418: Going Dutch (Part II) (Rotterdam)

Note for students: In English to go Dutch means that if you're going out with somebody then you agree to split the costs 50:50. (a penny bun only costs a penny rather than two pence!)

I'm at Rotterdam airport waiting for my flight to Barcelona. It's quite a small airport so no business lounge. This is a shame as it means I have to keep putting my hand in my pocket for coffee and muffins etc. 

As I said earlier, in going Dutch (Part I), Holland is a great place. The Dutch seem to be a peaceable and peace-loving people and almost everyone you meet is bilingual, or at least with a very good command of English. 

Yet again I've missed the chance of visiting a 'special' coffee shop. Maybe next time I'll be able to say High instead of Hi. 

I walked just over 29,000 steps on Saturday so was very surprised to find I still had the energy left in my legs to walk a further 12,000 yesterday while I was exploring Rotterdam. I walked from the hotel to the river and was about to board a 'water bus' to visit the famous windmills at Kinderdijk when I discovered it was only going one way. Perhaps I could have got a bus back but better safe than sorry. 

A word of warning. Be careful if you want to walk from one side of a railway station to the other. In both Rotterdam and Arnhem you needed a ticket to get through the automatic barriers. I have no reason to suppose it is not the same at other (major) stations. There are no friendly assistants standing at the barrier to help out the unwary traveller who may have gone out at the wrong exit. Luckily that didn't happen to me. For a change I had my eyes open and my wits about me.

Another word of warning. Yesterday was the second time I've gone to buy something in Holland to be told they don't accept cash - cards only. Money, in the form of coins and banknotes, is on the way out!  

Took quite a few pictures yesterday and here are a few of them, hopefully to give you a flavour of the place. I've tried to show both the maritime nature of the city and the super-modern high-rise buildings. Note the syntactical difference between super-modern and super,modern,

417: Going Dutch (Part I)

Last Friday I flew from Stansted to Amsterdam and took a couple of trains to get from Schipol airport to Arnhem (via Utrecht). The double-decker Dutch trains are comfortable and run at quite a reasonable speed.

 

I like Holland and I particularly like Arnhem. My 3* hotel (Arnhem Central) was a 2-minute walk from the station. It was perfectly adequate for the 2 nights I was there. Enjoyed a very nice carbonara mirada in an Italian restaurant called Pinocchio, named after he of the ever-lengthening nose. It appears that over the years a lot of people have drunk a lot of wine as the ceiling is full of empty wine bottle containers (aka ?)

On Saturday morning a fleet of buses carried thousands of people from Arnhem bus station to Oosterbeek ready for the Airborne walk. This takes place every year on the 1st Saturday of September and commemorates the part played by airborne forces in Operation Market Garden.  I heard estimates of more than 30,000 people taking part in the walk. They were walking either as individuals or as part of a group, over distances of either 10, 15, 25 or 40 kilometres. Just like last year I chose the 15 km route but I'm sure it was longer this time. It certainly felt like it towards the end. Motivation was improved at the end by tucking in behind one of the many bands. It is always uplifting 'marching' to music.

I walked some of it with my namesake Des Buckley and his wife Hilda. Unfortunately we lost each other during a toilet stop not far from the beginning and never met again until the end. Turns out I walked slowly waiting for them to catch up and they walked faster in a bid to catch up and, somehow, we missed each other in the crowd and they finished before I did. But at least we found each other at the end, where thousands of people were enjoying a well-earned beer, or two. The park was full of people lying (not Pinocchio this time) on the grass enjoying the beer and the sunshine. I knew it would be more difficult standing up than it was getting down, and so it proved. 

One more picture, to prove I was really in Holland! This is the cycle park, under the train station in Arnhem.Bikes, as you would expect, were everywhere.

For today's video I have included the film 'A bridge too far', the 1977 film with Sean Connery and Robert Redford. It tells the story, albeit in Hollywood style, of Operation Market Garden. For copyright reasons the you tube police may not allow me to include this film. My apologies if it has been removed.