This historic windmill is at Knooppunt 5, the fifth node of the South Limburg cycling network. Though it is known as the Gronsveld Windmill, it is actually within the city limits of Maastricht, near the road (and cycle paths!) that lead south to the nearby town of Gronsveld. Construction of Read More …
Dinkel is a word I only knew in German until I visited the Bishop’s Mill in Maastricht. Dinkel is a special kind of grain, related to wheat, which in former times was quite common in Europe and is now considered something of a health food. Dinkel-bread is a dark bread Read More …
Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), was a French military engineer and adviser to King Louis XIV. What Kilroy was to the twentieth century, Vauban was to the seventeenth. Wherever you went in Western Europe, Vauban had already been there and had designed, built, strengthened — or conquered — Read More …
In the entrance hall of the Amsterdam Opera House this statue of a violinist seems to be erupting through the floor from some forgotten world below the surface. My impression of this violinist is that he is dead (look at his hand) and that he is perhaps a Jewish violinist Read More …
What sets Amsterdam off from most other major cities is its glorious tradition as a cycling city. Some decades have been more glorious than others, however. Bicycle use actually declined in the 1950s, 60s and 70s while the automotive lobbies had the upper hand, but in 1978 a new and Read More …
The word Concertgebouw has a fine ring to it to anyone who listens to classical music on German radio stations, because they keep playing brilliant recordings by the Concertgebouw orchestra. Although that particular orchestra was not performing when I was in town, I did attend two other concerts in the Read More …
As in Strasbourg, an interesting rainy day activity in Amsterdam is to take a boat trip around the city. I call it a rainy day activity because when the weather is nice you will obviously prefer to be out cycling rather than just sitting in a boat. There are several Read More …
For a conscientious helmet-wearer like me, it was shocking to see that hardly anybody in Amsterdam wears a bicycle helmet, not even the children. After asking around a bit, I learned that Dutch traffic planners decided years ago not to make helmets a part of their safety package. Their reasoning: If you tell Read More …
When a German consortium stated building InterCityExpress (ICE) trains in the early 1990s, they thought they could market them worldwide and make a big hit on the export market. Up to now, though, only one non-German railway has ever ordered any of these trains. That is the Netherlands Railway System, Read More …
When I visited Groningen, the Grafisch Museum was not in the city center, but behind the central railroad station. In the meantime, they have moved to a more central location at Sint Jansstraat 2, which I believe is the building where the old Groningen Museum used to be. My photos Read More …