Netherlands #2of6

(Except Amsterdam and Giethoorn)

When we arrived in Arnhem we visited the Open Air Museum, which has old houses, a lift bridge, and windmills, all refurbished as they were years ago. Some of the buildings were moved here from other parts of The Netherlands.

In Arnhem’s downtown area we had hot chocolate and French Fries at a McDonald’s restaurant, located in a remodeled ancient building. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if McDonald’s in the US could be located in such enchanting buildings — but such venerable buildings do not exist in the USA.

We parked at the RR Station in Arnhem and paid $14 for round trip tickets to Utrecht. There was a young Dutch school girl riding on the train with her parents. She was learning English in school, and was delighted to practice with us. The biggest change in Utrecht recently, was the construction of a 200 store shopping mall with a concert hall and a new railroad station. Several old streets were completely leveled, and people complain it was not built to “match” the original Utrecht.

The building of the St. Maartenskerk Cathedral in Utrecht was started in 1253 and completed in about 1517. As happens all over Europe, this Cathedral was built on the spot where another church had been built in about 950 AD.

In 1572, during a wave of “Calvinist” inspired vandalism, much of the ornamentation on the church were destroyed. In 1630 a big storm blew down about half of this church, the part between the Tower and the middle of the Cathedral. Then in 1826, as the Utrecht tourist guide says, “The rubble was finally cleared away,” almost two hundred years later. They never rebuilt that part of the Cathedral. The remaining portion is still used as a church, the tower is now an entrance to a bridge, and street traffic goes right through the arch in the tower.

In Apeldoorn we talked to a driver of a tour bus. He had lived in the US for awhile and liked it very much. He returned to The Netherlands in an emergency (his mother died), and in his haste forgot to get some official paper taken care of properly, and now cannot return. He said that in The Netherlands how hard he works has little to do with his pay. In America, if he works hard, he can get ahead. When he can get his papers fixed, he will return to the US.