ASIANOVERLAND.NET KATHMANDU TO LONDON  DAY 162/74: COLOGNE TO AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND

30 November, 1980

The road to Amsterdam goes through Utrecht, which was established in 695 when Saint Willibrord was consecrated bishop at Rome by Pope Sergius I. With the consent of the Frankish ruler Pippin, he settled in an old Roman fort in Utrecht. Invasions of the Vikings led to rape, pillage and polunder, but better times followed during the reign of the Saxon emperors, who frequently summoned the Bishops of Utrecht to attend imperial councils. In 1024 the bishops were made Princes of the Holy Roman Empire and the new Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht was formed.

The province of Utrecht includes an area called Oostveen which is pronounced as 'oastfain'. Oostveen means "east fen". A fen is a wetland of moss, peat and an alkaline or neutral pH. Rendering this wetland into agricultural land was initiated by Bishop Godebald van Utrecht (1114–1127) when the Kromme Rijn ("Crooked Rhine") was dammed in 1122 at Wijk bij Duurstede. The same Bishop gave land development contracts to those who would completely drain this land and make it arable; Oostveen was a large section of this area.

The oldest settlement in the Oostveen area is the village of Voordorp, which gradually became known as Blauwkapel because the chapel's interior was entirely blue. The name Voordorp has been revived and applied to a new northern district of the city of Utrecht. Blauwkapel still exists and is part of the Waterline and Fort defense system established to protect the provinces of Holland from inland invaders by flooding the land strategically and building fortresses where flooding was not feasible. Such a fort, the largest in this defense systems surrounds the old chapel. As land reclamation of Oostveen moved northward, a new settlement arose on the Oostveen lands that was dedicated by the dean of the Utrecht cathedral. This settlement was the seat of the gerecht or canton of Oostveen, and in 1812 was renamed Maartensdijk.

The history of Oostveen is a small microcosm of the history of the Netherlands, but is particularly special for Cornelia van Oostveen (Corrie), who is the 12th Cornelia Van Oostveen in succession, on her side of the van Oostveen family.

We drive on to Amsterdam, where our first stop is at the Rijks Museum, which houses one of my favourite paintings, Rembrandt’s Nightwatch (pictured). It is an immense work of art in every way, and never fails to impress the punters.

We then drive into the centre of Amsterdam, Dam Square, which allows a short walking tour of the famous Red Light district and coffee shops (which are probably better known for their hashish than coffee). Les quickly dashed off to the Red Light district with the punters, so I was left with GRUNT when a  very polite Dutch policeman asked me to move the bus on, as we were illegally parked (not the first time).

So I did a quick lap of the city, down the main drag to Central Station, where we will illegally park/camp for the night, and have free use of the public toilets at the Amsterdam Central Station, chuck a left, then another left and back to …… a f…ing narrow bloody canal sideway, where a push past a couple of BMWs but quickly realise I’ll end in the canal if I keep driving. I has about an inch spare on the canal side, but as I tried to revers, I realise thet the BMWs were in the way of ths bus, so I had toi rum to the back of the bus a few times to check I wasn’t seriously damaging the BMWs as I tried to reverse out of this narrow canal mess. If we were still in India, we’d be crowded with Indians who would help me with navaigation and bumnping the BMWs out of the way. But here in Amsterdam, NO-ONE, not even the BMW owners, came out for a look, as I gently nudged their vehicles out of the way so I could get my bus back to Dam Square.

When I arrived back at Dam Square, all the punters were happy, and Les grinned like a Cheshire bcat, as he’d done his favourite tour window shopping in the Red Light area, and showed me some of his purchases, hash cake, chocolate hash brownies, etc etc etc. Everyone was happy. So I drove back down the main drag to Central station, and gave the punters the spiel, including a night walking tour of some of Amsterdam’s finest, coffee shops, Fat City Bar, The Other Place, and The Last Water Hole, which is our meeting place with great live music and walking tradesmen selling look-alike ready made “cigars” of their individual tasting delights, Lebanese Gold, Afghan Black, Turkish Green , Moroccan Gold   … until the punters have all crashed in the bus (illegally parked about 100 meters away from The Last Water Hole.

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