Not only Heineken !

 

Possibly the only Dutch beer I previously could have named!

While you might think that the green bottle or can bearing the trademark red star and brand name "Heineken since 1873" is the genuine article, the reality is that unless you are in the Netherlands, it has probably been brewed "to the original recipe" just down the road!  It is a ubiquitous and perfectly drinkable beer, however on our cruise through the Netherlands, I have endevoured to seek out the truly local brews, of which there are many! 

Family and craft breweries are alive and well in the Netherlands. 

each with their own name on unique glasses, here are just a few.

I have found a very palatable brew which turns up in some supermarkets from the offshore island of Texel, named Skuumkoppe. Possibly I was attracted by the lighthouse on the label or being told that the name means white cresting waves.  The family brewery was founded in 1999.  

 In Haarlem I was introduced to 'Jopen', a genuinely local craft beer from a 1501 recipe which was re-discovered in the city archives and is being brewed once again in Haarlem, which at one time boasted more breweries than Amsterdam.

Haarlem in 1800, the waterfront today is little changed.  

Enough about beer. This post is a bit of a round up of pics through August and our 2024 round trip 

A delightfully quiet island mooring on Alkmaardermeer.

The North sea on a calm day. Zandvoort is only a few minutes train ride from Haarlem.  

Just behind the sand dunes is the Formula 1 race track.  

Ex Warehouses, now smart apartments at Zaandijk, 

on our way North to Alkmaar 

 'Windmill land', a working mill museum on route to Alkmaar

The Harbourmaster's office Alkmaar. Not a bad place to work!

With family guests now aboard we managed to break free from Haarlem and head north to Alkmaar. There we turned right onto the quiet, less travelled Alkmaar-Kolhorn waterway where there were several low bridges, requiring our canopy and mast to be lowered, reviving a routine which we had not used since leaving France. Kolhorn was once a thriving fishing port on the shores of the tidal Zuiderzee but now lies far inland like a time capsule. From here, we had the uncanny experience of locking down a further 5 meters to the original sea bed and navigating the long straight cuts across reclaimed land to the new coastline at Medemblik. 

    

Atop the deep lock at Medemblik, we wait for the vintage train to pass.

There is something about steam trains: the whistles, puffing and clanking, the smell of coal smoke, steam, and hot oil, that I cannot resist. At Medemblik I got a brief fix. 

This vintage chuff-chuff runs from Medemblik to Hoorn in the summer months

There is also a steam tram which pulls a string of vintage carriages,

lovingly restored, with lots of shiny brass bits.

 In the yacht harbour at Medemblik, just across the pontoon from us and tucked in between two long term moored boats, there was a floating grebe nest. We were able to watch as two chicks hatched and quickly climbed up onto one of the parent's backs, to be promptly fed with live fish. 

Across the Netherlands we find memorials to the aircraft and crews that did not make it home from wartime raids into Germany. This one is on the shoreline near Medemblik.

Just one of many similar memorials.

This one marking three aircraft that never made it home.  

 Choosing a calm day, we crossed the IJsselmeer to Friesland and familiar waters once more, our round trip cruise almost complete.  

  

September already ! The evenings are getting shorter. 

To finish with one of our favourite quiet mooring spots, Vijfhuizen,

 just a bus ride from Schiphol airport. 

Keeping the water out.

 'Netherlands',  literally meaning 'Lower Countries'. With more than a quarter of their country below sea level, the Dutch peoples have been pumping the water out for centuries. At the same time the Rhine and Maas rivers have been bringing much needed extra land in the form of silt from across western Europe and depositing it in a vast delta known as Zeeland 

This pumping 'Kagermill', built 1683 ,has been faithfully restored. 

When we can, 'Antiope' finds quiet remote mooring spots, here at Keverhaven. 

The land beyond the waterway is several meters lower.

Hard to resist taking pictures as we pass.

By shovel and wind, they have also created land from where there was formerly sea. These pieces of new land are known as 'Polders''. Windmills are a feature of the landscape fringing the waterways, and with a more or less constant westerly wind, their job was to pump the soggy land dry via thousands of kilometers of drainage channels. Over the last century the task has been taken over by diesel and electric pumping stations. 

The Adriaan mill in Haarlem still in use, 

built high to get clean wind over the town. 

Restorations we have seen, use authentic wooden gearing

Although now, of the thousands of windmills that once existed, a good many remain in working order lovingly preserved and restored and commonly adapted as residences. In addition to the pumping mills,  the grinding mills are still a focal point in towns and cities, often in full working order as tourist attractions.

Our voyaging this season has been a deliberate dawdle, heading slowly towards the Western regions of Noord Holland. We stayed put for a few delightful days in Haarlem, getting to know the city which is only a bus ride from Amsterdam, with all the charm but fewer tourists.

After sunset from our mooring spot in the centre of Haarlem. 

The Stadhuis in Haarlem dates back to 1370 

The Organ in St Bavo's church, Haarlem has 5068 pipes,

 and was played by G.F.Handel and also in 1766 by Mozart  at the age of 10 

The sole surviving Haarlem town gateway, 

to the once walled city, The Amsterdamse Poort 

MH17 memorial, with 298 trees, one for each of those aboard that flight 

Just a short distance from Haarlem is the sleepy village-like town of Vijfhuisen where we are currently moored on a quiet, less traveled waterway. In the distance we can hear the rumble of jets at Schiphol, and it is here that a memorial and forest has been created to Malaysian flight MH17, which, having taken off from Schiphol was shot down by a Russian missile over Ukraine ten years ago. Our visit to the memorial made more poignant having met another cruising couple here, James and Carol aboard their boat Paddington V.  They had close relatives, a family of 4, lost on that flight. Last week there was a formal 10 year anniversary commemoration, attended by the Dutch King and Queen and ambassadors of the many nationalities who were aboard that aircraft.  

 

Bridges

 As I write, the longest day is passed, and summer has finally kicked in with our solar panels nudging 14volts. We are moored on an island in what would have been the tidal Zuider Zee, before the big dyke enclosed the sea in 1932. We can look out across a wide navigable channel to Flevoland, the vast man made province created in the 1950/60s by enclosing and draining the seas.   

An idyllic island mooring for the night

So why do I write about bridges? Well throughout our European cruising, hundreds have dutifully and promptly lifted to allow our passage. There are close to 900 lifting bridges in the Netherlands alone and they all function on demand! If not, they certainly get fixed quickly. There is engineering and artistic flair in both new and old.

 In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh painted this bridge at Arles and it was probably ancient even then. This classic but oh so simple balance beam bridge is commonplace on the European waterways to this day. 

  
                   

                                                       The 'Bridge at Arles' 1888 

The same structure at Arles close to a century later!

This new Auckland bridge however remains inoperative (picture by Marika Khabazi)

I read from afar, with incredulity, that the Viaduct bridge, the one and only lift bridge in Auckland which merely carries  a walkway over a navigable waterway, after only 2 decades of use, remains broken and probably cannot be fixed for a further six months. 

Footbridge Zierikzee, built 1800s and still working

      

Old but classic functional footbridge Zwolle  built 1820

Original build 1892, fully restored in 2023

Same simple principle, but a more modern version

along the 'turfe route'

Small, scenic and beautifully balanced

I am no engineer, but I cannot help thinking that balance beams would be a simple fix for the Viaduct bridge!!

Meanwhile back aboard Antiope, we come across some massively engineered structures and the just plain quirky! 

This railway lift bridge is obliged to open for any craft with a standing mast

A Meccano set on the Brussels canal, Belgium

The bascule bridge is in Middleburg, just elegant.

OK, let's just lift a whole slice of road  

Or roll it up!

On demand, the right of passage remains with waterborne craft

Over the next few days we will continue southwards to Amersfoort, where we will have guests joining us aboard.

Thanks for reading and do comment if the mood takes you.

Cheers. Charles and Annie. 

Off Grid and Stork spotting

 This week we have the longest day, and by rights it should be high summer. Not so this year, with cold, wet weather persisting across much of northern Europe. Aboard Antiope, however, we have managed to stay cosy with no pressure to travel far. Having explored the Overijssel province last season, we have returned to some of our 'off grid' mooring spots to sit out the wet days. 

Pinned is the Weerribben National Park area

10 pm on a rare clear evening, and almost the longest day 

at time of writing. See blue spot on map

One of our favourite off grid moorings, close to Zwolle

Guests joined us for a few days and despite the weather, we were able to cruise slowly through the Weerribben National Park and do a bit of stork spotting during nesting time. The locals around here encourage the storks by creating nesting sites, even on roofs and on pole structures in their gardens. 

These pics taken by our guest aboard, Gerhard Klaus 

We did venture out onto the Ijssel river, making the passage up-stream from Kampen towards Zwolle. The rainfall in the upper reaches of the Rhine had topped the banks here and caused the strongest current we have yet encountered in the Netherlands. Slow going upstream, but a fast passage back down again a few days later.

Fast flowing current on the Ijssel

The Ijssel in flood

A familiar sight recently from our cosy cabin window!

Ouch!! Was it something I said?