Highlights of the Netherlands:   swimming in the north sea and sleeping in the beautiful gardens in Den Haag; the street museum with giant medieval fairground robots;  realising that queuing 2 hours to see the tiny box Anne Frank lived in is probably a silly idea;  meeting Carel, the nano-technologist who gave us a ride and told us about his work making microscopic machines.  

(Top: the Den Haag beach promenade.)

(Above: stereotypical amsterdam shot.)
(Below: multi level bike parking, Zaandam.)

(Above: old time religion: from a mediaeval convent in Amsterdam.)

The first stop in the Netherlands is Amsterdam.
We walk  around the city in the sunshine visiting every tourist site that doesnt require a mortgage and a 3 hour wait to enter.   The architecture is striking, and the contrast between the modernity of some of the public buildings and the awe inspiring detail of the medieval timber houses is really good eye candy.

The soft sandy soil has gradually let the older buildings settle into jagged leaning postures and I wonder, looking at the rakish angles of some of the facades how it is possible that they are still standing.   I guess they built stuff to last in the 15th century.   Everything old is made of wood, and when u look closely you see that forms and structures you assume were stone are actually carved or lathed.
Here and there are clues to Amsterdam’s dark other life.   The red light district is still there in the day time, but it has been rigorously cleaned, swept and spanked by the meticulous Dutch cleaning corps.  If this was Kings Cross we would be wading through pools of vomit and stepping over passed out party boys, and broken glass, but it’s Holland, so by 9am everything is orderly and manicured.

(Above: mediaeval animatronics.)

At the foyer of the Museum we get up close and personal with a nice set of medieval wooden robots.   They are a fairground attraction from the middle ages representing David and a four metre tall Goliath in medieval Dutch costume.   Just as I take a picture of David, his eyes roll around to stare at me pointedly.   Startled, I read the blurb and find out these statues are mechanical!   The crude iron machiney has been harnessed to modern electic motors and the antique animatronics are once again alive.  There are also an impressive array of superb artworks in the foyer summarising the history of Amsterdam.   There is no charge for this part of the museum, and I recomend the experience to all cheap-skate travellers.

Lets talk about the elephant in the room none of the guidebooks are addressing:  Dutch toilets.
Public toilets in the Netherlands are spectacularly clean, superbly appointed facilities.   they are also few and far between.
Walking the streets of Amsterdam I reflect that it is a good thing Holland is famous for cheese and not curry.
There is no such thing as a free lunch in Holland, and that goes for purgeing your cheese laden bowels as well.   Expect to pay 0.50 euro per shit, unless you do it in the woods, like I did in Zaandam where we camped by the canal [ they will have to send me the invoice for that one ;-) ].

While searching for a toilet in downtown Amsterdam I come across a long line of people queuing.  The line stretches down the street, around the corner and out of site down a lane beside the inevitable canal.  A young dutch guy is trundling a trolley down the line, selling tickets and handing out leaflets.
“What is the queue for?” I ask.
“The Anne Frank house” he explains.
The wait is 2 to 3 hours.   The Anne Frank house, the place where the little girl and her family were hidden from the Nazis, attracts more than a million visitors every year, explains the young Dutchman.  Of course the inner sanctum, the actual hiding spot, is the size of a closet, so only a couple of curious tourists can squeeze in at a time, only one at a time if they are Americans who have recently gorged themselves on Dutch McDonalds around the corner.

Anne Frank  was famously optimistic and ambitious in her diaries, but I doubt even her active childs imagination could have foreseen the tourist attraction the scene of her penultimate incarceration would become.

(The line to see the Anne Frank house.)

(Amsterdam street art.)

A skinflint hitchhiker simply cannot afford to overnight in Amsterdam [ and I am mindful of Jamie’s experience being arrested for sleeping in an amsterdam park – see his blog GreatBigScaryWorld ], so we head out of town to Zaandam.   Its a quiet suburban area, and we find a comfortable bit of woodland by a canal to camp in near Zaandam station.   The market on Saturday morning yields some very cheap tasty cheeses but otherwise Zaandam in very forgettable.

(The woodland where we camped in Zaandam.)

(The beach at Den Haag (The Hague) – first bath since Sydney, AU!)

We get a ride to Den Haag [ The Hague ] with Vassili, a stoic Russian who kindly drops us off at the beach.   The sand stretches out of sight in both directions, and the water is clean, cool and feels like heaven after a few days without a bath.   At night we camp in the beautiful parkland by the international war crimes court.    It is a European forest fantasy and very peaceful and warm.

(The National Park, Den Haag: 5 star camping.)

(Orderly chaos: a budget hotel in the Netherlands urban sprawl.)

(The mandatory ‘linguistic coincidence meme’ pic – who doesnt like a cheap laugh??)

By the time we have trudged out of Den Haag, and been completely unable to find a place to hitch, we realise that the Netherlands is not a good country for hitchhiking.   The roads are impeccably neat, and have no shoulders.   If there is space beside a road it is devoted to generously proportioned bike paths.   Dutch cities generally are ordered, conformist, civil, but not set up for improvisation.    This is a country where the locals give you dirty looks if you try to pass them to the left when walking on the footpath.   In Holland one passes to the right, on the road, and on foot!   Everyone is very polite and helpful, and when we are able to get far enough out of the endless urban areas, getting rides is not difficult, but I get the sense that this is a society acutely aware of their shortage of real estate and resources and everything is measured and proportioned accordingly.

Is the Netherlands an exemplary sustainable urban landscape, or a reminder of the resource scarce future we all face?   I don’t know.    I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.   After three days of swimming against the current, I turned my thumb to the south and drifted in the current, with all the other flotsam toward spacious, decadent, individualistic France!

>> Next: Normandy, war wounds, wine, new friends and architecture.