CRUISES: Cruising On Top of the Low Countries with Uniworld

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

The Netherlands is a small country, only 70 miles east to west and 300 miles from north to south – and one third is below sea level. The Dutch are the world’s leaders in fighting the seas. They have been used as consultants on water projects by Venice. London and several coral islands but even the Dutch must be wondering if global warming is in their future. We’re cruising above this small country in a small boat only 361 feet long and 37.5 feet wide. That seems appropriate; we suspect we’re sailing in canals, lakes and other waterways rather than rivers but fortunately we are not the navigators.

We had felt we were running out of European rivers with Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection. We’d sailed the Danube and the Rhine with them and the Rhone and the Seine and some other rivers whose names we’d forgotten but now we were sailing over a land that was one third below sea level on waterways that were more canal and lakes than rivers, amongst people that were more farmers than sailors – and marveling at the variety of what we were seeing: from Medieval museums to the windmills of the Zaan district, named the oldest industrial area in the world – such was once the command of wind power.

We are seeing how a small country became the largest maritime power in the world in the 1600s, the Dutch Golden Century. We are hearing about this country that grows 4000 different types of tulip, makes three million pairs of clogs and sells 27 million Edam cheeses every year. And when we wander this flat and easily explored land and dodge the Wild Ones, the biking masses who seemingly come at us from every direction, we are prepared to believe the verity that there are more bicycles than people in this great land of cheese and chocolate. Actually 850,000 bicycles are stolen every year in the Netherlands out of a total of two million!

And we’re doing the Netherlands the easy way because we discovered European river boating a long time ago, water travel the way the early natives themselves moved across this ancient continent. The rivers were here long before the roads, before countries had political borders, before there were even written languages. But of course with companies like Uniworld it’s a lot more elegant especially on the River Queen, the boat acclaimed by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler as “the Number One ship in the entire cruise industry.”

You see how upscale your boat is when you come aboard: there’s a small library but the chairs are comfortable and you sense you’ll be there more than at the bar. But maybe we’ll be more in the lounge in the afternoons because that’s where they hold afternoon tea. You get the feel of the boat quickly: it’s small. And it’s a boat not a ship; river boaters are proud to make that distinction. In the annals of transatlantic cruising is the story that some Hollywood celebrity once sought out the captain of the Queen Mary to ask him blithely, “Say Captain, when does this city arrive in New York?”

We have two nights in Amsterdam at the start which allows for shore excursions and a lot of free time to explore our own interests. The National Maritime Museum is a fairly quick walk from where the River Queen is tied down. But it’s a huge new museum and wandering its halls is not a quick walk. The paintings and artifacts show why the 16th century was Golden for the Dutch. It ruled the waves.

There are passengers who like to sail and others, probably a majority, who choose a cruise because of its shore excursions. River boats win here as they are never far from an attraction. We once cruised from San Diego to Hawaii on a 15-day cruise but ten of the days were spent on the open ocean! On this cruise, Uniworld’s “Windmills and Tulips” cruise there were 22 shore excursions offered and, by far, most were complimentary. Uniworld is changing in 2014 to all-inclusive cruises which will make then even more attractive.

So even when you sail around the port of Rotterdam you can think about your forthcoming visit to Delft and even going through the canals of the Low Countries you can start counting windmills. You will see plenty. At one time Holland had 10,000 but even today still has 1000.

The ports of call are chosen for the attractive shore excursions they would facilitate. The variety from a river boat cruise seems endless. From the National Liberation Museum in Groesbeek-Nijmegen near the city of Arnhem to famous 16th century Dutch East Indies ports like Hoorn and the village Enkhuisen that became entirely an outdoor museum when a dam closed off the Zuiderzee (South Sea) and turned it into a lake, there are so many fascinating places. Dutch explorer Willem Schouten named the craggy cape at the tip of South America Cape Horn in 1616 after his home town.

River boat cruises like Uniworld’s don’t take you to a country, they take you into a country into its very heart and into its history. But in the evening even in a relatively small boat you look for some entertainment. Amazingly, Uniworld takes care of that too: A university lecturer on Dutch Art, a silversmith showing his skills, two separate three string groups, local choirs, and a local dance group of 30 members where the woman MC (who was not dancing because she and her husband had been in a car crash and she had a cast on her ankle) asks us to guess how long the dancers have been married. She points at each couple. “Married 32 years,” she says. “And this couple? 50 years! And this one? 57 years.” She drops her voice and asks,” This couple?” Then she says in a louder, more stern voice. “They are not married. That is my husband! That’s why he has a black eye!”

And we thought the phrase Going Dutch  meant something else.