Apeldorn

I think our favorite day in the Netherlands was in Apeldorn. It was about a 2 hour train ride to the east of Amsterdam. First we went to William and Mary’s Palace het Loo and particularly the palace gardens which they built to try to compete with Louis the 14th’s Versailles. With my background as a landscape architect it was very interesting to experience such a vast formal parterre garden. (I haven't been to Vesailles yet, so I can't compare the two.)

Turns out that it's a style that doesn't move me much and was the one place that I felt photographs captured its essence well.  I felt like they obsessed over the ground plane at the expence of all other dimensions.    M got a kick out of the maintenance crew's mower on a leash and laser beam to cut the hedges the precise height, but I know he is glad I'm not going to be imposing this style on our yard!

I'm sure you are thinking..."didn't she say this was the best day?"  Well it had a bit of a slow start, but the last half was practically perfect! We took a bus out to Hoge Veluwe National Park, the country’s largest. At each park entrance there was a large bicycle parking lot full of white bikes with the park’s name on them. These bikes were free to use on the 43 kilometers of paved bike path within the park! Such fun!

It was beautiful scenery, (woodlands, heathlands and sanddunes) but the thing that made it really exceptional was at its very center was the fabulous Kröller-Müller modern art museum. Most of you probably don’t know this, but when I get excited, really, truly, tingly thrilled, a subtle, but involuntarily happy dance overtakes me. It was making me jitter when we saw Picassos, Seurats, even Mondriaans, but when we got into a space where we were surrounded by Van Goghs as far as the eye could see it positively assailed me.  They had over 90 marvelous Van Goghs and seeing them in person was absolutely gripping.

If the interior collection weren’t enough, there was an amazing sculpture garden in the woods surrounding the museum! We had run out of time and had to see most of it at a trot, but it was awesome, awesome, awesome. After that we pedaled around the park for a couple of hours and had the place nearly to ourselves. Awesome day.

 View from the side and then view from underneath "Needle Tower"