Chocolate: To Eat or To Eat More

A significant number of the shops along Bruges streets frequented by tourists were selling pricey chocolate. Words like “handcrafted,” “homemade,” “gourmet” and others of the same ilk were paired up with “chocolate.”

Now I like fine chocolate, and to be honest, am even fonder of not so fine chocolate, the kind that has too much milk and sugar and does not tell us the percentage of cocoa in the mix. You know, because there isn’t all the much. I am not, however, obsessed with chocolate, be it cheap milk chocolate or fashionable dark chocolate. I like the stuff but going without chocolate does not result in withdrawals or anxiety attacks for me. My problem with chocolate is not addiction, but portion control. I may be indifferent to chocolate, but once I do start in on a chocolate bar or a box of bite-sized chocolates, I invariably eat way too much or many, as the case may be. Add some almonds or hazelnuts with or without raisins to the chocolate and portion control goes even further out the window. Because a few nuts lets me justify my chocolate binge by deluding myself the nuts have plenty of nutritious oils and other good stuff. I easily ignore the fact that eating a handful of almonds without the chocolate has all of that nutritious stuff without a lot of the empty calories that comes with a chocolate binge. Yeah, I’ve heard that foodie influencers talk up the health benefits of dark chocolate. Maybe they are right. Or maybe they are just making a virtue out of eating stuff they like. Or maybe they are getting paid to say it is good for us. Whatever, while I do like to eat, I pay little attention to foodies.

The number of places selling waffles seemed to run about neck and neck with the number of chocolate shops. One also could not walk far in Bruges without passing a window full of bottles showcasing dozens of varieties Belgian beer. In the event, I tried and enjoyed with meals several Belgian beers, all of which I had never heard of before. For better or worse, I did not once eat any waffles (a regrettable mistake on my part) or buy any chocolate (no regrets).

A Walk Through Historic Bruges

On my first morning in Bruges, I set off at just past 7:00 am to walk to the center of the old city. I soon came upon the enormous 115.6m high tower of the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady. Construction of the Gothic church began in the 13th century and was completed in the 15th century. The brickwork tower is the second highest such structure in Europe (or the third, depending on which source one chooses to believe). Whether second or third, the massive tower dominates its surroundings.

Bruges is a small Belgian city of about 120,000 people located on the North Sea in the northwest of the country near the Dutch border. The center of Bruges is part of a sizeable UNESCO World Heritage Site of some 430 hectares. My plan was to walk from my hotel near the southern end of the oval-shaped Site to the Markt or Market Square, about 1 kilometer away in the heart of historic old Bruges.

The Belfry of Bruges is the centerpiece of the Market Square. The tower, a mere 83 meters high was built in 1240, but has been damaged by fire and repaired several times since then.

I will have more about Bruges in the days to come.

History in the Heart of Modernity

On its website, Zaanse Schans urges tourists to “experience historic Holland” by visiting “this windmill village on the Zaan River … just 20 minutes from Amsterdam.” Friends whom I visited in Amsterdam recommended Zaanse Schans, so I boarded a public bus at Centraal Station early on a cloudless, sunny morning and headed for the village.

The ride took a bit longer than 20 minutes, but that was because I boarded a bus that did not go all the way to my destination, and had to change to a second bus midway in the ride. The trip was interesting as it gave me a chance to see some of Amsterdam away from the renowned historical center of the city. Unfortunately, during the trip, clouds rolled in and quickly hid the sun. Patches of blue remained, but the ominous gray clouds were accompanied by a blustery, rather chilly wind and a definite threat of rain. With no umbrella and a windbreaker that would not keep me dry in anything more than a light drizzle, I set off rather nervously from the bus stop on my walk to and around Zaanse Schans.

The village is beautiful, and the old windmills and other examples of traditional architecture are fascinating to look at up close. That said, the area has something of the feel of a village “manufactured” for tourists, of the sort you can see near, for instance, Sapa in northern Vietnam. In fact in an effort to preserve examples of historical Dutch architecture and construction, the homes, shops and some of the windmills (two are in their original locations) that make up Zaanse Shanse were moved from other parts of northern Holland to create the village. This preservation effort occurred in the 1960s and 70s, and eventually the protected area that makes up Zaanse Schans was developed into a tourist destination that nowadays attracts more than two million visitors per year. Some of the buildings are occupied by shops catering to tourists, and there are tours of windmills and a cheese making workshop. The homes in the village are, however, occupied by residents and not open to visitors.

I walked around exploring and taking photos of the relatively small area for about an hour and a half. I even saw a man in yellow wooden shoes. He went through a door too quickly for me to get a photo, but not fast enough to prevent me from wondering why anyone would walk around in footwear that looks so uncomfortable.

When I began my walk just before 8:30, there were still not many visitors and the places offering tours were not open. I had planned to look inside a windmill and visit the Zaanse Schans museum next to the village before heading back to Amsterdam. In the end I went into a cheese making workshop, but that was it. Once inside I did not pay much attention the cheese making process, instead spending my time eying the huge wheels of Gouda and trying to convince myself I could fit one in my carry-on suitcase for the trip home. Keep in mind, that carry-on was my only suitcase for the three and a half week trip; I learned long ago to travel light. Be that as it may, reason prevailed and I did not return home with several thousand calories of cheese that my waist line absolutely does not need.

As for going in to a windmill or the Zaanse Schans museum, it turned out I was still subject to a fickle weather day. When I first arrived there was a gray, threatening sky and blustery wind, which gave way to warm sunshine and puffy white clouds, then finally to more clouds and the threat of rain again around 10:00. Unprepared for rain as I was, I decided not to take a chance, and headed to the bus stop and a bus back to Centraal and lunch. It did finally rain for awhile in the late afternoon of that day, and I did get a little wet before escaping to my hotel room. But, all in all, it was an excellent travel day.

That’s a Chinese Temple! Amsterdam

I was walking, day dreaming, along a narrow, bricked, rather non-descript Amsterdam street when I looked up and saw Chinese characters on the wall of a building. I was disoriented for a moment wondering what this place was doing in the middle of Amsterdam, realizing seconds later that I had walked into Amsterdam’s Chinatown.

In fact the name Chinatown is something of a misnomer, as this small area contains restaurants serving all kinds of East and Southeast Asian cuisines. My quick, very unscientific survey suggested there were more Ramen shops that anything else. There may have been some Asian markets as well, though to be honest the only shop I noticed was dishing up snacks laced with cannabis. My pot days are very long gone at this point, though I did try edibles a couple of times in the past. They put me to sleep.

I was not tempted to eat anything in Chinatown. Or Asiatown, call it what you will. Prices are crazy and the food served up is generally not nearly as good as what I get closer to home for a fraction of the price.

Neo-Gothic Splendor, Amsterdam

I booked a ticket online to visit Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum at 9:00 am on 9 June, my first full day in Amsterdam. The museum was a couple of clicks from my hotel along the Singel canal, so I set out around 7:00 to walk on a beautiful Tuesday morning.

About half way to the museum I was nearing the point where I would turn off the Singel when I came across the Roman Catholic De Krijtberg Church. The Neo-Gothic church with its two towers dominates this stretch of the canal. There has been a church on this site since 1654; the building pictured here, formally named the Church of Saint Francis Xavier, was opened in 1881.

Amsterdam’s Oldest Public Park

Wertheimpark, first opened to the public in 1812, is named after a prominent 19th century Jewish banker and philanthropist. Sitting by the side of a canal and near the city’s botanical garden, the park has quiet paths lined with stately, lush green trees, several notable trees (that is, trees over 100 years old), and plenty of open space for dogs to play and neighbors to meet when they are keeping an eye on their playing dogs.

Just off to one side of the open field, there is the artist Jan Wolkers’ “Never Again Auschwitz” memorial to people who died at Auschwitz and other Nazi extermination camps. The memorial is also referred to as “Broken mirrors.”

Amsterdam Glows in the Morning

I was at the beginning of a walk that would take me to Amsterdam’s botanical garden and the small but lovely Wertheimpark when I walked into this image. Thinking back, it seems to me the walk had a specific destination, but a month later sitting in Hoi An, I cannot remember what that might have been. The sun was still low in the sky at 7:30 in the morning; the light on the tree and the water literally glowed. The dome of St. Nicholas Church is in the center of the photo. Amsterdam is genuinely a beautiful place.

Though I did not know it at the time, I was standing on the historic Armbrug bridge when I took this photo. The original bridge dates back to 1538; the current bridge, the product of a renovation undertaken in 1988, is not particularly memorable. I happened to run across the history of the bridge when I decided to post the image above and went looking for where I was standing when I took the photo. Not that anyone has asked, but as a point of information, I use an application called Mapy.com when I do map searches online. While Google Maps is better for finding nearby restaurants, unlike Mapy, it had nothing about the Armbrug bridge. In fact when it comes to using a map as a map, Mapy comes out ahead of Google in virtually every respect. Developed and headquartered in the Czech Republic, Mapy has Android and Apple apps, and works fine on my Windows PC. Fed up dealing with criminal organizations like Google? Check out Mapy. And that is today’s unsolicited advertisement.