Welkom in Nederland!

Helene Kröller-Müller (1869-1939) was an avid art collector and one of the first to recognize the genius of Vincent van Gogh. And if you exclude royalty like Catherine the Great, she was one of the first women in Europe to establish a major art museum.  Much like Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston, she was a wealthy, proud and ambitious woman who was determined to leave a lasting cultural legacy. Thankfully for us, she donated her extensive collection of early modern art to the Netherlands in 1935. Located in an expansive nature reserve with deer, foxes, badgers and wild boar, the Kröller-Müller Museum is home to the world's largest private collection of Van Goghs and one of Europe's biggest sculpture gardens. The museum's grounds and setting are said to reflect Helene's conception of connecting art, architecture and nature. The kids especially liked the large black-and-white sculpture by Jean DuBuffet made of painted concrete and epoxy resin. It's a whimsical artistic garden, surrounded by a real garden of grass, trees and ponds – a garden within a garden so to speak. And you get to climb on it!

The Sower, Vincent van Gogh (photo taken from the internet)

As we pulled out of the museum parking lot in the late afternoon, the idea was to head to the city of Utrecht, only 50 minutes way, to find a hotel for the night. Utrecht has the country's largest university and for many centuries it was a center of Dutch secular and religious power, until it was overtaken by Amsterdam during Holland's Golden Age in the 1600s. Unfortunately, we didn't realize Utrecht is also known for its annual "Summer Darkness" festival, which bills itself as a "a dark underground inter-disciplinary festival" (I like festivals that cover multiple disciplines), with bands offering "neo-folk," "darkwave," "future-pop," "synth-pop," "industrial," "witch-house," and many other of my favorite musical styles. Suffice it so say that all the city's hotel rooms were occupied by people dressed in the height of "Goth" fashion with plenty of black makeup. So, we parked the car at one of the most ridiculously expensive meters I've ever had the pleasure of using (4.55 Euros per hour), walked around the pretty canals, admired the Gothic spire of St. Martin's Cathedral, ate some delicious Greek food, and then got back in the car and drove to Amsterdam, a night ahead of our reservation.

St. Martin's Cathedral

 

The Mauritshaus

I'll cover Amsterdam in my next post, but there's still one more place in The Netherlands – The Hague – that I want to cover in this one. Our journey to The Hague (as a day trip by train from Amsterdam) was inspired by two equally important missions. First, the Mauritshuis – with its three paintings by Vermeer, its 11 Rembrants (including The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp), and its exquisite Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius – is one of my favorite small art museums in the world. (Holland excels in that category, with the Kröller-Müller, the Rembrandthuis and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem - to name a few.)

Vermeer, View of Delft (photo taken from the internet)

Rembrandt, Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (photo taken from the internet)

Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch (photo taken from the internet)

In addition to a great museum, The Hague has plenty of charm

Second, Madurodam – which depicts a typical Dutch town on a 1:25 scale – is one of my children's favorite miniature cities in the world. (Ok, they've only seen two.) So, they were forced to endure the first, and then Eden and I were forced to endure the second. But I jest – we all enjoyed all our endeavors in The Hague, which retains quite a bit of charm even despite its status one of Europe's bureaucratic centers.

See in you in the last destination of our yearlong journey - Amsterdam, the Venice of the North!

More from the Kröller Müller Museum

More photos from Utrecht

Stairway to Heaven Nightclub and Restaurant

View of Utrecht after a couple of minutes in the Stairway to Heaven Nightclub and Restaurant

More photos from The Hague

In big shoes, in a miniature city