Home Again

Much to our relief we both were deemed "negative-no covid" on our rapid antigen tests last Thursday. That, and a seamless flight experience, finds us back in St. Petersburg. Aside from some travel fatigue it almost seems as though we were never gone. 

Our last glimpse of C.A.R.I.B. III as we were waiting for our ride
to the train station on September 8. When we get project cost estimates
we'll be able to make decisions about the work to be done over the winter.

Our trains on the 8th took us to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Because we were toting more luggage than just backpacks, and because we had to get covid tested before we could return to the United States, we decided to try to make things a little easier for ourselves and go straight to an airport hotel for our remaining four nights in the Netherlands. The hotel was a 5-minute walk from the airport terminal and about the same from our covid testing site. The citizenM Hotel (M is for the "mobile" citizens of the world) styles itself as a hip, good value hotel with imaginatively configured small rooms that are probably heaven for the techo-savvy who enjoy using an ipad as an all-purpose environment controller--lights, temperature, entertainment.

The citizenM had this head sculture on the grounds
of the hotel. We never did find out if it had any specific
significance vis-a-vis the hotel. To us it just seemed
 a little creepy.

We often spend the night before a flight at an airport hotel--it makes the travel day more stress-free when we don't have to worry about ground transportation issues--but it was a bit of a stretch to stay 4 days at a site where we couldn't just walk out the door of the hotel and wander around a town. But on the bright side, the restaurants and a grocery store at the terminal allowed us to escape the limited food offerings at the hotel, and the proximity of the Schiphol train station gave us the chance to easily get away to explore some of the surrounding towns. 

On Thursday, September 9, a 20-minute train ride to the south of the airport took us to the city of Leiden, home to the Netherlands' oldest university and the place where Rembrandt was born and started his artistic studies. In the early 17th century Leiden was also, for several years, the transitional home of America's Pilgrims between their departure from England and their ultimate arrival in the New World. Apart from Amsterdam, Leiden's inner city has the greatest number of waterways and bridges in the country. 

The Molen de Valk from 1743. Now it stands alone, but it
used to be one of many windmills on the Leiden city walls.

A reconstructed Molen De Put.

Liveaboard barges and "houses on the water" are common sights on the canals in Dutch towns.

The Netherlands in microcosm: bicycles and water.

Gravensteen, originally the prison of the Counts of Holland, later
the city prison of Leiden. The square tower, probably dating from the 13th century,
 is the oldest part of the building. Sheriffs and magistrates had a good
 view of the cobbled square, which was the former execution site of Leiden. 

We had lunch canalside, just beyond the bridge.

Leiden was lively and packed with people on a beautiful late summer/early fall day, no doubt due
in part to the large population of students.

On Friday morning, September 10th, we had our covid tests done at a test site that had been set up at the airport's Hilton Hotel. For whatever reason, the Dutch government was offering free covid testing in August and September to travelers who were departing the Netherlands, regardless of nationality and destination. Thirty minutes after providing samples we had our "no covid" results, and happily set off (by train, of course!) to Amsterdam to celebrate with lunch and a short walk through parts of the center city. Given that it was September and that covid is still impacting international tourism, we were surprised by how busy Amsterdam was. 

Amsterdam has always had boat liveaboards on its canals, but it seemed to us that there were more
boats this year than we'd noted in previous visits. In some places boats were rafted two
or three abreast.

There are lovely neighborhoods around the canals that ring Amsterdam.

On Friday evening we had the chance to visit all-too-briefly at the airport with Haarlem friends.

Yolanda (l) with daughters Rosa (c) and Suze (r). In the two
years since we've last seen them, Suze and Rosa have
developed amazing skills with English. The 4th member of
the family, Joost, was off on a sailing trip with his brother and dad. 
Yolanda is the daughter of Carla and Ebe, who spent time with us
on the boat when we were in Belgium.

For our last full day in the Netherlands, we traveled 20 minutes to the north to the town of Zaandam. In the Dutch "Golden Age", roughly the century from the late 1500's to the late 1600's, Zaandam was a large milling center, with thousands of windmills. One of Zaandam's current main tourist attractions, but one we didn't visit, is an open air museum in the Zaandam neighborhood of Zaanse Schans that provides a glimpse into Dutch life in the 18th and 19th centuries. We did, however, visit the "Czar Peter House", one of the oldest wooden houses in the Netherlands, and the site where Peter the Great of Russia stayed briefly in 1697 (for about a week) when he traveled to the Netherlands to learn about shipbuilding.

The house was put under cover in the 19th century to protect it. Both the house and its covering
structure have been declared state monuments.

We just happened to be there on "Monuments Day", which
meant that we got in for free!

Through the years the house has had many famous visitors, including Russian tsars, Dutch monarchs,
and even Napoleon. Many of the visitors of the past--both the famous and not-so-famous--have carved
their names into the walls, window frames and window panes of the structure.

Zaandam also has a "Monet was here" site, a house on the river that served as his workshop for four months in 1871. Perhaps of more modern interest, and maybe useful for trivia fanatics, is that Zaandam is the place where the first McDonald's restaurant in Europe was opened (1971).

Zaandam has the feel of a vacation town: shopping, restaurants, water, and lots and lots of boats.

The eye-catching Inntel Hotel in Zaandam, inspired by the iconic green houses of the Zaan region.

Old lock keeper house and excise house bracket the Grote
Sluis, a historic lock from 1724.

The Grote Sluis was out of service from the early 1900's until it was refurbished and reopened to
pleasure boat traffic in 2016. It's a manual lock and its operation depends upon volunteers. Most
boats go through the much larger Juliana Lock just to the east (far right in the photo).

Decorating with shoes--wooden shoes, that is. Bonus points for spotting Lon in the photo.

All very interesting, but we had a more important reason for choosing to spend the day in Zaandam. In 1927, C.A.R.I.B. III began its existence as "Ali", a vegetable oil tanker built at the Czar Peter shipyard in Zaandam. The company is no longer in business, and we didn't quite get to the neighborhood where it formerly existed, but it was nevertheless fun to be in the general vicinity of our boat's "birthplace."

As much as we enjoyed our outings from Schiphol, we were glad to depart the citizenM on Sunday morning. It was starting to feel a little too much like the "Hotel California" the Eagles sang about in the 70's: "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." 

While we wait on estimates from Tinneman's shipyard in Maasbracht, we will get back to some of the Florida activities we enjoy: dog walking for me, kitten fostering, trumpet lessons and hockey for Lon, walks, bike rides, restaurants (outdoors) and visits with friends. We will also spend some time thinking about various cruising options for next year. Because Florida is still in the grip of the covid Delta variant we are exercising caution, and the community music groups that we have enjoyed playing with in the past are still on hiatus until at least 2022. 

For now, the blog is on "pause", while more immediate concerns--like laundry!--await.