the netherlands

Leiden is another mid-size city we chose to stay after a train ride north from Bruges to the mid-coastal section of the Netherlands. 

It was delightful and canal-ful like Bruges, with forlorn alleys, neighborhood beer houses, and a bustling Sunday morning market.

But unlike Bruges, what made Leiden famous was not late medieval commercial success but certain institutes and people and events in the academic, artistic, and historical fronts:

Leiden University (founded in 1575) is the oldest university in the Netherlands and has been an intellectual powerhouse attracting thinkers like Albert Einstein and René Descartes. Its botanic garden was where the first tulip bulbs that came from Turkey via Austria were planted that later led to the explosion of the tulip market (or "tulip mania") and its phenomenal crash in 1637.

Famous Dutch painter Rembrandt was born in the city of Leiden. We visited an old carpentry house next to Rembrandt's father's windmill factory, nearby a statue of young Rembrandt watching his self portrait next to the brick building where he was born.

A few hundred English pilgrims lived in Leiden before their voyage to America in the early 17th century. We visited the American Pilgrim Museum where a Mayflower ship model and reconstruction of these pilgrims' living conditions were on display and a local craft beer sporting the name Mayflower was available in the adjunct cafe. 

Keukenhof Park, also known as the "Garden of Europe," was in a nearby city we took a half-hour ride to visit. Seven million flower bulbs planted and eight hundred different varieties of tulips are shown in this seventy-nine acre garden annually. It was an endless sea of beautiful flowers that looked unreal in photos.

Off we went to Amsterdam, a metro city we'd been before but did not fully explore. Besides the usual canal (no we didn't take the canal boat ride) and street scenes (no we didn't visit the Red Light District) and a round of exotic food tasting (herrings, stroopwafels, cheese fries, fries with satay sauce), the highlight of our 4-day stay in the city for me was actually the visit to the Rijksmuseum, the national museum that dedicated all its exhibits to the Dutch art and history:

Masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt and others during the Dutch Golden Age

"The Explosion of the Spanish Flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar" depicts the decisive moment of the April 25, 1607, naval battle where the Dutch fleet surprised and destroyed the Spanish fleet in the Bay of Gibraltar during its 80-year war of independence against Spain

"Fishing for Souls", a satirical painting depicting the religious rivalry between Protestants (on the left, open bibles on the boat, green trees, sunlit landscape in the back) and Catholics (on the right, priests and pope overloading the boat, withered trees, dark clouds in the back) 

A "Model of a Javanese Marketplace" that captures a bustling scene from Java, Indonesia, during the Dutch colonial period

A meticulously detailed scale model of the historical fan-shaped artificial island where a Dutch trading post was set up in Nagasaki Bay, Japan

A very realistic looking "doll house" made for a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam in the 17th century

Prominent display of Delftware, the famous blue and white tin-glazed earthenware that originated from the city of Delft, as a Dutch imitation of popular Chinese blue-and-white porcelain imported by the Dutch East India Company 

From Amsterdam, we took a day trip to another major city of the Netherlands: Rotterdam, a city rebirthed from total destruction by German air bombardment during World War II with many ingenious and delightful architectural designs:

The ceiling of a food hall featuring colorful fruits, vegetables, flowers, and insects

The "Pencil Tower"

The "Cube Houses"

The "Depot", an art storage facility made of 1,664 mirrored glass panels

And "Erasmus Monument in Rotterdam," commemorating the giant of Northern Renaissance and Western culture whom the city proudly calls its own

belgium

Bruges is a mid-size town northwest of Brussels we chose to stay for our five day visit to Belgium. 

Located on the northwestern coast facing the North Sea, Bruges has been an important maritime hub since before medieval times. It reached its prosperity height between the 12th and 15th centuries, manufacturing and trading goods between the Baltics and the Mediterranean. 

With its extensive waterway system, it is often called the "Venice of the North." We took a boat ride gliding past its low bridges, tall belfry tower, waterfront restaurants, and a riverside flea market, under sunny blue skies, in fresh spring air.

We also went on a walking tour with a local guide who took us through the busy alleyways between ornate civic buildings, a centuries old hospital-convent, an elegant residential complex that used to house independent lay religious women in the Middle Ages, and stepped on an underground pipeline that transported thousands of liters of beer per hour from a brewery at the city center to its bottling plant on the outskirts of town.

We took a day trip to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the European Union. We took photos at the 15th-century old Town Hall Gothic building but visited modern EU parliamentary headquarters inside, walked by unruly streets with fun comic murals that celebrated Belgium's comic culture, and had a little taste of all the "must-have" foods of Brussels/Belgium: chocolates, waffles, fries, mussels, and beers with 6-12% alcoholic content, before heading back to our homey little Bruges at nightfall.

On our last day at Bruges, we took a long walk across town, stepping on the cobblestone pavements flanked by classic Flemish houses of gabled roofs and colorful facade, an elevated berm-walkway along the city's old time moat river, and the ubiquitous canals lined by mellow trees and humble houses. 

Such a wonderful, peaceful city of charm to stay in!

Probably the same thought that flashed through King Charles II's mind when he and his court settled down in the same building that is the hotel we stayed in during his exile from English Civil War between 1656-1659.