Lover of Wine – Travel along on our adventures – DAVID & JANEEN

Our next stop was Frankfurt. This central German city on the river Main is a major financial hub that is home to the European Central bank.

While we were docked close to the city center, the historical section is virtually all rebuilt after WWII but it gives a great idea of what it might have looked like during the day. Those buildings that have survived are few in number and unfortunately when they we anxious to rebuild many of the new buildings are stark 60’s style, very unattractive. However, the Square that now exists is lovely. In this square they have a traditional Christmas Market each year.

After getting back to the boat we cruised down the Main and back to the Rhine stopping at Speyer. Along the way, Janeen joined the Wine and Art Class on the upper deck.

There she had some interesting local wine and tried her hand at producing some floral art.

The Speyer Cathedral that includes tombs of eight Holy Roman Emperors and German Kings dominates Speyer. However, having seen one too many cathedrals, we opted for a special tour to a vinegar tasting.

Now, we have done a LOT of wine tastings even done a Modena balsamic vinegar tasting, but this was our first experience tasting this style of vinegar. Making vinegar is so easy it can be done by accident. Making it on purpose for a specific reason is a whole different story. Our visit to Weinessinggut Doktorenhof (Wine Vinegar Doktorenhof) was certainly an educational trip to try and begin to understand what this was all about.

We began our adventure tasting five different vinegars, varying in sweetness and flavors.

Each one was explained in detail, identifying the fruit or herbs used and also the uses of the vinegar. Some are used as an aperitif and others for overall well being.

Each is infused with different flavor ranging from wild cherries, apricots, vanilla beans, fig, wild oranges, lavender and any number of other things. Basically you start off with a batch of wine and you spoil it using a “mother” starter. This turns the wine into vinegar. Once that is completed add various flavorings to infuse the entire batch with a specific flavor or aroma.

Our guide for the tasting, George, explained the manufacturing process that has been handed down from generation to generation and the philosophy of the house.

While they make a LOT of different blends (over 50) we tasted only five – Ficus – the Fig, Angels Kissing the Night, Tears of Cleopatra, Balsam of St. Damian and Giacomo Casanova. Each was preceded with a description of what was in the blend as well as a story or two. Additionally there was some tasting and even some blending suggestions (champagne and Angels Kissing the Night for example).   Each of the 5 different vinegars was tasted in hand-blown glasses together with chocolates and other treats.

After our tasting we donned a monastic looking robe and headed into the aging cellars. The cellars look very like wine aging cellars – barrels filled with juice. The atmosphere lets one breath pure, healing, vinegar fumes.

There was also a room filled with herbs used as part of the blending process. Vinegars age for a minimum of 3 years and others can go as long as 10 years. The aging process is to fully infuse the herbs into the vinegar and create more complex vinegar.

While I have heard of people drinking filtered apple cider vinegar on a daily basis for health reasons, many people for the same reason use the vinegars produced at Doktorenhof.

We did pick up a bottle of Angels Kissing the Night and I feel better already having had an ounce every day since.

By day six of our River Cruise we had reached the Middle Rhine – more specifically we were on the Rhine River in what is called the middle section and this section is known for its many Castles.

It might be a better description to call these castle fortresses as they were always built for security but they are beautiful all the same. In many cases the castle, built of stone, is above a colorful little village along the river.

Most of these castles were built during the Middle Ages and in most cases they collected tolls for anyone going along the River.

Needless to say, life in the Middle Ages was not pleasant – mostly nasty, brutish and short. It’s little wonder then that these Castles on the Rhine were thick-walled fortifications built with winding staircases, slit windows and uneven cobblestone floors. Castles were built throughout the 12th and 14th centuries to serve as customs control over trade on the river.

By the middle of the 14th century, firearms and canons rendered many castles useless and they were abandoned or they began a slow decline. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) caused more destruction of the fortresses and then King Louis’ armies finished off the rest during the War of Palatine Succession (1688-1697).

There are only three castles that remain relatively intact along the River – Marks burg, Burg Rheinfels and Burg Eltz Castles. Marksburg is the last original castle and the interiors are viewable via a guided tour; Burg Rheinfels Castle is an expansive but gutted shell and Burg Eltz Castle on the Mosel River and is quite popular.

While we were unable to visit any of these castles and the towns along the river, the view was spectacular.

After cruising along for a while, we docked at Oberwesel Germany and went into the village of Bacharach for both a village stroll and tasting of Riesling wines. Bacharach is small, less than 2,000 people, but an enjoyable place to stroll around.

Toni Jost Wines are a small family owned place that has been making Riesling wines for the better part of 180 years! All of there wines come from vineyards they own and maintain. A delightful tasting.

During our walk through the Village,

it was clear it’s not a busy place as there was only one shop open on a Saturday morning.

Since  it is not tourist season, nothing was open, we really didn’t need to buy anything.

There is no question that we have been to a lot of different museums over the years. It’s hard to characterize any particular one that stands out or a particular focus that was the most pleasing. Sure, we have been to the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay in Paris, we have toured various Chateaus in the Loire Valley in France, we have been to the Railroad Museum in Sacramento California and to a number of the museums in Washington DC. However, the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands stands out for both the quality of the art being presented and the way it is presented.

The Kröller-Müller Museum is a national art museum and sculpture garden founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller and opened in 1938. Helene was one of the first European women to put together a major art collection. Her father was a prosperous supplier of raw materials to the mining and steel industries and married a Dutch shipping and mining tycoon, Anton Kröller in 1888. Her husband eventually took over her father’s business and expanded it into a huge enterprise. After taking an art class in 1907, she started buying both contemporary artists work but also recognized the genius of Vincent van Gogh and acquired a large collection of his works.

In the mid 1930’s she had acquired so much art that it filled 3 of their various (large) homes and was determined to turn it all into a museum.

Eventually she was able to broker a deal with the state to purchase a large tract of land with the intention of creating a museum for her collection.  Needless to say, things didn’t happen as quickly as she would have liked but eventually a building was designed and built and she became the first Curator of the Museum.

The Museum is about 80km from Amsterdam but our boat was docked in Arnhem so the bus ride to the Museum took about 40 minutes. Along the way our guide provided background information about the Museum and its collection plus the sights along the way.

Situated in a National Park (there was over 55 square km in size) and surrounded by fields and trees, the Museum itself is not an imposing building – but a collection of three or four single story brick buildings with a sculpture garden around the backside.

OK, clearly the highlights of the collection are varied, but Vincent van Gogh clearly is a major focus. The Museum has the second-largest collection of his paintings including some of the most well know works – Café Terrace at Night, Sorrowing Old Man, The Potato Eaters and many others. However, Helene also collected works by Piet Mondrian, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso

and many others. Upon entering the Museum, we were met by our guide, Iris,

who did a FANTASTIC job of showing us around the place to present the highlights of the collection.

At each stop she was able to give us a wealth of information about the artist and how it became part of the collection.

In some cases she was able to give us a point of reference to better understand the painting and how it became part of the collection.

Throughout our tour the amount of information and the way the art was displayed was fantastic.

I can safely say this was one of the most enjoyable art museums we have visited.

It may be the Netherlands’ second city, but the giant port of Rotterdam is a world capital when it comes to architecture. Unfortunately, during WWII virtually the entire old section of the city was destroyed leaving only 3 or 4 historical structures intact. As a result, the City has been rebuilt with surprising results. Some are ultra modern while others more traditional.

Our walking tour left the dockside area and headed into the main section of the Town. Our first stop was to view the White House (Witte Huis),

which was constructed in 1897 to 1898 in an attempt to follow innovations being done in the US. This building survived WWII and is 45 meters high and is considered to be the Netherlands’ first ‘skyscraper’ and for many years was the tallest office building in Europe.

Moving along we visited the Cube Houses.

Built between 1982 and 1984 the Cube Houses offered an innovative living experience. The Cube Houses consist of 40 small homes shaped like tilted cubes each perched on a concrete pillar giving the impression of architectural ‘trees’ clustered together to make a forest.

Each cube is about 1,000 square feet but certainly a different style.

Our walking tour included the Market Hall.

Having been in a number of City Markets, the Market Hall wasn’t anything similar to what we have seen in the other areas of Europe.

This large inverted U shaped building has a very large central area with an art covered  ceiling and is filled with various shops ranging from food, gifts and other items available. Our first stop was a shop to taste Stroopwafel – a waffle made from two thin layers of baked dough with a caramel syrup filling in the middle.

Very tasty for sure. Next stop Dutch cheese. Henri Willig Cheese – a family operated cheese shop started in 1974 and available throughout the Netherlands.

We say this cheese throughout Amsterdam but never stopped in. This place produces a number of Gouda products and we ended up buying a couple of Sheep Cheese Gouda’s extra Old and Baby Sheep. Hopefully these will stay sealed and we can get them back home without a problem.

One of the other buildings that mostly survived the war and the city’s only example of Gothic architecture is the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk.

Built between 1449 and 1525 it of course started out as a Roman Catholic Church and after the reformation became Protestant.

For centuries Rotterdam has been a major port. To commemorate this, the Maritime Museum was developed and has a collection of vintage ships and exhibits tracing much of this history.

All in all a lovely collection of shipping history.

On Monday we boarded our new home, The River Empress,

for the next 11-days cruising along various rivers from Amsterdam to Basel Switzerland ,stopping along the way at eight different spots on the rivers. Prior to leaving Amsterdam, however, we were treated to a private visit to the Hermitage Museum. This is an Amsterdam based extension of Russia’s famed Hermitage Museum housed in the former Amstelhof, a classical style building from 1681.

Tsar Peter (1682 – 1725) had a special relationship with Amsterdam,  having lived in the city for several years. He founded the very first public museum in Russia, and some of the exhibits at the original Hermitage were items he acquired in the Netherlands. Therefore it only seemed natural to create an extension of the famous Hermitage in St Petersburg in Amsterdam. The Museum was opened about 10 years ago with a rotating exhibit staying for 6-months then being replaced with an entirely new exhibit of items.

One of the first galleries we entered was filled with Old Dutch master paintings.

Many of these painted were completed in the late 1600’s and depicted various Guilds of the time. It seems groups of men would band together for a common cause and then want to have their portrait painted to commemorate the group. The person who paid the most was the more important in the painting while those with lesser means were depicted more in the background. The room holding these paintings is huge – as is required to be able to exhibit these paintings some of which are quite large.

Spotlighted exhibits had a couple of paintings, one by Rembrandt depicting dissections.

Any criminal or a stillborn child could be used for anatomy dissection, as it was believed they would not be going to heaven.

Around another corner was Donna Nuda – oil on canvas, transferred from panel by Leonardo da Vinci. It seems Catherine the Great bought this painting in 1779 from Sir Robert Walpole as a work by Leonardo.

The Musée Condé in Chantilly, France, has a drawing that bears many similarities to this work and that Leonardo specialists largely attribute to the master himself in 2017. Over ten versions of the Donna Nuda exist in various collections. The Hermitage version is the best of them all.

Next was an exhibit of the Green Room Malachite pieces which helped make up the Malachite room in the royal Russian palace.

The stone was considered to be therapeutic for stress relief. It was where all royal princesses were prepared for marriage.

We had the place basically to ourselves for a few hours and it was lovely for sure. The central exhibit contrasted ancient works with modern aspirations of the same theme.

After our visit to the Hermitage we walked over to the Portuguese Synagogue – a late 17^th-century Sephardic synagogue completed in 1675.

This was one of the largest and richest Jewish communities in Europe during the Dutch Golden age and their very large synagogue reflected this. The wood for the arc was jacaranda from Peru. The synagogue remains an active place of worship. The building is still without electricity and all services are held under candlelight.

After our tour, we returned to the boat to settle in for dinner and the evening’s entertainment.

There are over 50 different museums in Amsterdam. Top amongst them is the Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum. However, there are a lot of others including Rembrandt House, NEMO Science Museum, the National Maritime Museum, MOCO Museum, the Cheese Museum, the Houseboat Museum and a bunch of others. As it was impossible to get tickets for Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum was sold out we were pleased to get tickets to the Rijksmuseum.

The Rijksmuseum is a large national museum is dedicated to the arts and history of Amsterdam. Sunday, after our friends Gloria and Jerry arrived, we gathered everyone and walked to the Museum for a visit. Located in Museum Square and close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum and the Concertgebouw it is an impressive building filled with lovely art.

Originally founded in The Hague in 1800 it was moved to Amsterdam in 1808 and was originally located in the Royal Palace. The current building was first opened in 1885 and reopened in 2013 after a ten-year renovation.

It is the most visited museum in the Netherlands with over 2.2 million visitors annually.

Displaying over 8,000 objects of art and history from the total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200 to 2000. Among the collection are pieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer and Vincent Van Gogh.

WE spent the better part of the afternoon walking around the Museum trying to follow the Highlights Tour.

This tour was supposed to bring us to all the most significant pieces in the collection and thus to get us through the place without having to camp overnight.