Untitled Page 57

We left Amsterdam about 10AM Sunday, planned to ride on to Haarlem for the
night. But leaving Amsterdam, we picked up a lovely tail wind, and so covered
the whole 20 km in one hour, non-stop! Boy, wish it was that easy sailing all
the time. When we got to Haarlem we located the Franz Hals museum, in a very small
building on a side street, but it was closed until 1pm. So we ate lunch on
a cold park bench nearby, then decided to go on to The Hague for the night. The
stretch between the Hague and Leiden is the famous tulip section of Holland. We were
about a month too early for the real season, but we did see a few fields in bloom here and
there - deep blue and purple, pale blue, white, yellow (gorgeous daffodils). With these few and
the many, many fields which are now small green plants, we could imagine how spectacular it
will be in April and May. Also every house in Holland (and especially in this area) seems
to have a potted plant or blooming flowers in its windowsill, so we saw many more lovely
varieties this way.

Continued evening of 3/22 - Sorry this is taking so long, but just didn't have time to
finish this morning.

We stopped off briefly in Leiden to locate the famous old university (nothing
special physically, for all its academic splendor), and then rode on to The Hague, and
about 9 km. beyond to Loooduinen, on the west side of town, where the youth hostel
is located. It is an old mansion on a gigantic estate, with a tree lined
front drive that reminded me of Stanford's Palm Drive. On three sides of the house
are great open fields of green lawns, and in the surrounding woods, small canals
with wooden bridges, and narrow walkways. It's a beautiful spot in every way, and
I don't know how it ever became the hostel.

Yesterday morning before setting out see the Hague, we took a short bike
ride (3km) down to the beach, rode along a path through huge sand dunes 20 and
30 feet high. It was a gray overcast morning, and the sea and horizon were one
continuous gray mass - broken only by three small cargo ships steaming off to somewhere.
It was my only look at the Atlantic (technically the English Channel I guess) for this
trip, but I don't mind that too much if its always so gray and dreary.

In the city we went first to the Binnenhof - which is sort of a palace-administration
building. In the center court (surrounded by an old building filled with offices) is
a small building containing several large halls. The largest of these is a lovely hall
on whose walls hang the flags of the Hollandish provinces, the shields of past
ruling princes, etc. At one end is a lovely round stained glass window (again the
shields, including that of all Holland in the center); the roof is beamed hardwood
nailed with wooden pegs (rebuilt in 1904, though the building dates from 1280).
Here are held special meetings of the legislature and large state receptions for
visiting royalty or heads of state; and here in September each year the Queen
marches in to officially open parliament for the year.

After lunch on a park bench nearby, we went to a small museum (the
Mauritshuis) which contains several Rembrandts (including a late self-portrait
and "The Anatomy Lesson"), Franz Hals, and a couple of good Vermeers, among
many other mediocre paintings. Then to find directions to the Peace Palace (built
in 1918 by the U.S.) we stopped in at the U.S. Information Service building which
we happened to ride past. But here we found a small library and so sat down for