Netherlands #3of6

(Except Amsterdam and Giethoorn)

We noticed the name of a town on the map is, of all things, Hattem. Columbus discovered America with less fanfare than Emmy discovered Hattem, The Netherlands.

Hattem is the last name of our special friends in California, and it is also the name of this interesting town dating from the 800’s, surrounded by a wall built in the 1200’s. The town of Hattem appears to be an upper class city with expensive looking houses, many with thatched roofs. We picked up some bumper stickers and brochures to mail to the “real” Hattem’s.

We drove down an unusual road near Hattem. Hard to describe, but starting from one farmer’s field, there is a row of large trees; then a one way bike road; then a row of trees; then a bike road the other direction; then a row of trees; then a wide two lane road for autos; then a row of trees; then a bike road in one direction; then a row of trees; then a bike road in the other direction; then a row of trees; and finally another farmers field.

Sometimes it seems we wait forever for our traffic light to become green. At major intersections we often find they have light systems for the auto traffic, a complete set for the separate bike system, and lights for pedestrians. At one complex intersection we counted 27 different traffic light standards.

In the town of Haarlem we shopped at the outdoor market then went on to Hemsteed where they had a model of the dike system, and displays to show how it was built years ago. The museum was in an old pump house. House boats were docked on many canals in the cities and in the countryside of Holland. We were told that over 5,000 people live in the house boats.

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague displays paintings of the Great Masters, more than we have seen, even in larger museums. Our kind of museum — beautiful art by skilled artists, not modern slop-art, fraudulently promoted by the avant-garde who “push” anything the normal public does not like.

In The Hague, we visited Maduradam, a museum or playground consisting of over one hundred miniature houses, a cathedral, an airport, canals, etc. Each building is maybe four to six feet tall, and is an exact replica of a building someplace in The Netherlands. The cathedral was especially fascinating. Many displays are activated when a coin is dropped in a slot.

We have visited two other miniature cities in Europe; Swissminiatur, the museum of scale-model buildings found in the Swiss town of Melide, and Legoland, built of Lego blocks in Billund, Denmark.