28 February 2008
"The delights of spring come early for visitors to Holland's most famous floral landmark. Massive gardens serve as poster child for Dutch flower industry."
More at canada.com.
The Keukenhof (in Dutch: Kitchen Court), also known as the Garden of Europe is situated near Lisse, Netherlands, and is the world's largest flower garden. According to the official website for the Keukenhof Park, there are approximately 7,000,000 (seven million) flower bulbs planted annually at the park.
(click to enlarge)
From the Keukenhof website:
"Nowhere else in the world are the flowers and colours of the spring as glorious as at Keukenhof. Here you can find endless inspiration while you relax in the beautiful surroundings of the park. Keukenhof offers you the opportunity to see millions of bulbs in flower, fantastic flower shows and the largest sculpture park in the Netherlands and is the most photographed place in the world. Enjoy the spring!"
In 2008 the Keukenhof is open from 20 March to 18 May (including Sundays and public holidays). Keukenhof is open from 8.00 a.m. to 19.30 p.m.
26 February 2008
From Only in Holland, Only the Dutch.
Visitors arriving to the Netherlands are immediately awestruck with the enormity of the inhabitants roaming these lands. The Dutch, on average, are the tallest people encompassing this earth. In numerous studies and reports around the world, the Dutch unanimously come out on top in attaining the towering distinction of being the tallest people on the face of the earth. Actual statistics vary slightly in these reports, but the average height of Dutch men soars to just over 6 feet (184 centimeters) and the average height for Dutch women ascends to slightly over 5 feet 7 inches (170.8 centimeters).
24 February 2008
"Johan Cruyff answers distress call from the club where legend was created.
Johan Cruyff is to return to Amsterdam after 20 years to become the new technical director of Ajax in the wake of the Dutch club’s board announcing that it would resign at the end of the season. As a player and as the embodiment of total football, Cruyff transformed Ajax’s fortunes in the Sixties and Seventies and the Dutchman was the star of the show when the Amsterdam side won the European Cup in 1971, 1972 and 1973."
More at The Times.
Europan Cup final Ajax - Inter Milan 1972, played in Rotterdam.
Besides the spectacular football Only in Holland, Only the Dutch touches on the controversy surrounding Ajax. From chapter 4 Land of the Gentle Giants:
"The legendary Ajax football team in the Netherlands is world renowned for its talent and reputation as a world class football club. It also has a rather curious reputation as a Jewish club, although hardly any of its members were ever Jews. The Ajax fans even referred to themselves as Jews, even though nearly all of them were not. Additionally, the Ajax fans carried Israeli flags, mainly to irritate people, and referred to themselves as Super Jews and stated that Jews are the champions. [...] It was also common for opposing fans to make hissing noises in order to replicate the sounds of escaping gas. These chants and jeers happened so regularly that the police became ambivalent to them and paid little attention to the insensitivities. The Ajax reputation as being a Jewish club was so prevalent that many of the Dutch citizens thought that the blue and white flag with a star on it was an Ajax flag and not an Israeli one."
"On 1 March 2008 the Amsterdam Historical Museum launches Amsterdam and the House of Orange, an exhibition that surveys the ties which have bound Amsterdam and the House of Orange over the centuries. Relations between Amsterdammers and members of the Dutch royal family have swung from one extreme to the other. While there is great affection for the Oranges in Amsterdam, the city also has its share of republican sympathisers. Sometimes the enthusiasm grows to a crescendo, as during the investiture of Queen Wilhelmina in 1898; sometimes there is opposition, for example against the marriage of Princess Beatrix and Claus van Amsberg in 1966. From the Alternation of 1578, when Amsterdam finally joined the Revolt against Spain and decided to back the Prince of Orange, to Willem-Alexander and Maxima with their kiss on the balcony of the Royal Palace on Dam Square." from: Amsterdams Historisch Museum. Exhibition will run from March 1st to August 31st, 2008.
18 February 2008
Historic area, great shopping
"Like a perfectly formed tic-tac-toe board, the quaint streets that straddle three of Amsterdam’s grandest canals form the city’s most quirky neighborhood: the Nine Streets, or Negen Straatjes. In the heart of the western canal belt, only a few minutes’ walk from the Royal Palace in Dam Square, the Nine Streets — easily Amsterdam’s best shopping hub — is a charming mixture of designer boutiques, art galleries, vintage clothing stores, hair salons, gift shops and places to eat and drink." The New York Times
Amsterdam comes of age
"“Done that!” I concluded after ticking Amsterdam off my Interail checklist in the early 1990s. Fun, pretty, but a bit one-note. Fifteen years on, it does indeed appear much the same.
Stag parties still stalk the red-light district in comedy headgear. Unionised prostitutes stare joylessly from behind their curtains. Shopkeepers laugh when you ask if they speak English. And a late-afternoon stroll down the Prinsengracht, the loveliest of the 165 canals, is heaven on earth.
But look closer, and you begin to realise that change is afoot. Some of the windows that once occupied ladies of the night have been given over to displays by fashion students." The Times
18 February 2008
'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star. Geert Wilders, the popular MP whose film on Islam has fuelled the debate on race in Holland, wants an end to mosque building and Muslim immigration. The Guardian's Ian Traynor met him in The Hague. The Guardian
15 February 2008
"Joran van der Sloot's Dutch lawyer, Bert de Rooij, says his client will not be rearrested in connection with the Natalee Holloway case. He says the court for the Netherlands Antilles on the island of Curaçao will issue a statement about the case today." Radio Netherlands.
Earlier:
Suspect in Natalee Holloway case fears for life
"He's not hiding from the police, but from a nationwide kangaroo court. He has very good reasons to fear that if he goes out he won't make it to the other side of the street."
"Memory of the Netherlands is a gigantic digital treasury, full of information about the Dutch past. Visitors to the Memory website have access to hundreds of thousands of superb images, recordings, film footage and texts that have been classified under some fifty digital collections. Together, they offer a unique and varied picture of the history and culture of the Netherlands."
04 February 2008
"It was trial by television last weekend as literally half the population of the Netherlands tuned in to watch a bizarre twist in the unsolved case of Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old American who went missing in May 2005 after a night out on the Caribbean island of Aruba. Acting as the prosecution: Peter de Vries, a Dutch crime journalist, who presented his eagerly awaited take on the case on a Dutch commercial television station. The advocate for the defense: a rival channel, which aired an interview with one of the prime suspects in the case. Left in the dust as hapless bystanders were the official prosecutors in Aruba, who have failed to bring anyone to trial almost three years since Holloway was last seen leaving a nightclub with Joran van der Sloot and two friends on the night of May 29, 2005." Read this article on time.com.
The show will air in the USA on ABC's 20/20 tonight.
04 February 2008
"When "tolerance" becomes a word of abuse in a place like the Netherlands, you know that something has gone seriously wrong. The Dutch have always taken pride in being the most tolerant people on Earth. And in less feverish times, no one could possibly have taken exception to Queen Beatrix's speech last Christmas, when she pleaded for tolerance and "respect for minorities." But Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing, anti-Muslim Freedom Party, was so disgusted by the queen's "multicultural rubbish" that he wanted her to be stripped of her constitutional role in the government."
From "The politics of resentment" by Ian Buruma in the Los Angeles Times. Read the article here.
» Photo gives face to Anne Frank's "one true love"
"A photograph of the boy with the "beautiful brown eyes" who Anne Frank recalled as her "one true love" in the diary she wrote whilst in hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands is to go on display in Amsterdam." ReutersNo comments | ¶
» Deep Throat: Nearly a million viewers
At least 900.000 viewers tuned in on Saturday night to watch porn classic Deep Throat. The movie started after midnight and was introduced by talk show Spuiten en Slikken ("Shoot up and swallow") which discussed the movie, followed by the documentary Inside Deep Throat. Both attracted nearly a million viewers.
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» Anger at concert by Hitler singer, 104
"Reviving a flagging musical career at the age of 104 might seem optimistic in the best of circumstances. When you've been criticised for performing for Adolf Hitler and being pictured with Nazi soldiers at Dachau concentration camp, it has to be near impossible." The Independent.
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» What the Dutch know about deltas
"Climate change complicates water management: a matter of national survival for the Dutch. It is a matter of survival for all of us living in river deltas whether in New Orleans, Sacramento or Amsterdam." Article by Dutch ambassador to the USA Christiaan Kröner. (San Francisco Chronicle)
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