It feels weird.
More than a year since last I traveled, before that 8 months since last, and before that it had been 10+ years of 1-6 visits to the airport annually. So being back after all that time felt weird – but also good, it has been missed, in spite of all the negative things one could say about an airport. And in contrast to last time where the airport was almost desolate it was clear that people are now able to travel again. Far from the old-fashioned rush before the lockdowns, but things are clearly starting to get back to normal again.
It feels weird – but also really good – to be back.
The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful, it was a small plane so the 1½ meters distancing went out the window when we got seated. From Amsterdam it was a short train ride to Leiden where I, after spending a moment trying to figure out what side of the station to exit, easily found my hotel where I’ll be staying the coming week. On the 15 minutes’ walk I passed by an all-you-can-eat sushi place and two Argentinian steak houses, so I clearly found a good location.
After a very good night’s sleep I woke up and grabbed breakfast right before the closed, after which around 1015 I left the hotel and headed back to the station where I grabbed a train to The Hague. From here I did a full day of walking and looking around before returning to the station in the evening around 1900 and returned to Leiden.
Getting my bearings I zig-zagged around until I reached Vredespalais (Peace Palace) before circling back and spending a few hours at Mauritshuis, an art museum with multiple Dutch and Flemish painters (rather; works by said painters), Vermeer and Rembrandt probably being the best known of them. Among many other notable pieces it is also here the Girl With A Pearl Earring is located – probably by far the best known of all the paintings there, but to me the painting with the best PR team. Looking at the many other works hanging here it seems almost borderline boring. But I guess I am not a real art connoisseur and have no idea what I’m talking about.
Trying to figure out what to do next I learnt that MC Escher was Dutch and a museum about him and his works was only a few minutes’ walk from Mauritshuis, so that was naturally my next stop. It was quite an interesting visit, and it turns out that the pictures he is actually known for (impossible stairs, endless waterfall, etc.) are only a small fraction of what he ended up producing throughout his life. He started off with a lot of naturalistic drawings, many from and of the Amalfi coast, and continued on to self-portraits of various kinds, and further onto having mirrors, tessellation, and negative space being a big part of his works. This museum was absolutely worth the 1½ hours I ended up spending there!
On the way back to the station I stopped by an enclosure where some dear were roaming and I got to talking with an elderly local. He recommended me to go and see the Huis ten Bosch (royal palace) which could be seen – albeit at a distance – and the Japanese garden nearby. The 10 minutes’ walk he said it would take to get there was closer to half an hour, and while it was a nice looking palace it was a long distance away from behind the fencing. And the garden nearby might have been nice but it was closed when I made it there and I have no idea.
Back in Leiden I had dinner at a pancake place; mustard soup for starters, a bacon, ham, cheese and mushroom pancake for the main course, and a Dutch waffle for dessert. The pancake was 40cm – if not more – across, and the dish was made with a pancake as base, topping on that and another pancake’s worth of batter on top. 1 single pancake (which technically probably was 2) might not sound like much, but it was quite filling which was helped along by the generous amounts of cheese which was, I suspect, thick slices of cheese and not shredded cheese spread out.
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