Hectic Holland, May 15th-20th, 2025

A nice six-day trip to Holland, the first time for us actually even though in the late 1970s I passed thru Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport a few times on my way to Italy on vacation (and of all places to die the late, great Solomon Burke died on an airplane in Schiphol).

I caught him in concert years ago in northern Italy.

The mostly Muslim neighbourhood where we had our hotel and with also some great Turkish restaurants.  

We managed to hit Haarlem (about 20 kms from the capital) and also the quaint little town of Delft where the master painter Johannes Vermeer was born and died.  Interesting Haarlem (in 1658 the Dutch community of New York City was called “Harlem” in honour of the old Dutch city) and ditto for Delft. 

Delft.

Indeed a mouse's paradise!

...and Haarlem.

 
So is Amsterdam nice?  Well, it’s not Venice with its 400 bridges, which for me remains THE world’s most beautiful city (I've been going there since 1966), but nevertheless it does have its own charm with all the many canals, bridges and wonderful shops (travelling for an hour on one of their many tour boats we also got to see the city's famous 7 bridges).

 
The only negative thing, at least for me, was the kazillion cyclists that come at you from ALL directions on their beloved bicycle paths, and not only them (don't get me wrong, I LOVE cycling but the "Dutch" way is a wee bit crazy!).  You’ve also got folks riding their scooters on the paths and little old ladies/men on their small electric tricycles.   It can be rather annoying when you’re standing in front of a building, such as the Anne Frank museum, and in order to get a wider shot of the building you accidentally step back and right onto the bike path, and then be prepared to receive a barrage of insults from the cyclists themselves (or risk even getting mowed down by some of them)!

 

A pity we didn’t get a chance to see the Van Gogh museum as you could only book online, and stupid as we can be with these things we only tried 5 times with our cell phones (grrrrrr!).  Luckily, and just 200 meters away, we did get a chance to see the Rijksmuseum with a few Rembrandts, Van Goghs and also Vermeer masterpieces.  

Vermeer.

 
A real treat for the great Bond aficionado that I am as I recalled a few scenes from Sean Connery’s 1971 007 movie, “Diamonds Are Forever”.  There I stood in front of the building where Bond rang the doorbell of Tiffany Case’s apartment, which was played by the (then) sexy actress Jill St. John (she had also been one of Dr. Kissinger’s old girlfriends), as well as the “Skinny Bridge” where in the same movie they pulled out of the canal a (very) dead old woman: 

 
And the transportation service in Holland?  We took the bus, the tram, the metro and also the train to move about and I give their service a perfect 10/10.  
 
And speaking of the metro, we also managed to go one day to the Ajax Stadium which was the old club of the “Divine One” himself, 1974 World Cup vice-champion, the late, great Johann Crujff (he had though refused, perhaps because of political reasons, to play in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina...which was won by Argentina in that final...and vs Holland).

!!!!!!.

Some of Amsterdam's beautiful parks.

And they LOVE their beer in Holland!

 

And for the chess aficionados that we are another nice treat was that we got to visit the Max Euwe museum.  Euwe has been the only Dutch world champion, out of 18 so far.  He was world champion number 5 when he had defeated the great Alexander Alekhine (Euwe also became the president of FIDE for 8 years, the international chess federation, and had to deal with the “histrionics” of America’s Bobby Fischer surrounding the 1972 world championship match in Reykjavik, Iceland vs Boris Spassky, who died just a few months ago in 2025).

And tulips?  Well, we almost saw not even one as the warm season showed up earlier and by the time we got there in mid-May the tulip season was already over with.  This will just mean that we’ll have to go back to Holland one day, perhaps renting a car to see the rest of the country of only 17 million souls.

 
All-in-all, we had a pleasant time in Holland.   And our hotel?  It was part of the XO Hotels chain, the Blue Square one at Slotermeerlaan 80, Amsterdam.  The hotel is very conveniently connected by buses and trams to the city's center and also with the direct bus that will take you to the Schiphol airport.   A five-day transportation pass (for two people) came out to 68 euros and was also valid for the airport bus.  Very convenient as you can hop-off-hop-on the public transportation as many times as you want.

The famous 7 bridges. 

TOTALLY insane these people as they were dangling on swings at a height of 100 meters from the ground!

And yes, we also managed a few games of chess (and thanks to chess friend Nathan for having told me about this cool bar!).

Hard to argue with that one!

...and being photographed by a young Muslim lady.

 
And the Dutch?  Wonderful people (at least the ones we came across).  This is perhaps because when I travel around the “Old Europe” I've noticed that as I open my mouth the locals take me for an American tourist, so I seem to have rather good service.   And by knowing English fluently you seem to wield ENORMOUS power…especially over those who DON’T know English that well (or who don't know it at all).