Our Uniworld Tulips and Windmills cruise was a 10 day affair covering a fairly small region of the Netherlands and Belgium. This meant we had the chance to see lots of towns and cities. On a Uniworld cruise there can be two or three excursions options at each port so I’ll give you a little taste of some of the places we visited after we’d left Amsterdam, not including our visits to Keukenhof and Kinderdijk which feature in my last blog post.
It’s worth just noting here that a river cruise means very often you’re moored right in the town centre so you don’t always require extra travel. This was particularly true of this itinerary – so many beautiful locations to explore and you could do this on your own or with a group and guide.
Haarlem
After our morning at Keukenhof, some of the guests on River Queen opted to complete the floral experience with a trip to a tulip farm. We chose to visit the nearby town of Haarlem. I’m going to be completely honest here. Haarlem is a pretty town with much to recommend it. However it was cold, windy and rainy that day and we didn’t quite make the right choices. We should have warmed up in the magnificent church of St Bavo’s to see Christian Müller’s massive organ. Apparently Mozart played on this at the age of 10. You’d thing if it was good enough for Wolfgang it should have been good enough for us. Apologies, Haarlem.
Enkhuizen
Overnight cruising took us over the inland sea to Enkhuizen. We spent the morning at the fascinating Zuidersee Outdoor Museum while another group opted for a Dutch cheese tour. The museum had only just opened for the season so we were fortunate to explore at a quiet time. The museum replicated traditional 19th century Dutch homes and showed bygone artisan skills such as ropemaking. Our favourite spot was an exhibition of traditional ‘gaper’ heads used across the country to indicate a chemist shop. These figureheads, often depicting policemen or firefighters, always have their tongues sticking out.
Enkhuizen itself was delightful – we had a little amble around the town as we made our way leisurely back to the ship.
Hoorn
The home port of explorer, Willem Schouten, who named the southern tip of South America after his hometown. Cape Horn should really be Cape Hoorn. In the 17th century the town was a centre of international trade, a base for the famous Dutch East India Company. We loved Hoorn although I’m sure the improved weather helped. Again, exploring on our own, after stepping off the ship, we spent a couple of very pleasant hours in Hoorn.
Favourite bit? A bronze statue representing the Ship Boys of Bontekoe, from the book by Johan Fabricius. These boys have been staring out over the harbour wall since 1967. My ‘boy’ joined them briefly in 2024.
Nijmegen
Uniworld offered a morning walking tour of Nijmegen but we boxed clever by realising we could visit the town on our own in the afternoon. Instead we joined others on a coach trip to the Kröller-Müller art museum. I can’t remember how long we were on the bus, maybe an hour, but, wow, it was worth it. This superb museum houses the second largest collection of Van Goch work in the world – almost 90 paintings and over 180 drawings. There are also paintings and sculptures by many other notable artists including Picasso, Mondriaan, Monet and Rodin. A spectacular gallery and beautiful garden. I think the overused term ‘hidden gem’ most definitely applies to this museum.
Nijmegen, our afternoon jaunt, is one of the oldest city in the Netherlands. It was devasted by the bombing in World War II but it’s now a lively spot and there are even a few Roman ruins still visible today.
Veere
It was Easter Monday when we docked in Veere and it slowly came to life as we walked around on our own. It truly is a gorgeous little town, possibly my favourite of the trip. The independent shops were perfect for upmarket souvenir hunting. Husband, Dougie, was particularly smitten with Veere because of its Scottish connections. For three centuries the town was the centre for the Scottish wool trade. The Scottish Houses are very elegant and contain the Museum of Veere where we came across, very unexpectedly, a temporary exhibition of Scottish diaspora tapestries – beautiful embroidered panels from Scottish communities around the world.
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