Amsterdam Sail 2025

A wonderful thing is happening in Amsterdam now and its called "Amsterdam Sail" - it is a maritime event organised every 5 years and it brings historic ships and all sorts of sailing boats from all over the world into Amsterdam's harbour. It started in 1975 as celebration of 700th anniversary of the city and it continued every 5 years, except in 2020 due to Covid pandemic - this means that the last time this event happened was ten years ago, hence the excitement and enthusiasm of people watching it now. A wonderful thing is happening in Amsterdam now and its called "Amsterdam Sail" - it is a maritime event organised every 5 years and it brings historic ships and all sorts of sailing boats from all over the world into Amsterdam's harbour. It started in 1975 as celebration of 700th anniversary of the city and it continued every 5 years, except in 2020 due to Covid pandemic - this means that the last time this event happened was ten years ago, hence the excitement and enthusiasm of people watching it now.  

For me, it was the very first time to witness it. Can't think even have I ever heard of this before - my head was probably in complete other things earlier - however, this time I did not want to miss it and was very excited to see it. So we took a walk to the city centre but avoided the extremely crowded area behind Central Station and went instead to the area just before it - Westerdok, with its quiet houses and the neighbourhood that somehow feels completely forgotten by time, unknown to tourists, peaceful and serene - from here we watched the ships of all sizes arriving in Amsterdam and I must admit the excitement was palpable. You could see people everywhere on the windows and balconies, sitting around me on a beach chairs with their picnics, the whole families with dogs, it was quite a sight. What a beautiful day.

Antwerpen

 

Not long ago, I was watching excellent documentary about the history of The Netherlands and how The famous Dutch Golden Age was actually set in motion by exodus of wealthy citizen of Antwerpen, who were fleeing from Spanish invasion. What was the destruction of Antwerpen, eventually became the start of prosperity for Amsterdam. So at the back of my mind, I had this curiosity to check the city where it all began and was excited to see it all with my own eyes. It was also a plan to do something every month, to go and visit a place where I have never been before - this time it was Antwerpen, Belgium.

The train ride from Amsterdam was easy peasy, just a little bit over an hour. And to my biggest delight, upon the arrival I was admiring a truly spectacular central station which must be the most beautiful train station I have ever seen, anywhere - it is majestic, huge and sweeping above the city, with a new parts surprisingly well fitting with the original 19th century part. The one in Amsterdam is pretty but this one in Antwerpen is something else. And just like in Amsterdam, once you walk out of it, you are right in the city centre where shops are packed with jewellery - perhaps a bit strange, considering the areas around train stations are always considered a bit unsafe - window displays bursting with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, etc. I used to work with those so I could tell different types of gemstones - I could also tell that enormous displays are overcrowded and from my own experience I know that less is more, just a few intriguing pieces would attract more attention than stocking window display with too much bling, but its not my problem and from what I have seen, nobody was really visiting these shops, the overcrowded displays killing any desire to look at them.

The city centre was very interesting: I could clearly see that this architecture eventually inspired what we have in Amsterdam now, shapes of the old houses looking familiar but somehow different at the same time. And the historical heart of the city definitely has its own charm, with friendly local people - I have also noted the large number of immigrants. I have read about the neighbourhood called Zurenborg and took a walk there, from what I have seen it is a very pretty and quiet area full of Art Deco houses. Also because it was Saturday, I have encountered a huge number of orthodox Jews going to a synagogue in their special clothes - apparently they live in a area beyond the central station and this is exactly where I was walking. The whole families were dressed accordingly, with their special hats, locks and the whole shebang, I found it very interesting and had to control myself from staring - you don't see this every day. It was here that I have seen a very intriguing detail on almost every house, next to a stairs there is some kind of hole framed with decorative metal - for the life of me I could not tell what is this and was wondering could this have been something to give water to horses perhaps, but it was too small for horses. Eventually some nice lady explained to me this was originally made to scrub the mud from the shoes before you enter the house - so before the streets were paved, they were apparently very muddy and this is how you would manoeuvre around the mud. 

It was a short, weekend stay so I did not bother with must-do lists, I simply decided to enjoy and have fun with two museums nearby: one was called "Illusions Antwerpen" and it was about interesting visual effects (simple but delightful) while another was "Chocolate Nation" and it was all about the famous Belgian chocolate - surprisingly enjoyable and informative, apparently there is a huge amount of work involved in its production, since the beans grow on the other side of the world and than must be shipped here, where the real work on chocolate begins. Not only you read about chocolate, but the corridors are discreetly sprayed with the smell of chocolate so at the exit (where is a museum shop) visitors are totally hypnotised into buying chocolate - I got myself a chocolate soap and chocolate candle. My one regret was that the weather was not on our side, it was way too cold (suddenly) to enjoy being outside and we were so relieved and delighted to return home to our central heating. There is so much more to see in Antwerp, next time I will like to explore more about Rubens and art in general. 

 

Vacation time: Portugal

I have recently returned from vacation in Portugal.

It was interesting experience - not because of the usual desire to change the scenery and because of what we have seen there - in many ways Portugal is beautiful and definitely worth a visit - but because of what this experience taught me. To my biggest surprise, once when we actually arrived in Lisbon, I found myself perpetually tired and exhausted, since there were so many things to do but everything was so tiring - not to mention that the weather was against us and we were constantly drenched and wet from the pouring rain - Lisbon is extremely hilly and every single walk turned out to be a Sisyphus mythical climb, it was non stop one climb after another. Porto was just slightly less hilly but even here we puffed and panted and were constantly sweaty (and afterwards sick with cold, after riding sightseeing bus or such) - it was almost as we were punished for having a sunny day, immediately we started to cough. 

So yes, it was beautiful. And interesting. But the best part of vacation was our return home, to our regular comfy nest, shower that actually works, soft and comfortable bed, etc. We were so tired of physical efforts to manoeuvre hilly streets, that coming back to a flat surface was wonderful. Seriously, we had enough of this unexpected fitness and came to conclusion that in the future, vacation should be deserved rest which means that from now we might select a small town or even a village with no traffic jams, no crowds and no tourist traps everywhere. I would not mind a walk in the nature but walks we suffered in Lisbon were not enjoyable. From now on, we will plan the vacations differently and we might simply stay somewhere local, out of town, no planes, no stress, no climbing hills. To recharge the batteries and to rest properly, I need a tiny place with silence, perhaps a sound of the rain, open space, some nature and please dear God, flat surfaces. It took me another week to recover from all this climbing (and cold) and that last week of just resting at home was the best part of my vacation. 

Long walks and discoveries: Vlooienburg

I have mentioned on this blog several times how much I enjoy my walks trough old historical centre of Amsterdam and how much I admire the beautiful old houses - however, the more I learn about it, the more I realise that a lot of the old town was totally demolished (for various reasons) and what has survived was a complete accident, because the whole streets and neighbourhoods were moved away to create space for new buildings. The understanding that historical area must be preserved did not really occur before 1970s - before that, quite a lot of beautiful old houses were simply gone forever. I have already mention the area of Kattenburg where the whole street disappeared, but how about the whole neighbourhood that was gone?

Recent visit to Stadsarchief where they had exposition "Déjà vu" reminded me that actual photographs still exist about the Jewish neighbourhood that once existed around what is now Watterlooplein with Opera House/City Hall. From what we know, it was one of the few artificial islands in the city centre and it was overcrowded with the poorest Jewish inhabitants - it was also close to local Synagogue that still stands there. It was one old photograph on that exhibition that fascinated me (a beautiful view on the whole island from the tower of Zuiderkerk) and the impression stayed with me until I did some research and found an excellent documentary called "Vlooienburg, the history of a Jewish quarter".

https://npo.nl/start/video/vlooienburg-de-geschiedenis-van-een-joodse-wijk

What a joy! Not as in joyful story but as in archaeological discovery - apparently I am not the only one interested in the old buildings and the history of the city - the documentary was everything I always wanted to know about the now disappeared neighbourhood. It explains that the whole area behind De Blauwbrug was originally Jewish and how these particular Jews were actually relatively well-off until refugees from other places around Europe started coming in, making it a overcrowded slum. (Later some of these families would move to a new neighbourhood in the South of Amsterdam called Transvaalbuurt which had beautiful new houses and spacious rooms, but it was far away from historical centre with Synagogue) There was a large number of Jews from Portugal's city Porto and everybody had to adapt to the rules and traditions of the new city. 

Vlooienburg was an artificial island of rectangular shape and it had four blocks with tightly squeezed houses next to each other - it housed around 7 000 people and it was a very poor area, as Jews were prohibited from most of the crafts and were only allowed several options, including diamond cutting. Where for centuries Amsterdam was a safe haven for all the Jews escaping dangers, pogroms and inquisitions, it all changed in WW2 when Germans occupied the country and eliminated 75 % of Amsterdam's Jews. Not only were the inhabitants all arrested, deported and murdered but the houses were also pillaged (for firewood) and left empty and demolished until the City Hall eventually decided to turn the whole area in the parking lot, than used it to built a new City Hall & Opera House there.

What we now call Waterlooplein with its Flea market, was in fact a totally different neighbourhood and there is absolutely nothing left of it (except old Moses and Aaron Church) - in the documentary, archeologists were digging in a cesspits left behind these demolished houses and discovering traces of food, pottery and cutlery that showed traces of imports from Portugal and other places. I ended up watching not one but two documentaries about history of Amsterdam and had a great time.

Exhibition: "Manahahtáanung or New Amsterdam? - The Native Story Behind New York"

 

One thing that I always loved about living in Amsterdam is the sheer variety of museums. At any time of the mont, there are countless wonderful museums and exhibitions around town and I use my annual membership to visit anything that strikes me as interesting. This particular exhibition is showing in a place that is a bit strange - previously used as a retirement home, it became "Hermitage Amsterdam" at certain point and for years it exhibited the art from the original Hermitage in St.Petersburg, until the start of war in Ukraine made this collaboration unwelcome. So the magnificent palace on Amstel became space where two wings are currently used by two different museums: one is called H'ART Museum and another Amsterdam Museum on the Amstel - the second one being a temporary storage for The Amsterdam Museum that is being renovated. Neither of these solutions is very successful, as the space often feels empty and I just wish that things go back to normal. 

While the original The Amsterdam Museum in Kalverstraat 92 is closed for renovation, some selected items are on display under the name Amsterdam Museum on the Amstel. It is literary just a tiny bit of their wast collection and now on one added floor there is a new exhibition that under normal circumstances would probably be displayed in a proper space in Kalverstraat. I always feel a bit frustrated with all these perpetual changes because it feels like a disruption of the original idea. And the word "temporary" is at this point stretching into years.

Well, the new exhibition itself is actually quite gripping. Its all about the native inhabitants of what is today known as Manhattan and was once called by the natives Manahahtáanung. The exhibition follows some drawings, maps and original artifacts from the times when Dutch colonists first came here to establish a new colony and the city New Amsterdam that would eventually become New York. This all happened exactly 400 years ago so it makes this exhibition timely. As interesting as it is, it also makes you feel sorry for duped original Lenape people who really had no chance against the intruders and are unceremoniously pushed aside. 

Croatia countryside

 

Far more than my hometown, what really makes me happy was visit to my favourite spot in the countryside. This is where my friends have little weekend escape cottage and I have spent many happy months here, recovering from my exhausting & demanding cruise ship jobs - after working 7 days a week and metamorphosing into a robot, I would return here to just sleep, eat, read, listen to the birds and buzzing of the insects. My friends would visit on the weekends but in general I was alone, except for the nearest neighbours who were often my partners on movie marathons. It was wonderful to visit it again and even though it was a bit crowded this time - it was a scene of the wedding - everybody was in a great mood and I loved being there.

Back to Croatia

 

I have left my homeland in 2018 and somehow did not visit back all this time - first, I was excited to be here in the Netherlands where I genuinely wanted to live for so long, than second I was visited by some of my closest friends anyway. This time, I was invited on a wedding and it was something I did not want to miss. Not only this is a case of strong, lifelong friendship but also of continuing other friendships that I cherish trough many years - many of them go back decades and decades. Even though I find traveling in itself exhausting and annoying, going somewhere once in a while is actually nice. I knew that I will love going there and than coming back. 

Even before 2018 I was visiting only occasionally. By my own choice, I have lived a nomadic life and enjoyed seeing the world - my old friends were always there to cheer me up and to celebrate my comings & goings - this time I was relaxed & happy with my current life so even visit to Zagreb was pleasant. Instead coming just for a weekend, I made a decision to stay a week and this gave me chance to meet some of my old friends & acquaintances + I treated myself with a walk trough my old neighbourhood. Where I confirmed that nothing was like it was anymore, that time is behind us now and the city continued to grown and prosper with new, younger generations. 

What striked me as very interesting was that the city center was actually very clean and neat. Everybody warned me about the effects of recent earthquakes, this and that, but I saw only nice things. It looked fairly classy and prosperous. My own Tkalčičeva street metamorphosed into main tourist attraction and was filled with charming terraces. Part of me recognised everything, the other part felt like a stranger. Compared to where I live now, this was actually clean and nice. Nothing like grey and gloomy place I remember from 1990s. It was good to see it again. 

"The Year 1000" exhibition in National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden

Far more than badly directed (and played) comic twist on Agatha Christie, I enjoyed an exhibition titled "The Year 1000" and presented in Leiden's glorious National Museum of Antiquities - probably the most exciting archeological museum I have ever seen anywhere in the world. I do have some authority here since I sailed around the world for 15 years and have visited many museums in different countries, this one in Leiden is by far the best. 

The exhibition was titled "The Year 1000" and it was meant to cover The Netherlands but it soon became obvious that its scope was much bigger - perhaps there were simply not so many saved artefacts from Medieval lowlands - so eventually we got little stories from many different parts of the world and some explanations what kind of world it was around year 1 000. What left the biggest impression on me was a screen with a movie of night sky - full of comets and stars, constantly moving but somehow always the same, almost immortal - combined with the contemporary writings of monks excitedly mentioning strange, mysterious things in the skies and what it could possibly mean (for many of them now we understand they were comets or Northern Lights, not a harbinger of Divine's wrath). It was a world totally different from ours (for one thing, religion was a big part of daily life in many aspects) but we as a humans have hardly changed at all. So it was like a peek into a time machine, where this same night sky is constantly same but our perception of it changed a lot.  

Vacation time: Athens

I have actually never went somewhere for vacation since I moved here - initially I had no interest to travel since for many years prior I had to travel for work + I was glad to be in one place + this is the city I always wanted to live, so during vacations I simply enjoyed being free from work and was often house sitting for friends. Than Covid came and nobody could travel anyway. And finally, this year, I actually made a big step and traveled somewhere else as a proper vacation.

Of course I have been to Athens a hundreds of times - but it was always rush, always just a few hours before my ship would sail away and my time there was limited to a search for Wi Fi place, supermarket and perhaps quick visit to a particular place. This was the first time in my life that I actually had a proper time to enjoy Athens in my own pace - naturally I wanted to see everything and this is understandable since this was the first proper journey after Covid experience - so at certain point it turned out exhausting and we had to take a random day off, when we just relaxed and slept, because otherwise this whole "vacation" would be just running around.

Here I also must say that as much as vacations are nice, the whole process of traveling itself was extremely exhausting and we did not enjoy going from place to place - there were always some sorts of delays, crowds, nervous people, the journeys never lasted as planned and usually sucked all the fun from the trip itself - if we could just teleport ourselves to a certain place that would have been great, but waiting for the delayed train and delayed flight again & again was just nightmare. After experience of traveling to see Meteora which was extremely exhausting (since we depended on public transport) we decided not to bother with visit to islands because this is vacation after all, islands can wait. 

Some observations: 

- Tiny pavements that serve as nothing but decoration. There is no way you can walk on the pavements and everybody is forced to simply walk in the middle of the road

- Contrary to other big cities, people were extremely nice & friendly almost everywhere (except occasional pushy waiter demanding the tip). It was so obvious that we were actually genuinely shocked and surprised that people were so nice to a complete strangers, this is definitely not the case in Amsterdam where locals are openly impatient and rude to everybody.

- Outside of the most famous landmarks, city is not beautiful - its simply too huge for its own good and sometimes I even felt that the pressure on infrastructure might be too heavy. Millions of people all over and the houses are often simply growing like mushrooms without any aesthetic plans or considerations. 

- As always, I was totally in love in decrepit and old houses that have some history behind them and could not care less for "proper" buildings but loved everything that was obviously ruined, old and deserted.

- For such a famously Mediterranean location, they serve a surprisingly trendy, international food - we were naively expecting a diet of Olives, Feta, Moussaka and Souvlaki but actually everybody was enjoying Salmon, Quinoa and things that one would expect in the North. 

- The biggest food discovery was something so natural and simple but it never occurred to me: combination of thick, creamy Greek Yoghurt with fresh fruit and honey on top of it. We tasted it on the spectacular terrace of Acropolis Museum right after our early morning visit to Acropolis and it was so delicious, refreshing and divine that I said this must be food for Gods. We are eating it ever since.

Besides chaotic traffic, we ourselves did everything proper: we were always on time, planned accordingly and the best of all, we packed extremely cautiously - I have never packed as good as this time. Each of us had a backpack and a small suitcase that fitted above our heads in a plane. Underwear to last us for a week, some shirts, two trousers and I actually had only one pair of shoes, whatever we needed we bought there. On departure, my small suitcase was actually half empty and pleasure to carry around (on departure just slightly less so, but still it was a small suitcase and not the monstrosities that other people carry with them). 

Best of all, the return home was wonderful - even though the flight was exhausting (again delays, crowds and chaotic organisation) - it was a huge relief to sleep in our own bed and to simply be home, even though its totally Autumnal here now and a huge difference in temperature. It makes you appreciate home even more!