknown place of the world ... makes you feel alive, focused, and grateful.

My first stop was Cochem on the Moselle river. Now, this is what you would call a typical, picturesque, fairy-tale German village.  Wow.  A winding big river with a beautiful old bridge, with big passenger boats, a cobblestone town on the banks of the river and on the hills, and a big imposing Disney-like castle way high on a rocky promontory overlooking the town.

It was time for some walking exploring the cobblestone streets and souvenir shops. Sat down at a cafe in one of the plazas to have a cappuccino and watch people go by.  This is the first somewhat crowded town I have been in since arriving a few days ago.  

It is easy to see how Europeans suffered greatly with this virus.  Everything is tight and everybody is so close together.  The rule in Germany is no masks outside, always masks inside.  Simnple and effective.  However, according to my friends here, there are a lot of unvaccinated people still because they are skeptical of their safety. Oh well.

After Cochem, I made my way to Trier, another town in the banks of the Moselle and considered German's oldest city ... and it showed.  Lots of roman looking ruins around ... old gate, amphitheater, bridge, and the Constantine Basilica from 300 AD. 

As I was heading out of the city, the heavens broke loose ... heavy rain, thunder, hail, wind ... my trusted rain gear held but at some point, with no visibility, had to seek refuge at a McDonalds for a few minutes ... 20 minutes later the sun came out ?!?!?

Luxembourg is a beautiful and interesting place. As you arrive, you go through this big wide avenue with tall modern glass buildings on both sides of the avenue, everything is clean, perfectly painted streets, a slick city train running along ... very futuristic ... but completely deserted of people and cars.  Brasilia and Incheon came to mind.

The city center is actually inside some deep carved area made by the Alzette and Perusse rivers below the plateau where all the modern building are ... like La Paz and El Alto in Bolivia.

After a winding road down into the old city, I found my hotel for the next 2 days. A nice 3 story house built half inside one of the wall cliffs.

Went out for a walk, visited the City museum to learn a little about the history of the country which apparently has been part of The Netherlands, Germany, Prussia, France, Spain, Belgium and Austria.  Very interesting.

Tomorrow, no riding.  Just exploring Luxembourg.

Cochem - a fairy-tale German town

Cohem- on the banks of the Moselle river

Another view of Cochem from the bridge

One of the many plazas in Cochem

Trier - the oldest city in Germany

A new country for my list

A view of the old town in Luxembourg

A model of the city in the museum

All the occupying armies' uniforms over the centuries 

A panoramic view of Luxembourg

Dwellings carved in the stone ... just like Cappadocia : )