Back from the Netherlands

Our heures creuses problem seems to have sorted itself out. We happened to look at the switch recently, having left it set to On so we could have hot water to shower, and found it back on Auto.  We're not sure if the switch is flaky and fixed itself or if the electric company failed to send the signal for several sessions. We're happy. I guess.

The day before Valentine's Day we awoke to find that the roofing had blown off the woodshed. Ed nailed a tarp over the roof for temporary cover since we were leaving for the Netherlands two days later.

It's been two years since we visited the Netherlands. In the meantime, two museums that have been closed for quite a while have reopened, so we decided to make this a museum trip. We bought ourselves some museum jaarkaarts (we got these every year when we lived there) and made good use of them. This is a wonderful program where you buy a card that, for a year, allows you free entrance (sometimes with a supplement for special exhibits) to many museums. Plus you don't have to wait in line for tickets. With the price of museums so high these days, you're saving money on your fourth major museum, and we did much better than that.

The Rijksmuseum has reopened after more than ten years, a major renovation. After removing false ceilings and paint, they restored the original decoration from around 1900. You can see some of this below. (Rembrandt's Night Watch is back in place at the end of this hall.)

The Stedelijk Museum (modern art) has had a major extension added. People complain that it looks like a bathtub. And it does a bit from the street end (to the left), but looks very clean and modern from the museum square. (That's Ed and friend Bill at the left.)

We also visited the Hermitage on the Amstel, the Van Gogh Museum, the Singer Museum in Laren, and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, where one of our favorite Vermeers is hanging along with other treasures while the Mauritshuis is closed for expansion.

On our way home we made a short detour to visit the cathedral in Amiens, the largest cathedral in France and a Unesco World Heritage site, built in about fifty years in the 13C.  Here's the approach to the church, with Ed in the lower left.

When you walk in the door at the left above, you enter the north aisle and are immediately struck by the hugeness of it all.

And here is the center aisle. All very gothic.

We had reasonable weather while we were in the Netherlands, but had an unpleasant drive back after Amiens in driving rain and wind, which seem to be the theme for February. Rivers all along the way were full or overflowing and fields have standing water. Temperatures remain surprisingly mild. Lots of plants are thinking it's spring. Here's one of our camellias.