Heineken Experience

Well, here we are with one day to go before we board our flights and come home. Unfortunately, we will not be on the same flights, but at least we are leaving from the same airport and returning to Montreal within 3 hours of each other. It's a little hard to believe that this tour s coming to an end...it has been a great trip but it also feels good to be heading home after 3.5 months away. Yesterday we visited the Heineken brewery for their "Heineken Experience" which is probably the very best brewery tour I have ever seen. Well organized and self-guided with pit-stops here and there where you get to talk to Heineken Crew and learn a little bit more about the production.

Zaanse Schans, Volendam, Marken, Delft, Den Haag, and Madurodam

As we approach the final days of our tour, I guess we're getting a little lazy. Before Amsterdam, we hadn't participated in any organized tours, and so far we have participated in three. A canal tour, and candlelight wine and cheese, and finally, yesterday a 9.5 hour bus tour of the North and South of Holland. It was surprisingly a very pleasant day despite the slow pace of the large group. We first visited Zaanse Schans, a 17th century village with several working windmills which were used in their day to pump water, to grind seeds for flour and oil, and for sawing lumber. We also visited a cheeze maker shop and sampled several types of cheese. Then it was off to visit a wooden shoemaker on the island of Marken to which we gained access via a pedestrian ferry boat from the pretty town of Volendam which was completely swamped with tourists. Marken was originally a salt sea fishing village, but since the construction of a 20km dyke cutting the South Sea from the North Sea (see below), the south sea became a large lake and fishing activity virtuallyu died with the exception of smoking fish which is still done in Marken...in fact, the shoemaker told us that the fish smoking plants use the chips of poplar which fall to the floor of the shomaker's shop. Then we were off to Delft to visit the famous Delf Blue ceramic shop where they produce very expensive pottery (they warned against fake Delft Blue and told us how to distinguish the real thing).
Our final destination for the day was Madurodam which is a miniature city of Holland's most famous buildings in a scale of 1:25. It was a donation by Mr. Maduro in memory of his son who he lost during the second world war. t is truly a remarkable achievement for detail. If you look through the upper window of the Rijkmuseum model you actually see a replica of Rembrandt's largest canvas which we had seen in the real Rijkmuseum only a few days ago. Once again, I took some notes of our guide's anecdotes and gleaned the following:
- the name Nederlands (lower lands) describes the land which is lower than the sea
- 88 beautiful canals...try saying that in Dutch (it's a real tongue twister)
- Holland had over 10000 windmills in the 1600's used to pump water out of the lakes to make new land (Polder)...the windmills were, of course, also used for producing flour, oil and sawn lumber.
- after the catastrophic flood of 1916, a 20km dyke was built to close the connection between the South Sea and the North Sea. The South Sea is now a large fresh water lake which us fed from Switzerland via the Rhine.
- schiphol (the airport) got its name from the boats (schiph) which were discovered at the bottom of the lake which was pumped out in 1864.
- Den Haag: 750 years old...mid-13th century. Capital of Nederlands. Working offices of Queen Beatrice and the international court house.

Candle Light Tour on Canals of Amsterdam

At 20:30, when we boarded the candlelight tour boat at Ronkin Centruum, there were 4 tables arranged each with a candle, three bottles of wine, two types of cheese, and some salty crackers. By the time we departed the dock at 21:00 as scheduled, two more couple came aboard and two more tables were arranged simimilarly. It was a very pleasant evening and a nice way to see the night lights of Amsterdam along the canal. Unfortunately, by the end of the evening, my camera hadn't the capacity to capture the lights while we were moving...the result is rather intriguing though. I took some notes of the guide's annecdotes and was able to glean the following:
- the year 1275 is the earliest date on documents refer to Amsterdam
- Amstel, the river from which Amsterdfam gets its name, is the natural canal in the ...all other canals have been dug.
- hand operated wooden locks are used to refresh the canals with fresh water from a Lake in Switzerland via the river Rhine and the old water is flushed to the north sea
- there currently over 3000 house boats on the canals of Amsterdam...they all have electrical power and water...house boat living started because of a housing crisis in the 1950's
- st nicolas used to be patron saint of city...the cathedral remained catholic after the reformation.
- Kuiper (?) was the Dutch architect who designed both the central station and the Rijkmuseum
- the dutch warship Amsterdam was built in 1729 and sunk on its maiden voyage off the coast of England...it has recently been rebuilt by unemployed persons over a 5 year period
- there are 8 day cruises from amsterdam to Basel up the Rhine
- step, bell, and neck gable ...3 types of house fronts...some gables were purposely built with a forward inclination towards the sidewalk in order to facilitate hoisting furniture from street level.
- there are four tunnels connecting North Amsterdam with the centrum ad there is a free ferry service for pedestrians and cyclists transitig from the north.
- there is a floating Chinese restaurant which is a reduced replica of one in Homg Kong...the one in Amsterdam can seat 800 (the one in Hong Kong apparently will seat a few thousands.