Mapping the path

Around the Rhine

Day 9: De Haar Castle & Amsterdam

The morning began with another tedious set of instructions delivered at length by Cruise Director Pao, this time about disembarkation the next day in Amsterdam. Now, I recognize that our trip was different than most — with disruptions and additional logistics required by being rerouted around the Rhine — but it was frustrating to have so much time taken up with these tiresome addresses. So now… and this is very important… the part… that is coming next… that being the next part… and that next part, ladies and gentlemen, is where I will summarize my point… yes, everyone, I will be summarizing… my… point… and that summary, the one I have told you about, will begin now… as follows: Tedious set of instructions. Delivered at length.

Fully briefed, Janet and I boarded a bus to De Haar Castle for a morning tour. The others in our group chose to stay on the ship as it sailed on to Amsterdam using the Amsterdam-Rhine canal, which, as advertised, connects Amsterdam to the Rhine starting about 25 miles southeast of Utrecht.

De Haar Castle is situated in the middle of a 135-acre park west of the canal and is the largest castle in the Netherlands. There is a record of a castle there as early as 1392 passing into the de Haar family. That castle burned down in 1482, was rebuilt, and gradually fell into disrepair over the subsequent centuries.

In 1890, the castle came under the ownership of 30-year-old Etienne Gustave Frédéric Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar, a man of many "vans” and one big plan: He and his wife, Baroness Hélène de Rothschild, would rebuild the castle beyond all of its former glory, despite Hélène’s famous Jewish banking family disinheriting her for marrying a Roman Catholic. In 1892, the couple hired the architect of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and Central Station, Pierre Cuypers, to build an elaborate neo-Gothic showpiece on the site of the ruined castle. The restoration took 20 years to complete and included the destruction of the nearby village of Haarzuilens, whose residents were moved less than a mile away into a new medieval-style village designed by Cuypers and his son, Joseph.

We crossed a dike flanked with some of the 7,000 large trees on the property, then passed through a brick gateway into the castle complex. Starting at the neatly maintained stables, we continued on to the formal gardens outside the castle, featuring more than 1,200 roses from 79 different species. Here, too, as everywhere in Europe, a crew was setting up for a Christmas market. This had the dual effect of obscuring much of the elaborate gardens and once again giving us a tempting view of a lively market in beautiful setting that we would never actually experience. But it was a lovely, sunny day, and it was hard to be too disappointed strolling through attractive gardens toward a moat guarding fairy-tale castle.

The castle has 200 rooms, most of which are not open to the public. Cuypers looked after every last detail of the design and construction, from modern electrical lighting and a steam-powered central heating system down to the elegant woodcarvings and even the design of the tableware. The entire project was such an expression of his creative spirit that he was indulged to place a statue of himself in the front entryway.

Inside the castle, the central reception area feels like a cathedral, with very high ceilings, stained-class windows, and ornate, sculptured stone. It immediately gives the visitor the intended sense of grand scale. In the rooms that weave around the center of the castle, Flemish tapestries and oil paintings provide a backdrop for elaborate furnishings, porcelain from Japan and China, and a rare carrier coach used by the lady of a Japanese shōgun.

The spectacle of the castle soon became a major draw for visiting celebrities and world leaders. The castle also became a frequent stop for Renée Vivien, Hélène de Zuylen’s writing partner, with whom she had a discreet lesbian affair while collaborating on numerous poems and short stories between 1902 and 1907. Vivien, a British poet who wrote autobiographical lyric poetry reflecting a life of extreme hedonism, was well-known in Parisian social circles as a bohemian world traveler with a love for expensive clothes and Lalique jewelry. Vivien had just ended a tumultuous relationship with American poet Natalie Barney when she met Zuylen. The two traveled and wrote together, and Vivien confided to a friend that she felt married to Zuylen.

But the marriage would not last. Vivien was courted by Kérimé Turkhan Pasha, the French-educated wife of a Turkish diplomat who felt smothered by her Islamic restrictions and practices. Their escalating correspondence led to a few secret rendezvous. In 1907, Zuylen abruptly left Vivien for another woman, and the following year, Pasha ended her relationship with Vivien when she and her husband moved to his new station in St. Petersburg. Distrought, Vivien spiraled into increasingly hedonistic behavior and suicidal depression. She died in 1909 at the age of 32, likely due to pneumonia that took hold amidst her alcoholism, drug abuse, and anorexia.

Hélène de Zuylen is famous for more than her impressive castle and relationship with Vivien: She was the first woman to compete in an international motor race. Her husband was president of the Automobile Club de France (ACF), sponsor of the 1898 Paris-Amsterdam-Paris road race. Competing under the pseudonym “Escargot,” Hélène successfully completed the 7-day, 889-mile race over unsurfaced roads, and was one of just three racing women during the Belle Epoque.

In 1935, Zuylen honored her former partner by establishing the annual Renée Vivien Prize, rewarding poets who write in French. Upon Zuylen’s death in 1947, Natalie Barney — who had attempted to rekindle her romance with Vivien until the very end — assumed stewardship of the prize. How all of this has not been made into a movie by now is beyond me.

A generation later, in the heydey of Hollywood, De Haar Castle hosted such famous guests as Brigitte Bardot, Yves Saint Laurent, Coco Chanel, Joan Collins, Gregory Peck, Maria Callas, and Roger Moore. Over time, it has gradually passed into the ownership of a foundation created to manage and maintain the property. However, the van Zuylen family has retained the right to stay at the castle for one month each year.

The route through the castle leads through several rooms, then downstairs to the kitchen, a sturdy and smart space gleaming with copper pots and pans. It has an enormous furnace at one end and is studded with tiles decorated with the coats of arms of the de Haar and van Zuylen families.

We continued across the causeway to the much smaller, secondary building used for storage and other needs. We paused a bit longer to admire the castle from the back before proceeding back through the gardens — weaving through tented stalls that would be bursting with glorious holiday fun in mere weeks — and on out to our bus.

The bus started north toward Amsterdam, moving off the main highway for a stretch to hug the Amstel river, its rippling waters running higher in altitude than the surrounding homes and farms. We stopped briefly at De Riekermolen, a restored polder windmill near the river dating from 1636. A statue of Rembrandt nearby commemorates the many sketches he made of the Amstel and its pastoral surrounds.

When the bus reached the ship in Amsterdam, there was just enough time for a quick lunch before our canal tour through the city. We took a five-minute walk along the Amsterdam waterfront from our ship to a smaller canal cruiser. It was 39 degrees now, with sharp breezes blasting across the water. I could feel icy spikes making short work of my four layers of heavy outerwear, and I picked up the pace to generate some heat.

I struggled to get good photos through the dirty windows of the small boat, but I was grateful to be indoors. I lurched from one side of the craft to the other as sights came into view. “Sit down, please!” the tour guide snapped, and I looked up to see I had been rocking the boat. I withdrew sheepishly.

The tour wound through three of the four main canals in Amsterdam, which radiate in rings from the center of the city. It was a pleasant review of Amsterdam’s architecture and city life, passing under low bridges and admiring the various styles of decorative gables that are still used to hoist furniture and supplies through windows on the upper floors. We saw all manor of houseboats, from rough and tumble to sleek and refined, packed tightly into every available mooring. We drifted by grand palaces with large, gleaming windows reflecting the grand palaces on the other side of the canal. We saw Anne Frank’s house and the nearby Westerkerk, whose bells, chiming at regular intervals, helped keep her sanity as she hid from German occupiers.

After a few fancy three-point turns, the tour boat returned to its dock, and our group headed toward the city. We had decided to forego dinner on the AmaKristina to do some shopping and then find a nice local restaurant.

A few steps from our ship, I stopped in front of a work of public art titled Living by Numbers, designed by contemporary artist Michel Othoniel. It is a 23-foot-tall abacus made with scarlet glass beads framed in metal. Each year, the beads are adjusted to reflect the number of people estimated to be living with AIDS worldwide, with the hope of one day being able to set the piece permanently to zero.

We continued into the city as the sun began to set — past stacks and stacks of parked bicycles — skirting the north end of the Red Light District and onto Harlemmerstraat, a shopping street displaying high-end boutiques, rowdy bars, and roughly 38 billion head shops.

The six of us split up into at least three groups. After emerging from a quick browse in a fancy shoe store, I realized I had no idea where the others had gone. I walked up and down the chilly streets, peering in windows, wondering if I’d walked too far. Eventually, shopping successes in hand, the party assembled and set out on our quest for dinner.

I had found a few nice places beforehand, and led the group to the north end of the fashionable Jordaan district. The streets there were surprisingly quiet and darkened. I wondered if I had made a wrong turn. Our friend Keith’s knee began to bother him, and I felt some pressure to find a place fast. That’s when we spotted the warm lights inside Luna, an Argentinian steakhouse.

The sweet and handsome Sicilian owner greeted us as we hung up our coats, leading us to the window table. He chatted about his decision to join his Dutch wife in Amsterdam to open the restaurant with the help of our Argentinian waiter. We enjoyed a plate of grilled vegetables — cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, snow peas, peppers and broccoli — followed by cuts of beef tenderloin prepared in four different styles (Argentinian, Brazilian, Uruguayan, and Irish) and accompanied by four different sauces (mushroom, Roquefort, chimichurri, and peppercorn). It was far, far too much meat, but delicious. As we left, Janet presented one of her bottles of wine to the owner as thanks for the outstanding service, and he appeared genuinely touched.

Marianne and Karen decided not to brave the cold and instead caught a taxi back to the ship, while the rest of us hoofed it briskly across town to walk off some of that meat. We crossed bridges festooned with white lights that a brought a cheery glow to the crisp night air. After about 20 minutes walking along narrow lanes past attractive shops, we came upon the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, a gray, 19th century Roman Catholic church that looked like a set piece for a horror movie, with dramatic illumination in front and a rising full moon behind.

The ladies who took the taxi greeted us with open bottles of wine as we warmed up back on the ship. A talented trio of violin, viola, and guitar were playing classical and traditional pieces in the lounge — including a selection from Verdi’s La Traviata played with exquisite lightness and care — putting a stylish end to our final night on the ship. I called my son, a composer, so he could listen in, half a world away.

< Day 8: Delfshaven & Kinderdijk | Day 10: Amsterdam >