The Netherlands – Old Lady Writing

I have been to Belgium twice, and both times were unanticipated. The first time was a family vacation during my summer in the Netherlands. The second time was during my summer in France. Both trips are well documented in my erstwhile diary, and both make for a read that is astonishing in its testament to the fallibility of human memory, as well as to the weirdness of teenage travels, and in the 80s to boot.

My first trip to Belgium started in Antwerpen (I do not call it “Antwerp”), but we only stopped at the port where a friend of my Dutch mother was a “shturman” https://oldladywriting.com/2025/09/21/poison-fire-and-flood/ on a cargo ship and gave us a cool private tour. We then made our way to the coastal resort of Koksijde—close to the French border, but because I was traveling on a refugee travel document and had no visa to France, France was not available to me then.

It was the first and probably the last time in my life I was at a campground. We (my Dutch mother, little brother, and cousin) came with two tents, table and chairs. As at any resort, there was time spent on the playground, time playing cards and badminton, going to a nearby bar and to a bakery, neither of which I can visualize now, hanging out on the sand dunes, and visiting coastal towns nearby.

I liked Belgium. I was happy to see the signs in French, which I was already studying, along with the Dutch. Past recollection recorded has it livelier, prettier, and cleaner than the Netherlands, but I would say now that it was the novelty and the relaxed vacation atmosphere that made it seem so. The beach, however, did not impress me. I made a note to go to Romania’s or Bulgaria’s Black Sea beaches when I grew up—this goal remains unmet to this day.

We had a lovely day in Brugge (I do not call is “Bruges”), that most picturesque of Belgian towns, despite our car being towed from a no parking zone. We retrieved it and continued to have a lovely time despite the car subsequently being totaled in an accident halfway through our two-week trip. It was a most bizarre thing: we were stopped at a red light in a small town called De Panne (which literally means “breakdown”) and were suddenly rear-ended by an old man who apparently should not have been driving. It was a small European car, but it should have still been visible in broad daylight.

By macabre coincidence, similar to the one when my dog was hit by a car in care of a dog sitter while spouse and I were touring Dachau, the accident happened on our way back from visiting the World War I Trench of Death in Diksmuide. We then arrived too late for an excursion at some castle, were detained by cows crossing a road, and decided to skip our customary café outing to rush back to Koksijde to see “Amadeus” at a movie theater. It was a veritable Appointment in Samarra, albeit significantly less fatal.

I was awed then, and remain to this day, by the composure of my Dutch mother who, after some deliberations with adult family members, made the decision to continue our holiday sans auto. If there was any stress, tension, or worry of any kind, it was either not recorded by me (extremely unlikely) or she assessed the situation and moved on with minimum disruption and maximum determination. I see no similar scenario in which I or any member of my biological family would not completely freak out and flee. There was some talk of leaving me with the adult (21 year old) cousin, but ultimately (after learning that this is not permitted by the exchange program’s rules), all four of us rented bikes and proceeded to continue to enjoy our holiday. Special mention goes to the now defunct bee-themed amusement park, Meli Park, which we visited and found hilarious in its earnestness, and to me, who rode a bike like a [very sore] champ and held her own [at a somewhat lower speed] among the Dutch. And we also saw “Amadeus”.

I managed to visit Antwerpen once more. In college, another Dutch cousin and I went there for the weekend by train to visit her brother (the cousin of the family vacation fame) and his then boyfriend. I remember walking through some heavy iron door into the deafening noise and strobe lights of a disco and drinking a lot (“I drank three mugs of beer and a shot of Baileys”, I wrote then). I remember that we slept through the day and have not a single recollection of seeing anything of the city, but the diary says that “during the day we walked around Antwerpen.” I took several photos of all of us, and for that I am grateful, because “some are no longer there, and others are far away”, as Pushkin famously said (sounds better in Russian). I cherish the memory of that weekend with my Dutch cousins; the city is just background noise.

That same summer, my roommate Kathy and I https://oldladywriting.com/2021/04/10/meet-me-in-sistine-chapel-or-rome-second-try/ did that European train loop which had us crossing Belgium on our way to and from Luxembourg. We missed our connection in Basel and spent the night in the cold train station. The next train to Brussels was full, and we hopped on the one going to Calais (the joys and perils of Eurail Pass!). In Thionville, the train split, and while I was checking to make sure there was room for us, I almost left without Kathy, and we again ended up waiting in a train station. But, there was a vending machine that yielded an extra cookie, so there was that. This is all to say that by the time we finally arrived in Brussels, we were so excited about real beds, hot shower and impending hot breakfast (included) that we decided to skip the city altogether, though we did make it to Brugge in passing, mainly hunting for lace doilies.

I never saw Brussels to this day, Antwerpen remains a mystery, but the Flemish Coast is a very fond memory. To be continued…

I spent a summer in the Netherlands when I was in high school, and still feel that I know it better than anything. Those youthful impressions are just so much sharper than later ones, when everything sort of starts blending together. Besides, I kept a diary. It was the age before digital cameras, let alone camera phones, and a thousand words were cheaper and easier than a picture to be developed. What led me to the Netherlands in the first place is a longer story that stretches all the way back to my childhood, so will wait to be told another time, but today I am reminiscing about my first independent (meaning, unaccompanied by adults or even Dutch siblings) trip of that summer. It was to The Hague. Being the seat of government, home of the Queen *and* the International Court of Justice, as well as the other major museum in the country, it was the natural choice.

I set my alarm for 5 a.m., and once it buzzed, immediately turned it off and slept for three more hours. By quarter after 8, I was on the bus, and by a minute to 9 on the train heading to The Hague. I noted in my diary that a roundtrip train ticket from Amersfoort cost 27.80 guilders, which would have been around $9 at the time[1]. In a state of light but persistent confusion, changing trains in Rotterdam, I finally arrived, purchased a map sorely lacking in detail, and after several false starts made my way to Binnenhof and its Ridderzaal, home of the Dutch Parliament and the royal throne. I could have sworn that I went on a tour, but the diary (present recollection refreshed) denies it and confirms only that I saw an exhibit about the queen (Beatrix at the time) and the Dutch government. (I returned to The Hague a couple of weeks later, just for this, and a good thing, too—I have never seen it since).

I definitely did go to Mauritshuis, which was under restoration, and most of the paintings were displayed in the house of Johan de Witt. This may or may not explain why I have no recollection of seeing “The Goldfinch” and “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” at that time (books were not written about either one yet), but I was very impressed by Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson”. All these guys are hanging on Dr. Tulp’s every word, but then there are two—one a little dazed, probably by the presence of the cadaver, and one who is staring right at the audience, clearly thinking, what the heck am I doing here, at this boring lecture with this gross corpse? Way to break the fourth wall, Rembrandt[2]!

After some more chaos caused by my crap map, I found Panorama Mesdag, the very cool painting of 19^th century Scheveningen in the round (the diary says “last century”, but now the diary itself is from the last century, making the panorama from the “century before last”). And then I made my way to the Peace Palace. I do remember waiting a bit for an English language excursion, eating ice cream on the grass. It was a great tour, very informative, and the malachite vases that were the gift of the Russian czar made a particular impression on me. I even got to sit on the lawyers bench, dreaming of someday. That particular day never came, but I did have a professor who litigated at the International Court of Justice, so there is that, less than six degrees of separation.

The only photo from my first trip.
What even IS this?!

As the final sight of The Hague, I was determined to see the Queen’s palace, Huis ten Bosch. It was quite a trek, and a waste of time, because it is literally surrounded by woods. I walked by the gate several times before I gathered the courage to ask the guard if the Queen lives here. He said yes, but she is currently on vacation. It was enough of a thrill for me. I do have to add that my only brush, if we may even call it that, with royalty was when spouse and I glimpsed Juan Carlos I in his limo (or something) pulling out of the royal palace in Madrid as we were coming out of the garden. We do not talk about that exciting moment when we complain about The First Spanish Trip. https://oldladywriting.com/2020/11/02/the-first-spanish-trip/ But I digress.

The second visit to The Hague[3] was 20 years later, and almost 20 years ago, so there is a slight pattern here. We went to the Mauritshuis, now fully restored, and infinitely more crowded. I still missed “The Goldfinch”, for again, the book was not yet written. We then stumbled onto It Rains Fishes, a restaurant I read about in a guidebook, but did not seek out because I have learned to mistrust guidebooks. And thus the day was lost, but also gained, because the lunchtime meal in this Indonesian/Malaysian restaurant remains one of my Top Three dining experiences to this day. I was recently trying to remember the particulars of it, but all we could recall was the tiny green pea puree amuse bouche. My notes say that spouse had steak and crème brulée, and that I had seafood curry and rum caramel shake. We spent about $100, which was quite expensive for both the times and time of day, but the elegant décor, lovely music, and superb service made it worth it.

No one took photos of food 20 years ago, so It Rains Fishes lives only in mine and spouse’s memories. This is not it.

This year, the Annual Girls Trip took my mother and me to the Netherlands. We moved at a pace significantly slower than the frenetic speed of my teenage years, and mostly hung around Amsterdam, but could not miss paying homage to the Mauritshuis paintings that have been made more famous by books.

I have a logical, if not infallible, sense of direction, and a rich collection of memories (as some of these writings demonstrate, I hope). But The Hague looked entirely unfamiliar from the moment I exited the train station. I do not mean that it changed, but somehow I could not summon any visions of the city from my previous visits. My recollections of the gate to Huis ten Bosch and Peace Palace were not tested, Binnenhof was/is disappointingly closed for renovation, and It Rains Fishes closed down permanently. There was no déjà vu until I saw the staircase within Mauritshuis—I recalled ascending it with spouse on our prior visit. This time, I paid particular attention to “The Goldfinch”, and was relieved that he was fine after his ordeal[4]. And then I saw that panic-stricken guy desperately plotting his escape from Dr. Tulp’s gruesome anatomy lesson as he has done for almost 400 years, and all was well with the world.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

[1] It is about three times more now, but I am not sure that it is not a fair increase for four decades.

[2] Fun fact: in the copy which is in Edinburgh and not attributed to Rembrandt, all the observers are staring at Dr. Tulp or the corpse—and this alone makes it inferior. Don’t bother with it.

[3] Technically, the third, because I visited The Hague twice during that summer in high school.

[4] I know the theft of this painting is a fiction, but I have been mildly anxious about the fate of missing artworks for most of my life. I am still not entirely convinced that the original portrait of Whistler’s mother does not hang in Mr. Bean’s bedroom, and give the Musée d’Orsay’s version a knowing wink every time I see it.

Category: The Netherlands

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Those Two Guys in a Painting in The Hague