English stories

What on earth possesses people to race into the ice-cold sea on January 1? The New Year has only just begun and the resolutions have barely died on one’s lips. We want to look forward, do even better in the year to come, stride into a bright future. But first it seems there has to be a mass cleansing of sins. What started out in the Sixties as a madcap scheme dreamt up by a couple of robust boys and girls has become a tradition, and not just in Scheveningen. There they go, our heroes, the leaders have already reached the water. A sausage manufacturer has kitted them out in orange woolly hats, but those will only keep their ears warm. Their clothed fellow men from a respectful guard of honour.

Scheveningen New Years Dip

The northerners can’t see what all the festive fuss is about, but in the southern provinces of Limburg and Brabant carnival rates as the highlight of the year. The carnival associations spend months building the magnificent floats that at times can barely squeeze through the narrow streets. Their aim is to stand out during the festive procession. When Prince Carnival is granted the keys to the city for a few days it’s party time. The dressing-up box is ransacked, masks are put on, and the cafes roll out the barrels. For three days there’s no time for life’s petty worries. But irrevocably those three days are followed by Lent, traditionally a period of moderation and meditation. And it’s not only the south that could do with that.

Breda Carnival

Modern times they may be, but in the polders of North Holland province cows still have to cross the water to get to the other side. Because there the grass stands proud and tall, so that the seven stomachs they each have can get to work. And that will boost their milk production. And so the farmer ferries them across on an old-time flatboat, just wide enough to allow the cattle to line up side to side. They gaze out over the landscape that has surrounded Jisp for centuries. These are historic lowlands that constantly had to be wrested back from the water. The forefathers of the farmer on the barge were traders and especially fishermen. In those days the Zuiderzee was still close by. The bravest fishermen tugged their woollen hats down over their ears and ventured out on whalers in the Northern polar sea. This farmer stays closer to home.

Cattle barge Jisp

Shepherd Albert Koopman has donned his shorts, encouraged by the summer temperatures here in rural Drenthe. The sheep are stuck with their wool, picking their way across the heath. They’re walking in the footsteps of prehistoric man, although they can’t know that. The burial mounds a little further ahead serve as a centuries old memento mori. The sheep are obviously content. White, black and brown co-exist in harmony. Every now and then the sheepdog steps in to play the role of good-natured policeman.Effortlessly he keeps the multitude together. The shepherd feels he’s in heaven.

The Balloërveld flock

Which painter has been at work here? Its lines, its colours, nothing has been left to chance. The 2000 or more residents of the little village of De Zilk make their living from the sale of their flowers and bulbs. However many visitors it attracts from all over the world, the painting is still just a sideshow. Fortunes were earned in these fields in centuries gone by. Speculation drove the price of tulip bulbs higher and higher. Until the bubble burst, in 1637. Dealers from countries all over the world had the change to learn salutary lessons from these events. But over and over again greed proves stronger than good sense. From the bell tower of the Church of the Sacred Heart (Heilige Hartkerk) the view over the fields is breathtaking. Here the smell of incense mingles with the sweet scent of the hyacinths in bloom. A solitatary figure bends over, in the middle of the field. It is the artist.

De Zilk Bulb Fields

There’s nobody keeping count, but every year some seven million bulbs go into the ground at Keukenhof. They’re all planted by hand, according to a carefully planned layout. For Keukenhof’s considerable powers of attraction lie in the sophisticated ways in which the Netherlands displays its art in bulb growing every spring. The colours and shapes of the flowerbeds are designed to harmonise with one another, and care is taken to avoid any impediments to the line of sight. Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock here every year, most of them from abroad. Here they see why the Netherlands is by far the biggest bulb exporter in the world. And here they also learn that not all tulips come from Amsterdam.

Keukenhof Lisse

No Whitsun procession in Grevenbicht without the accompaniment of the Harmonie St. Cecilia brass band, seen here parading through the streets of the church village in Limburg. Legend has it that the brass band has been playing locally since 1857. Their route is well-trodden and well-known from previous years, but just to make sure little flags in Vatican yellow and white point the way. The handful Protestant living in Grevenbicht don’t object to this most Catholic of processions. The time when religious processions in the most Protestant Netherlands posed a threat to public order are long gone. For this reason it was decided in 1983 to scrap the ban on processions from the Dutch Constitution. It was hailed as a victory for religious tolerance, something the Netherlands has been known for down the centuries. But now the burqa is focus of public attention.

Whitsun parade Grevenbicht

It’s the Netherlands’ own Woodstock. Every year tens of thousands of rock, pop and dance fans flock to Landgraaf in the southern province of Limburg. They come for the big names, the up and coming talent and the unique atmosphere. Here everyone goes their own way, singing. And it’s been like that since 1969, when this festival at Whitsuntide only featured Limburg bands and everyone had to bring their own sandwiches. Since then hundreds of artists have performed on the festival’s stage. Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Williams have all been here, alongside many other musical heroes. They heard the cries of the enraptured, pink-clad fans and scented the sweet smell of success, however brief. And they saw the sun shining over the Limburg hills, as it does today.

Pinkpop Landgraaf

A summer's day on the beach at Scheveningen. The tide is slowly pulling out, but no-one takes the trouble of shifting their towels to a more roomy spot. The proximity of one's fellow sunbathers also has its charms. The photograph looks like it's been taken from a plane, but in reality we're gazing down from the pier's striking, sixty metre high lookout tower. The first Scheveningen pier was officially opened in 1901 by Prince Hendrik, and was a wooden construction. It was an open invitation to promenade. These days visitors head for a wide range of attractions designed to make modern life into an experience. Presiding over the beach is the Kurhaus, a grand hotel of distinguished pedigree. Its guests stare dreamily over the endless sea, feeling the silty breeze touch their faces. They listen to the screaming gulls and watch the waves, the endless waves, as they come rolling in. The Pier, too, can tell stories of wind and weather.

Scheveningen Beach

There goes the Shtandart, a wooden frigate recently built to design dating from 1703.Peter the Great presided over the drawing board and appointed himself as the first captain of this Russian navy flagship. Its captain today has just fired a cannon in salute to the Sedov, a barque that has also sailed here from Russia and is moored patiently at the quay to delight the day trippers. The Sedov is the genuine article, built of steel and dating back to 1921. It was built at the Friedrich Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel, in a country that at the time was seeking a better place in the sun of contemporary power politics. Since 1945 the vessel has sailed under the Russian flag as a training ship for the cadets in their big white caps. The caps aren’t only intended a protection against the sun, but also to reinforce the powerful aura of mother Russia. It’s an effect not lost on the girls on the quay.

Sail Amsterdam

Here Dutch farmer cheese is traded every Thursday throughout the tourist season. By farmers who’ve dressed up - as farmers. Flitting around them in their white caps and red socks are the traditional Dutch cheese girls. Their male counterparts attract far fewer admiring glances but they’re here to do the heavy lifting: a round of cheese weighs fifteen kilograms. Deals are done by slapping hands, as they have been for centuries. On trust that the account will be settled as agreed later in the café. In real life that’s hardly possible any more, but our longing for the human dimension cannot be stilled.

Gouda cheese fair

This neighbourhood is the pride of the city. Rotterdam has pretensions not just to be a world port, but also a city with global appeal. Manhattan on the Meuse, according to the city’s idealists. In the past huge passenger liners departed from the Wilhelmina pier, bound for distant lands. Now the former headquarters of the Holland America Line has been transformed into Hotel New York, a favoured haunt of Rotterdam’s fashionable elite and other worldly cosmopolitans. The Erasmus Bridge links the south bank of the river Meuse with the old city centre, beating heart of the city before it was razed to the ground in the wartime bombardments of 1940. Elegantly the swan stretches its long neck, bound for the future. Those at work and at play in the city’s striking high-rise watch the light playing over its wings. Such beauty brings comfort.

Kop van Zuid Rotterdam

Briefly everything comes to a halt in this bird’s nest in the middle of the Haarlem polder. It’s here the big birds come to forage. Before flying on to faraway places they fill their bellies with passengers, cases and kerosene. The pause lasts exactly one sixtieth of a second, the shutter speed of the photographer. Because here everything is always in perpetual motion. Only in the dead of night does time seem to slow down a little. This is no friendly rendezvous where travellers can relax and wind down, but an exercise in efficiency. With lost luggage as every passenger’s nightmare. And that’s why we see this minutely directed ballet, of which the choreography leave very little room for improvisation. The birds resign themselves to their fate, manoeuvring precisely within the white lines.

Schiphol Haarlemmermeer

This is how birds see the Zuidas and the people who work there. Men and women sit behind the tall glass windows of their offices or take a seat on one of the white benches on the sunny square. Here's where the deals get done, where credits are extended and complex products are traded. Or not, as may be, for the financial crisis is still in full swing. Where once green fields stretched out into the distance, now the skyline is dominated by modern high-rise. The world seem malleable from here, in every detail one can see traces of the human hand. From these offices people try to bend the world beyond the Zuidas to their will. And quite often they’ll succeed as well. The bird flying overhead stares its eyes out. Money as an end in itself, and money as a means of bettering the word. How did the story go?

Zuidas Amsterdam

The storm surge barrier across the Eastern Scheldt, between heaven and the here barely discernible earth. It was built on the foundations of fear for the water seen sparkling so gently here, as the culmination of the Delta works. Sand banks were reinforced, special underwater mats constructed and pillars put in position. All done to give back to the people of Zeeland province the sense of security they had enjoyed until it was swept away in the sea disaster of 1953. There were fatal floods then as the primeval power of the sea smashed through the dykes. Now the area is protected by 62 sluice gates that can be closed against a wave emergency. Today that’s not necessary, and the windmills are almost motionless. Poseidon is content.

Oosterschelde Delta works

In the summer the island population of Vlieland swells with so many temporary residents that the indigenous Vlielanders constitute a tiny minority. All those holiday-makers are simultaneously a blessing and a curse. Perhaps that’s the reason for the solitary removal van parked on the edge of this neat residential area on the intersection of the North Sea and Wadden marches. Is someone moving to the mainland? At the same time many on the mainland dream of an island hideaway, hoping that there, close to nature, they will discover that which they can’t find at home. Freedom perhaps, or the courage to be themselves. Luckily there’s a ferry that plies to and fro on a daily basis. A boat filled with questing souls.

Vlieland

This is Bello (1914), offspring of Berliner Machinebau AG. He’s blowing off steam. Not only to relieve pressure, but stridently, as a way of demanding attention – just like the conductor does with his hunting horn. Bello and his master are full of pride, because on 16 July 2010 somewhere between Medemblik and Hoorn, the steam locomotive clocked up its millionth kilometre. Someone painstakingly worked it out, for there’s no odometer. Keeping this locomotive running is a celebration of the past, of a time when the soul could still keep pace with the traveller. The washing that’s laid out to dry on the grass next to the station also harks back to those times. Nothing surprises Bello anymore.

Steam Tram Twisk

This is the place where the equestrian heroes are called Golddigger, or Wellington, or Yappie Paasloo. Armed with binoculars, an intent public strains to follow the race and cheers when their favourite wins. Because of the honour – and the money, of course. For betting is inseparable from trotting and racing. At Duindigt it’s been going on since the racecourse was laid out in 1906, although down the years gambling was sporadically banned. With bated breath the spectators watch each and every race – not just when the Grand Prize of the Lowlands is being run. They know of the interplay between man and animal, and they know too that a horse can lose its form. The jockeys coax the best performance out of their single horsepower. But the drivers who ride alongside with their motorised horsepower win every time.

Duindigt Wassenaar

It started out in 1909 as a glorified form of fitness training for a few hundred troops; now the Nijmegen Four Days Marches attract no fewer than 45,000 walkers each year. Young and old, newcomers and old hands, civilians and, still, a few troops. Proof positive that the Dutch aren’t only globetrotters but close-to-home walkers as well. Those who stick out for the full four days regardless of the weather finish to a hero’s welcome, a bunch of gladioli and the coveted Four Days Marches’ cross, signifying proven marching prowess. An alluring combination that tempts many to take part year after year – like the legendary Annie Berkhout, who crossed the finish line full of beans no fewer than 66 times. Her training? Walking dogs for the elderly in her home town of Voorburg. She lived to 91.

Four Days Marches Nijmegen

This is the biggest funfair in all the country – and that makes Tilburg proud. In the Netherlands, funfairs have a tradition reaching way back in time – people will always go in search of diversion and entertainment. But modern life already offers so much in the way of stimuli that funfair operators need to come up with the ultimate thrill. Routinely they rise to the challenge. This year’s big wheel is even bigger than before. This Monday the funfair has turned pink, just as it has for the last twenty years on Funfair Monday. In line with the ‘gay for a day’ motto all the visitors have come dressed in pink to party together and so show support for gay liberation and integration. This pink spirit of fraternity imbues even the dull high–rise with a hint of colour.

Tilburg Funfair

A summery Sunday evening on Amsterdam’s Museumplein. Why the square carries that name isn’t important right now. In any case nearly all the museums are closed for renovation – and for a lengthy period. In the Rijksmuseum the country’s history is being reinstalled under the watchful eye of the construction cranes. Will this turn out to be an historic day? Dutch football fans, attired in orange to a man, seek each other out: hoping, fearing. The Dutch team is on the attack but they don’t make it to the goal. The World Cup Final 2010 is being played in Johannesburg, South Africa. All over the world millions of people are watching intently. Here on the square we’re even more caught up in the spectacle – after all, these are OUR boys. A few seconds later and it’s all over.

Museumplein Amsterdam

Here you can see how King Football reigns in Utrecht. It seems almost as if all the lights in the rest of the city have been extinguished, all the better to see the moves of the 22 players in the stadium. Football is so deeply engrained in the Dutch cultural psyche that probably few people, if any, would find that strange. The repeated battles for supremacy on the field exert an almost magical force of attraction. The fans enjoy and empathise with their heroes, even when they’re earning a living in far-flung foreign parts. A huge part of the national conversation is concerned with football. The media roll out the red carpet, the viewing figures show them the way. But what could be happening in the rest of the world, in the apparent darkness outside the stadium?

Galgenwaard Stadium Utrecht

The evening of the opening of Amsterdam’s Hermitage Museum, 20 June 2009. The public awaits two Russian dancers of the National Ballet who will soon perform a ballet choreographed by Hans van Manen especially for this occasion. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Russia’s president Medvedev are in attendance at the new museum’s official opening. Red, white and blue fan out over the evening sky, the colours of both the Dutch and Russian flags. Our vantage point is the open window of a canal house on the opposite bank of the River Amstel, offering us an unrivalled view of this striking classicist building. In 1680 a rich merchant left all his money to the church, which used it to build a home here for the “old dears” of the city, as women over fifty were known in those days. Later men were permitted to live there too, and for over three centuries it was a place where the elderly of the city discussed the happenings of the day. Now the muses have their say.

Hermitage Amsterdam

The late afternoon sun pays homage to this castle, known in this northernmost province of Groningen as a ‘borg’. Until the early Seventies it was home to Louise Thomassen a Thuessink van der Hoop van Slochteren, scion of an old patrician family. But the upkeep of this charming with its moat and gardens became too costly. Now Fraeylemaborg is a museum, a small monument to upper class living. There is a small land a large hall, and yellow, red and blue rooms. Around the hearth in winter the family played games and read books. When the days grew longer the children would play in the romantic English landscaped garden where storks came to hatch their eggs. All in the quiet municipality of Slochteren, that in 1959 went on to become a household name in the Netherlands as the symbol of the country’s huge, newly- discovered natural gas reserves.

Fraeylemaborg Slochteren

On budget day tradition and parliamentary democracy go hand-in-hand. It is the monarch who announces the government’s plans for the new budgetary year, but the ministers are responsible. They sit in the Knights’ Hall, together with the members of the States General. Only the women still wear a hat to mark the occasion. On this day, the Hague turns out in force – everyone wants to catch a glimpse of the royal cavalcade. The military guard of honour stands stiffly to attention, shoes burnished to shine. Behind them are the ordinary people, a diverse bunch, each of them an individual. They won’t stand to attention, not even for Her Majesty.

Budget Day The Hague

These days the church stands serene on dry land as though things had never been otherwise, but in centuries gone by it was never a matter of course. In olden times Schokland was an island steadily being eaten away by the choppy waters of the Zuiderzee. Its inhabitants clustered together on man-made raised mounds, or terpen, of which Middelbuurt was the biggest. It was here that the mayor lived, and the doctor and the vicar, right next to the church. As time went by it was no longer safe, even here. Schokland was evacuated and the elements gained free rein. Until it started its second life as an island on dry land, situated in the middle of the vast expanse of the North East Polder. The restored sea dyke reveals how frighteningly close the waters used to come. But now the water levels are under man’s control. The sight of a few waterlogged meadows no longer engenders fear.

Middelbuurt Schokland

It’s like being in Africa, only in the Netherlands the zebras don’t have stripes. These are konik horse, hardy beasts capable of taking a few knocks. You see them at work, for grazing is their core business. With their sharp teeth they help to keep the Oostvaarder marshland open, so that this unique nature reserve retains its character. The scene is one of untouched natural beauty, but don’t be deceived: in the Sixties this area was still washed by the waters of the Ijsselmeer. Man created Flevoland, but didn’t quite know what to do with this part of the polder. The animals seized the initiative and now the area is teeming with protected species. The konik horses were brought in later by conservationists, together with the other grazers: heck cattle and red deer. Do not disturb.

Konik horses Oostvaarder Marshes

This is the D53, written with a D for Drenthe. Because this province was by far the most important playground for the giants who, legend has it, constructed these stone formations. Later we went on to call them dolmens and carefully numbered each one. Now we know that these were megalithic tombs, built some five thousand years ago by people belonging to the Funnel Beaker Culture. Not that they knew that themselves. Today children play on the stones of this eighteen metre long dolmen near Havelte. Do they realize they’re dancing on someone’s grave? Maybe they’ll find the shard of a funnel beaker and ask themselves what it means to be a child of the plastic beaker culture.

Havelte Dolmen

A ferry boot that can be pulled across to the opposite bank by hand – its beauty lies in its simplicity. The journey to the other side is short and a steel cable offers the ferryman the required handholds. Those wanting to cross have to pay: sixty cents, one way. The money is destined for the volunteers who keep the Haerster ferry working through the summer. This is no place for travellers in a hurry, the surroundings invite one to meditate by the waterside. As the wind rustles through endless shades of green, time looks to have lost its compass. Is this really the Netherlands in 2012? The ferry isn’t just a monument to a sober, non-motorised past, it’s also an ode to the harmony between man and nature. Seen that way it could even be an ode to the future.

Haersterveer Zwolle

There’s little wind today, but the skûtsje crews are totally focused. This is a battle of honour, as it has been for decades in Friesland. By skippers whose fathers and grandfathers before them stood at the helm of the skûtsje representing their town. The rivalry between the sailing dynasties has reached mythical proportions and the people of Friesland lap up the spectacle, year after year. Skipper Pieter Sietseszn Brouwer sails towards us, the H of Heerenveen in his mainsail. He was champion in 2006, 2008 and 2010 – a man to be reckoned with. Along the shore motorized shipping looks on from the comfort of their deckchairs. These are children of a different era, not worthy of a second glance from a real sailor.

Skûtsjesilen Earnewâld

Four centuries on, Amsterdam’s canal belt has lost none of its magic. Here people work, live and enjoy the good life. The brewers housed on the Brouwersgracht in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have gone. But in this brown café on the corner with the Prinsengracht the beer still flows freely night after night. The café is situated on the edge of the Jordaan, an old working quarter where now it’s the modern urbanites who set the tone. There’s a unique kind of conviviality here, an ambiance that’s a mix of urban sophistication and provincial common sense, probably thanks to the sense of humour indigenous Amsterdammers are born with. But the tourists on the canal cruise don’t know that, they’re too busy admiring the glories of the Golden Age.

Prinsengracht Amsterdam

Whatever the weather, there’s always a huge turnout on the quay in Maassluis to greet the arrival of Saint Nicolas (Sinterklaas). Many families have set out early to get a good spot. The umbrellas are out on this drizzly November morning but the crowd on the quay is in high spirits. Reedy children’s voices betray a sense of excitement mingled with a degree of reverence. Hardened by wind and weather, the old Sinterklaas needs no umbrella. He stands on deck alongside the wheelhouse as the Pieten (his helpers in blackface) ready the sacks of tiny festive pepernoten cookies. The town’s mayor, waiting on the pontoon to welcome him, has donned his chain of office in honour of his illustrious guest. Sinterklaas can look forward to a busy time, for lots of gifts have yet to be bought. The holy man prefers refined verse to material things, but he knows that those o so well-behaved children see things differently.

Sinterklaas Maassluis

To artistes, the Royal Carré Theatre is sacred ground. Oscar Carré first performed here in 1887 with his famous circus, but only during the winter months. Later the theatre was used to stage revues, including those of the legendary Louis Bouwmeester, who in turn made way for stars like Lou Bandy, Josephine Baker, Toon Hermans and Youp van ‘t Hek. In the Sixties the theatre was threatened with demolition, but that idea was soon abandoned thanks to a cleverly orchestrated artistes’ protest. Now the grand old lady has been completely renovated and will celebrate her 125th anniversary. She winks to the old familiar sluice gates by the door, and to the Skinny Bridge a little further along. Together they constitute part of Amsterdam’s famous heritage. A little boy crosses the bridge. He dreams of going on the stage.

Carré Theatre Amsterdam

Nowadays, no-one worries about water levels. The cold winter weather is an opportunity for recreation, even the millers on the Kinderdijk have time off for skating. There they go, just as in centuries past: left, right, left, right. Anyone for another lap? But if needs must, most of the windmills can still pump up a storm. For centuries they saw to it that the Alblasserwaard remained more or less dry. The once so wild and marshy wetlands were brought to heel. These windmills were built around 1740 and took early retirement in the late nineteenth century. Steam-driven pumping stations took their place until they too were superseded by more modern technology. But the windmills remain, hubs in an ingenious network of canals and other waterways. They have since been declared part of UNESCO's world heritage. But that's not the only reason their silhouettes stand proud and self-confident against the skyline. For they know that wind energy is the future.

Ice Skating Kinderdijk

The old city gate looks a trifle lonely on this wintry day. In the early fifteenth century it was built as an imposing entrance in Amsterdam’s city wall. But due to the rapid expansion of this increasingly wealthy city its role was soon redundant. Subsequently the building was pressed into service for a range of different uses, becoming a multifunctional space. While the goods were weighed downstairs, the upper chambers housed the offices of various gilds. The surgeons even used it as a venue for their anatomy lessons, an inspiration for one of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings. Later the cabinet makers moved in, to be succeeded by firemen and city archivists. Now the building houses a modern restaurant and dining room, offering a view of the snow-laden market stalls on the Nieuwmarkt. Visitors stamp the snow off their boots at the door.

The weighing house Amsterdam

We have Sneek virtually to ourselves on this calm wintry day. The lively hubbub of the summer’s water sports enthusiasts has long since died away. Now there’s a wafer-thin layer of ice, everyone wants to know if there will be an Eleven Cities Skating Race again this year. For ever since it was awarded rights as a city in 1456, Sneek has belonged to the illustrious and exclusive company of the eleven Frisian cities. The Water Gate remained in use until 1825, when the city authorities decided it was no longer necessary to block travellers under sail from entering the city at night. The twin octagonal towers and the gatekeeper’s house linking them together went on to stand symbol for the city in the public imagination. Partly thanks to the efforts of the highly successful sail maker Douwe Gaastra, who opted for the tower as his corporate logo avant la lettre