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Walt drove over from Camarillo to spend a few days with us in late May. He lived in Saddlebrooke, just north of Tucson, for many years and still owns a house there. We had a chance to check out the old house and neighborhood and to have a couple of meals in the community clubhouse.

We also did some sightseeing while Walt was visiting. He loves cactus so we paid a visit to one of his favorite spots, Bach’s Cactus Nursery. Bach’s is a wonderful place to walk around. They have several greenhouses and lots of outdoor plants. It’s like being in an arboretum.

One day we drove up to Mt. Lemmon, atop the Catalina Mountains just north of Tucson. At around 9,000 feet in elevation it’s a popular spot for Tucson residents to escape the desert heat. Mt. Lemmon Ski Valley operates through the winter. It is the southernmost ski area in the United States.

Bach’s Cactus Nursery

Mt. Lemmon

We spent part of a day exploring the El Presidio Historic District, the oldest part of Tucson. The city began as a small cluster of buildings near the Santa Cruz River, a reliable water source in the harsh desert climate. A number of these buildings have been restored to their original conditions and they provide a glimpse into how Tucson might have looked a hundred years ago or more. Nearby, some residences have been “gentrified” and have transformed parts of El Presidio into a desirable place to live. We had lunch at one of our old favorites, El Charro Cafe, in business since 1922.

The Tucson Museum of Art is at the edge of El Presidio so we spent some time there. We are members of the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento and we get free admission to many museums across the country through a reciprocal agreement. The Tucson Museum features southwestern art. We were fortunate to be there during a special exhibit of hand-woven rugs from Sonora. There were many beautiful pieces, along with descriptions of the techniques used by the weavers. The rugs came from the collection of Gloria Giffords, mother of the former congresswoman from Tucson, Gabby Giffords. When Gabby was a girl the family would take roadtrips to Sonora, searching out new weavers and new pieces.

We were very fortunate to be on the northwest edge of Tucson and just a short drive from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park. Both are in the Tucson Mountains and provide spectacular desert scenery. The Desert Museum is more than just a museum – it includes a zoo, and arboretum, an aviary, and indoor exhibits about the desert. We purchased a museum membership so we could return repeatedly, which we did. Among the highlights were a lecture on Gila monsters and rattlesnakes with an example of each (safely at the front of the auditorium) and “Cool Summer Nights” when the museum stays open until 10 PM so you can observe the animals as the sun goes down.

Saguaro National Park has several short hiking trails that allow you to get out into the desert vegetation. The park has one of the greatest stands of saguaro cactus in the world, with saguaros covering the desert mountains. We were fortunate to be in Tucson during the saguaro blooming period in May and early June. Every day from our patio we saw new white blossoms on top of the saguaros.

We arrived in Tuscon to begin a stay of almost two months. Carrie’s mom and stepfather lived in Tucson for many years and we always enjoyed visiting so we wanted to return for an extended stay. Late spring promised some warm, sunny weather in advance of the desert heat that is common in midsummer.

Our house was located on the northwest edge of the city, far enough away from urban development that it felt like we were out in the desert. Our casita was associated with a main house a short distance away and we shared a pool, which was wonderful on hot days. Our patio and dining room window looked out at palo verde trees, saguaros, mesquite trees, and other desert vegetation. We could see a few other houses in the distance, but otherwise we were secluded.

The house had a bird feeder, hummingbird feeder, and birdbaths in the backyard so there was a constant stream of birds (mostly doves, quail, and hummingbirds) as well as rabbits and lizards. On a few occasions we also saw deer, coyotes, and bobcats. We never saw a rattlesnake in our yard, but Charlie saw one along the road about a mile from our house when he was out on a walk. It was always necessary to watch your step carefully because rattlesnakes can be hiding near rocks and plants. Our next door neighbor was bitten by a rattlesnake last year while clearing some brush in his yard.

We both like to walk and there were good desert walks around our neighborhood. The weather was getting warm so we would typically walk in the early morning. When the weather started getting warmer Carrie often chose to walk in the Tucson Mall, which is quite large. Apparently lots of people in Tucson like to do that.

Most of our rentals have been managed by a property manager who we never saw. In this case, however, the owner, Carella, lived right next door in the main house, along with her little dog, Maisie. It was a pleasure to get to know Carella; we soon felt like we were neighbors.

Click on the first picture to see the pictures enlarged, and click the arrows to view the slide show.

On our final day in Amsterdam we visited the two major art museums, the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. The Rijksmuseum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer, the Dutch Masters. The ambience is very different in the two museums. The Rijksmuseum is in a very old, traditional building, whereas the Van Gogh is quite modern. Both museums were terribly overcrowded with visitors, which dampened the experience a bit. It was sometimes difficult to get close to the artwork because of the crowds. We both agreed that we have preferred our visits to smaller, less well-known museums where the crowds are not so stifling.

Photos of the art of the Dutch Masters in the Rijksmuseum:

The following photos are sites we saw every day as we walked from our hotel near Leidseplein to sight-see and to find places to eat. We had breakfast a couple of times in the lobby of The Stadsschouwburg and lunch once in Cafe Americain. 

We were fortunate to be in the Netherlands at the peak of the tulip season. We took a day trip to Keukenhof Gardens, about an hour south of Amsterdam by bus, near the small city of Lisse. It is located in the center of the tulip growing region of the Netherlands. Keukenhof is open only from mid-March through mid-May so our timing was perfect.

Keukenhof is one of the world’s most spectacular gardens, with acres of displays of tulips and other flowers plus several greenhouses. It is not to be missed. We spent several hours walking around admiring the flowers. A light rain started about half way through our visit so we had to break out our umbrellas but we stayed dry. We were there on a Sunday so it was quite crowded and the restaurants were packed. We avoided the food crowds and had ice cream cones from a cart for our lunch!

We bought Rick Steves’ tour book of Amsterdam and in the book he has a couple of walking tours that you can take. We began the day with an English breakfast, of all things, sitting outdoors next to a canal at Greenwoods. Then we took the trolley over to Centraal Station, the main train station and the start of the first walk. The tour took us through the Damrak, where Amsterdam began, and up to Dam Square, the cultural heart of the city and the location of the Royal Palace.

The next walking tour took us through the Jordaan District, a peaceful residential neighborhood traversed by rings of canals. We enjoyed seeing the beautiful old homes along the canals. We walked past the Anne Frank House but didn’t go in; it was mobbed with people.

We enjoyed Amsterdam very much but it was overrun with tourists due to the King’s Day celebration (I guess we contributed our part) which made it uncomfortably crowded. At times it seemed like being at Disneyland. We were glad we spent most of our time in peaceful Lyon and not in the hubub of Amsterdam or Paris.

In the evening, we went to an Indonesian restaurant, Indrapura. Andy had eaten there before and recommended it. Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, called the Spice Islands at the time, so Indonesian food is one of the common ethnic foods in Amsterdam. Their specialty is a rijsttafel (rice table), which consists of over 40 small plates served family style. It was delicious!

The restaurant was located at Rembrandtplein, a square located near a house where Rembrandt lived. The square contains impressive statues of the figures painted in Rembrandt’s famous work, The Night Watch.

We didn’t realized it when we planned our trip to Amsterdam, but it turned out we were there on King’s Day, the Netherlands’ national holiday. It is a huge event, sort of like the 4th of July on steroids. The population of Amsterdam doubles, with people coming from all over the small country for the day (you can go almost anywhere in the country by train in about an hour). Almost everybody dresses in orange, the national color, and for many people the holiday seemed like an excuse to drink all day. Our favorite pastime was standing next to a canal and watching the party boats come by, one after another. Each boat carried anywhere from about a dozen to maybe fifty people, most twentysomethings. It seemed like every boat had a loud boombox and an ample supply of Heineken. One young man apparently had too much Heineken and he was peeing off the side of his boat as it came by us. It was a fun and rowdy day.

After a while we strolled over to Vondelpark, Amsterdam’s huge urban park. It is a tradition on King’s Day for people to set up tables in front of their homes to sell their unwanted stuff. The only day of the year, apparently, where you don’t need to get a permit to do this. The children join in by bringing their unwanted toys to Vondelpark to sell to passersby, sort of a gigantic yard sale. We didn’t buy anything but we did give a couple of euros to a young lady who was playing her recorder. We didn’t stay too long because it was horrendously crowded. This was true in some other parts of Amsterdam, as well. It was so crowded in spots that it was difficult to move around – human gridlock!

We ended up at a south Indian restaurant for dinner, not far from our hotel. We chatted with the young man who served us and he said he had only been in Amsterdam since last fall. Going through the cold, damp Amsterdam winter was quite an adjustment for him.

Videos:

Young men in chicken suit video:   img_6456

Boats were crowded, with techno music blasting. We also had our own view of a live Manneken Pis img_6483

On our first morning in Amsterdam we decided to take a 1-hour boat tour of the Amsterdam canals. The central core of Amsterdam has many canals in concentric rings, so a boat tour is a good way to get an introduction to the city. It was mostly a pleasant ride but we sat right in front of a rowdy group of friends who talked loudly throughout the voyage, even when the tour guide was giving narration. Oh, well.

A big motivation for our trip to Amsterdam was to visit a yarn store owned by Carrie’s favorite knitting designer, Stephen West. So, in the afternoon we visited his store, Stephen and Penelope, located in the Nieuwmarkt district of Amsterdam’s central core. Carrie bought some yarn, of course, and enjoyed spending an hour or so browsing through the goods.

One of the great things about Amsterdam for an American traveler is that virtually everybody speaks English. For maybe the first hour we were there we would ask people if they spoke English but we soon realized that asking was unnecessary. In almost every situation it was possible to approach someone and simply address them in English.

 

Today we took the train from Lyon to Amsterdam. There had been a train strike in France beginning April 1, with the strikers walking off the job two days out of every five. But France being the civilized society that it is, the strikers published a calendar showing all of the days they would be on strike. Due to the luck of our travel schedule we were not affected by the strike, nor were any of our visitors.

We took the French high-speed train to Brussels, where we transferred to another train to Amsterdam. We sat in an outdoor cafe across the street from the Brussels train station while waiting for our transfer, and while we were there three large Belgian military vehicles rolled up and a bunch of soldiers with machine guns jumped out. It seemed like a routine patrol and, much like in France, the visible presence of security made us feel safe.

We waited for our train to Amsterdam…and waited…and waited. Eventually all of us got on the next available train to Amsterdam (only about an hour later). The rumor was that our scheduled train had never left its origin in Paris due to a bomb scare. That made sense, also, since we had seen the soldiers arrive at the train station earlier.

We eventually reached Amsterdam in the early evening. Our hotel was in a great location, just across the canal from the Leidseplein and only a couple of blocks from Vondelpark and the Rijksmuseum. We were ready to explore Amsterdam.

Video of the French countryside from the high speed train – It is a large file and takes a minute to download. Click on “img_6427”, then click on the the small white type in the black box to start the download. The video does not work properly for us using Firefox so try a different browser if you have problems.