Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 10 Homeward Bound

 Day 10 - Friday 5 April 2024

Our bags must be outside the cabin at 06:30 and the coach leaves for the airport at 07:45.

Our flight is not scheduled to depart until 11:40 and as the journey takes less than 20 minutes there is plenty of time.

Two Viking staff meet the coach and take two groups to the respective check-ins.

Check-in is quick, and although security in this terminal is closed and we must walk to another terminal to pass security it is relatively painless. So we hunt for the business lounge partner, take a lift and it all goes wrong. There are about 50 people waiting to get in, it's at capacity they say, and when there is a space they give priority to members of their own. They say we must clear the area or they'll call security. So we go down to the main public lounge. We're no longer in Viking's World.

A 65 minute flight delay shrinks to 10 minutes and at last we are in the air with a glass of Champagne.

Good views of London as we descend and Andy whisks us home from Heathrow.

Comfort food is needed, so Joan gets fish, chips and mushy peas which we have with a bottle of Villa Maria NZ Savvie.

Now we have to wait patiently for the next cruise in June.

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 9 Amsterdam

Day 9 - Thursday 4 April 2024 

The last full day of the cruise, with a well anticipated included excursion at 08:30 to Keukenhof Gardens and its tulip display.

But when we awake it's pouring. The rain is coming down in a fury, and it doesn't let up. We decide not to join the excursion. About 30 minutes after coaches depart the rain stops and the sun shines, but ten minutes later the rain in all its fury returns.

The rain stops at lunchtime.

I enjoyed the Fettucine Bolognaise with a green salad and dry Wiener Gemischter Satz, Nussberg, 2020.

So many excursions had taken place on mornings while it was raining while the afternoons had been sunny. Today was no different. After lunch we set off for the Tulip Museum, passing the war memorial in Dam Square (above). 

The museum entrance is at the rear of a shop that appear to be the main purpose of the venture and there's a long queue of people buying bulbs and tulip related paraphernalia. One thing I took away is the word 'tulip' come from the Turkish word for a turban, because of the similarity of their shape.

We might not have seen Keukenhof but we saw plenty of tulips. These were in one of many large pots on bridges.

In all my many stays in Amsterdam I never saw use being made of the hoist at the top of buildings, but today I saw two being used. This chap is lowering wood panels out the window to another on the pavement.

Our last dinner of the cruise was accompanied by this rather pleasant Chianti Classico

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 8 Bruinisse

 Day 8 - Wednesday 3 April 2024

The morning included excursion started with a walk through the attractive small city of Zierikzee.

Access to the old town and harbour was via pull-up bridges and a gatehouse.

Four coaches had set off from the boat, but to avoid crowding only two visited the same site at the same time. 

We drove first to the Delta Works. Local fishermen objected to the enclosing of the Zuiderzee as the enclosed water would become salt-free and wouldn't support the fish they caught and oysters they farmed.

So either side of a man-made island were constructed a line of gates which would let sea tides ebb and flow, but be shut during exceptional high tides to protect land and dikes.

All week we'd been hearing about land reclaimed from the sea and how much of the Netherlands is below sea level protected by dikes.

Our last visit was to Watersnood (Flood) Museum. This is at the site of a dike break on 1 February 1953. A storm surge and gale caused wide spread flooding and drowned 2,500 people in Netherlands, Belgium, England, and Scotland. Netherlands suffered the most because it had so much land under sea level.

Engineers repaired breached dikes but all attempts at closing the dike at Ouwerkerk were washed away by the force of the currents. On the night of 6/7 November 1953 they carefully manoeuvred a line of four huge floating concrete caissons into the breach, filling then with boulders and sand to sink them. Even so, the currents moved one out of line but the engineers were able to fill gaps and repair the dike.

The caissons - codenamed Phoenix -  had been constructed to make the artificial 'Mulberry' harbours and breakwaters of the Normandy coast after D-Day in 1944 but these were surplus to requirements then and were towed by tug to Netherlands in 1953. They stick up above the earthen dike and now house the museum.

The caissons are gigantic, 62.5x19x19 metres (205x62.3x62.3 feet), and the museum is housed in the upper part, above the rock and sand filling.

And back to the boat for lunch. The boat cast off heading for Rotterdam. There was on 'Open Wheelhouse' session and then 'Teatime'.

Plates of dainty sandwiches and cakes were on lounge tables, with jam and cream for scones. We were supposed to enjoy a selection of specialist loose-leaf black and green teas with them, but actuality was the same wooden box of tea-bags we had a breakfast was brought around by waitrons. Dunking a tea bag into a cup of hot water doesn't make tea as any fule kno.

And where were the scones? The restaurant manger said they'd run out, but perhaps because I took him to task the previous day for running out of the diet cokes our lunch companions wanted, he rustled up one each for those at our table. They were stale, more like small biscuits.

We had the misfortune to sit through the Programme Director's disembarkation talk in which, with the aid of a projector, he droned on into minute detail about every aspect even explaining what each column of the Departure Information sheet meant, perhaps because  a column headed 'time to place your luggage outside your stateroom door' would cause of confusion.

We arrived in Rotterdam during dinner. A pre-dinner glass of Champagne and a bottle of dry red restored equilibrium.

We left Rotterdam for Amsterdam at 22:00. Tomorrow would be the last full day of our cruise, and highlighted by the included excursion to Keukenhof Gardens.

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 7 Middleburg & Veere

 Day 7 - Tuesday 2 April 2024

Viking Ve moored in Middleburg during breakfast, and we joined a 09:00 walking tour in drizzle.

And back for lunch

The boat left Middleburg at midday so we sailed towards Veere as we ate. When we arrived at 14:00 there was an included walking tour of 'Historic Veere'.

And back for dinner

But first, a pre-dinner glass of Champagne Jacquart.

Celeste Crianza Ribera de Duero went well with the braised lamb shoulder roast. 

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 6 Antwerp

 Day 6 - Monday 1 April 2024

We arrived at Antwerp during breakfast and went on the included excursion, a walking tour of Antwerp. But first we had to get on the quay. Another boat, which refused to move, was in our space so we moored alongside The Elegant Lady, a boat in  Plantours fleet.

Elegant she was not. The steps down from her sundeck were metal, narrow and steep. Covered in water from the rain they were dangerously slippery. Only one person could descend at a time, and it was safest to descend backward. There was only one handrail.

Thus it took ages for everyone to get down and we set off late.

First was the impressive remains of the old city wall.

I thought the building on the left was a church, but the guide said it was the Butchers Guild building and the steps next to it were known as the 'bloody steps' because blood & innards flowed down the steps like a waterfall from the abattoir above.

In a square is a statue of Nello, a young orphan boy, and his dog Patrasche frozen to death in their sleep. The adventures of  Nello and Patrasche is very famous in Japan, Korea, and Philippinesbecause of  an anime TV series. Hordes of tourists from those countries came to Antwerp and were puzzled that no-one had heard of Nello and Patrasche. 

Which wasn't surprising as the origin was a book A Dog of Flanders written by a British author. The city had the statue made in the 80s, and when I was there 20-30 Japanese were taking pictures of each other by it.

Then we entered Antwerp Cathedral of Our Lady which houses three huge Rubens' triptychs and another painting by Rubens. There were many tourists there, including groups following guides' flags and paddles. 

After an exhaustive description of the first triptych the guide led our group o the next, but we sat down. The programme director was in the cathedral so I asked him if the tour continued after the cathedral, because otherwise we'd head back to the boat. He assured me it did, so we sat in the cold and eventually the guide completed her commentary on the fourth Rubens and said that was the end of the tour.  That was the third time I'd got duff info from the programme director so I didn't rely on him again.

So back to the boat for lunch. Fish'n'chips today.

Last time I'd had this on Viking was the previous year on the Mosel, andthen we were sitting outside on the prow enjoying the sun.

We didn't go for a self-discovery walk of Antwerp in the afternoon because we were still moored alongside Elegant Lady and I didn't want to risk their dangerous steps.

The afternoon talk about life in Belgium was amusing and well presented by a young lady.

 

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 5 Kinderdyk

Day 5 - Sunday 31 March 2024

Easter Sunday and breakfast tables were decorated.

And when we returned to our cabin we found a large Lindt chocolate bunny. 

We arrived at Kinderdijk at lunchtime. I had the Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwich. The menu said it came on a Kaiser Roll, which is did on the 2023 Rhine-Mosel cruise but they were either out of them or the chef had no idea what a Kaiser Roll was and used two small bread rolls.

It's not the first time we've been to Kinderdijk; last time we just went for a walk along the waterfront, and this time Joan stayed on the boat. But it wasn't raining so I joined an excursion in the afternoon. 

The windmills built in the early 1700s are pumps to keep the reclaimed land dry. We can go in one from 1738 and while I am there I see the miller, wearing clogs, turn the mill with the large wheel so it faces the new wind direction and anchor it in the position with chains.

We have a talk about the windmills form the guide and a quick visit to a steam pump room that also houses a gift shop, then it's back to the boat as it leaves for Rotterdam at 15:30.

An hour later we moor in Rotterdam. There's an optional walking tour but, unusually, no included excursion.

And as we ate dinner the Viking Ve cruised on to Antwerp.

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 4 Nijmegen

 Day 4 - Saturday 30 March 2024

We moored in Nijmegen. At 09:00 we boarded our coach for the brief drive to Arnhem for our included excursion Operation Market Garden which first stopped at Arnhem bridge - the 'Bridge too Far'. 

This is a post-war rebuild to exactly the same style as the bridge  destroyed in October 1944. Some of the bases survived, including the concrete stairs and supports on the north bank. The new bridge is named after John Frost, British Forces commander.

We went to the Airborne Cemetery at Oosterbeek where some 18,000 allied soldiers are buried.

Guide David had written two books about the battle and was in a group of archaeologists that uncovered remains of missing soldiers. He took us to some graves of those he'd found and told us their stories.

He told us that after the war  local school children 'adopted' each grave, and they'd contact the families. Soon other war cemeteries were also adopted by school children and when they grew-up and leave school another younger child takes over. Each year, on the same day, each grave has a lit candle to show the soldiers that they
are not forgotten. This unofficial tradition continues to this day. I don't think anyone there didn't have tears.

Next stop was the nearby Airborne Museum. During the Arnhem Battle as the British troops were defending a decreasing area while facing increasing German forces. Hotel Hartenstein was taken over as HQ and now houses the museum.

Then a drive around the area where the guide pointed out terrain features that affected the battle and Kate ter Hors' house in which she nursed wounded and dying soldiers.

A quiet coach returned to the boat for lunch.

We had a short walk in the afternoon and caught up on reading. Before dinner was an enthralling talk on the Liberation of the Netherlands by historian Edwin Popken. The Dutch thought the war was over when the allies arrived in Market Garden. The German troops had left, for Germany it was thought, and crowds were blocking the streets to cheer on the troops.