The Dutch often line canals and roads with the same variety of trees in rows that seem to go on for miles. It’s beautiful to see from a distance and even more beautiful to drive through.
It would probably be considered a road hazard in the US.
We repeat ourselves: Haarlem is another beautiful smll city with a bustling center. Coming through narrow streets into the main market square just takes your breath away This time we did it on bicycles, leaving Rover in a tight campground 3km away. Here we saw an organ that Mozart played when he was 10. And then we had supper at Ikea.
When we had been in Groningen, we learned that one of the more notorious buildings in the city is the art museum: as the story goes, somebody in charge had the idea to assign its design to three architects: each came up with a design for 1/3 of the total square footage, and the three discrete buildings were simply put end to end.
If the question “Why?” comes to mind, you should probably stay away from Rotterdam, where it’s as if the whole of the central city had been turned over to half a dozen or more architects, each one determined that his building would be the one to put the others to shame.
The city had been leveled during World War II, and in the decades since then, the rebuilding has taken the form of “an architectural aesthetic that’s unique in Europe, a progressive perpetual-motion approach to construction that’s clearly a result of the city’s postwar, postmodern ‘anything goes’ philosophy” (that’s from the Lonely Planet guide).
There are the twin office wings that reflect one another; the elegant bridge; the one that leans, resting on a long pole; the three apartment blocks; and lots of others, including the Overblaak development and its upended cube-shaped apartments; and, oh yes, lots of others. And as far as I can tell, not a one of them cares much about “fitting in” with the buildings around it.
We spent two days in Rotterdam on a boat tour of the harbor, visits to museums, and just walking around looking up, even though the campground was the most expensive yet. It was basically a large field with electrical posts around the edges. The hose for fresh water was the same you were free to use to clean out your waste hose at the dump site. Thanks, but no thanks: we have found this to be the case at several places and are careful to add to our supply of fresh water only when the conditions are sanitary. The quality of the water has been very good so far.