nederland

The students began their independent travel week and rather than plan another travel of our own, Dave and Holden and I decided to just stay in Genova and take some day trips to some of the beautiful beaches nearby on the Italian Riviera and try some of the other hikes that we had heard about, like Monte Moro to Nervi or San Fruttuoso to Portofino.  But the the rain came.  And Genova had some massive flooding.  Luckily we live near the top of the hill so the water was just rushing past, but I was told that the centro had areas of water two meters deep and that cars and trash were floating away.  Perhaps the Italian news sensationalizes a bit too, there is probably a universal law of exaggeration, but still it was raining so much we didn't leave the villa for four days, except for gymnastics class.  And then I looked at the weather forecast for the students' travel week and every day in Genova there was at least an 80 percent chance of rain.  (Now there are times that I actually love rainy days and the first few days of watching the garden fill with water and watching it gush down the streets and stairs like a raging river were actually fun. We baked, practiced yoga, constructed things of cardboard and sea glass, wrote songs, and watched Mr. Rogers.  But after four days and an impending upcoming week, we all decided we had been inside enough.)  So we decided to get as far away from the rain and Genova as possible and rented a car and drove north away from Genova and the rain and toward Switzerland and the Alps.  

preparing to leave Genova

Holden's photo of us from the back seat

leaves in the Alps beginning to change colors

As soon as we passed Milano (which itself held a certain kind of sad beauty on a drizzly Saturday morning) we entered the most beautiful scenery; it was as if we drove straight into a postcard.  We drove right past Lago di Como and Lago Maggiore.  They are both incredibly beautiful, my words can't even do either justice.  It must have rained pretty heavily in Switzerland too because in the mountains the water was rushing down the sides of the mountains like waterfalls.  It wasn't unlike driving on the road to Hana in Maui, surrounded by waterfalls, but I suppose these were only temporary and we just happened upon them.  We drove through these beautiful rolling hills filled with cows and goats and every so often a train would peek through a tunnel and then disappear back in to the side of the mountain.  Holden was loving it from the back seat and kept commenting on what he was seeing.  He was really excited when he could differentiate between a passenger train and a cargo train. Oh and by the way, we were doing all if this without a map or GPS so we took a sort of wandering, indirect route.  

waterfall out the window (this photo doesn't show the waterfalls nearly as beautiful as they were)

farms out the window

more farms from the window

windmill out the window in Belgium

So we passed into France and the terrain got flatter, but remained equally beautiful as we drove past farms and vineyards and then, quite by surprise, happened upon Ronchamp.  For those of you not up on architecture history, there is an incredibly famous church the Notre Dame du Haut here designed by Le Corbusier.  It was quite amazing to see as the sun was slowly beginning to set.  We also passed a town very near Ronchamp that looked quite interesting called Belfort, possibly worthy of a return visit.  And then we just continued driving through Metz, Luxembourg, Brussels, Antwerp, and into Rotterdam.  And we were followed the entire way by this gorgeous huge red moon.

At the moment Rotterdam is absolutely my favorite city in Europe and comes in at a close second to my favorite city in the US.  Dave, Holden, and I had one of the most amazing days I can ever recall while in Rotterdam.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened; it was just a nearly perfect day.  We rented bikes and rode around to all of Dave's old hangouts and favorite places, wandering past dijks lined with beautiful golden trees.  (For those of you who don't know, Dave used to live in Rotterdam and I visited here once before and I really liked it then but it was in July and was hot and we were staying kind of out of the city on a friend's sofa.  This time we stayed in the city center and it was a beautiful crisp fall day that reached about 60 degrees and the leaves had just begun changing.)

smiles after a wonderful breakfast including poffertjes

bundling up to stay warm (while getting poked in the head by Holden with a stick)

sculpture outside our hotel

sitting on the sculpture looking at the green man

green man looking back at Holden

taking bikes up the escalator

bikes!

bikes!

more bikes!

more bike riding on the dijk

riding to Dave's old neighborhood, Essenburgsingel

Dave's old apartment, Essenburgsingel

view of dijk

view from bridge

other view from bridge

Holden wanted to do some shopping so we did and bought what he wanted, toothpaste and underwear.  Sometimes he's a funny little guy.  We ate poffertjes and Surnamese kip kerry broodjes, some of my favorite memories of Rotterdam, and found real natural peanut butter (which doesn't exist in Italy) at the AlbertHeijn and even made it to  Dudok for dinner, well two of us made it there.  Holden fell asleep before we could eat.  We got to see some great new architecture projects as well, like OMA's redux of Rotterdam Centraal, which was pretty amazing and even found this door that has been in my memory ever since I visited ten years ago on Overschiese Dorpsstraat. Oh, and the sun shined brightly all day! (oh how I missed you sun)

Overschiese Dorpsstraat

Overschiese Dorpsstraat

Delfshaven 

Delfshaven

Delfshaven (windmill ahead)

windmill

windmill

riding bikes in Schiehaven

happy in Schiehaven

Schiehaven

Schiehaven

kip kerry broodje

enjoying a kip kerry brooodje

close-up

from below 

shopping in Beursplein

Beursplein

enjoying a nice day

rotterdam centraal

rotterdam centraal

rotterdam centraal

rotterdam centraal

inside rotterdam centraal

inside rotterdam centraal

Holland has some beautiful parks as well.  We spent some time in the Heemraadsplein, a park in Rotterdam, beside the tram path and a dijk and there were more swings in that park than in the entire city of Genova.  And Holden and I love to swing.  It also had tons of ducks and geese and a skatepark that Holden was fascinated with.  He wanted to try it so badly and keeps asking me if he can get a skateboard.

Heemraadsplein

skatepark at Heemraadsplein

swinging in Heemraadsplein

more swinging

Schouwburgplein

posing at Schouwburgplein

more posing

Schouwburgplein

Then in Amsterdam we stayed along Vondelpark, which was beautiful and also played in Museumplein, in front of the Vincent Van Gogh museum.  Holden loved running up and down the grass roof over the Albert Heijn grocery store, in front of the Stedelijk Museum of contemporary art.  Amsterdam is a quite charming city, well parts of it are.  I really enjoyed the neighborhood of Vondelstraat along the Vondelpark, where we stayed.

trying on clogs in Amsterdam

Stedelijk Museum

inside Stedelijk Museum 

hill outside Stedelijk Museum

Vondelstraat

Vondelstraat

We could have spent the entire week in Holland, easily and happily, but we knew our final destination was Toscana and it was a far drive back and we also wanted to save adequate time for visiting Toscana, so we decided to leave the Netherlands.