The Netherlands - Part 1 Great Continental Railway Journeys

I'm embarking on a new railway adventure

that will take me across the heart of Europe.

I will be using this, my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide

dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel

for the British tourist.

It told travellers where to go, what to see and how to navigate

the thousands of miles of tracks crisscrossing the continent.

Now, a century later,

I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.

I want to rediscover that lost Europe that in 1913 couldn't know

that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

My guidebook has brought me to the Netherlands.

In 1913, tourists travelled here to admire the art and architecture

of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age.

The appeal of this self-made nation's heritage was now felt

not just by aristocrats, but by the newly mobile middle class.

"Holland," says Bradshaw's, "was once an extended swamp.

"The people owe not only their wealthy and high commercial

"position, but even the very land, to their own labour and enterprise."

A century ago, the tourists came to marvel at what had been

the world's unlikeliest great power -

a tiny country, substantially reclaimed from the sea,

had acquired a mighty navy and a global empire.

It was fiercely independent,

having once expelled the Spanish who had colonised it.

But in 1913, as world war threatened,

the Dutch wondered whether they could keep foreign armies

at bay as successfully as they held back the waters.

On this journey, I'll travel through three of the 12 provinces

that now make up the Netherlands, along the route

of the country's first railway line.

Beginning in the largest container port in Europe, Rotterdam,

my route turns southeast to the windmills of Kinderdijk,

and then on to the Dutch city of ceramics, Delft.

From there I'll make for the nation's political capital,

The Hague, before heading north-east to call at the historic cities

of Haarlem and Amsterdam.

I'll finish my journey in Utrecht.

'Along the way...' This is absolutely terrifying.

'..I'll get some training in crane driving...'

I didn't expect that.

We got a hole in one.

'..discover a nation that harnessed the wind to conquer the waters...'

30,000 kilos and I haven't even broken sweat.

'..and experience gastronomy on the go.'

I never ate on a tram before

and I don't think I ever had food like this before.

Me neither.

I'm starting my trip in the province of South Holland.

My first port of call will be Rotterdam,

which the guidebook tells me is situated on both banks

of the River Maas about 15 miles from the sea.

The principal seaport of Holland - half the important trade

of the country is received here.

Recent civil engineering work had vastly improved

the harbour's access to the sea.

The Dutch, threatened over the centuries by tidal flooding,

had turned the tables - they had tamed the waters and become

masters of the high seas.

As the old saying goes,

God created the world but the Dutch created the Netherlands.

And nowhere is that conscientious creativity more evident

than in the Netherlands' second city.

After a decade of works,

the redevelopment of this station was completed two years ago.

The Rotterdam that would have greeted Edwardian tourists

has long since vanished.

After its near total destruction in the Second World War,

a mere handful of buildings stand today which travellers

following my guidebook might recognise.

This, according to my guidebook, is the Grote Kerk,

or Church Of St Laurence, close to the railway,

a Gothic brick church dating from 1412 with a tower 210 feet high.

"After the bombing, it alone stood tall amongst the rubble,

"a symbol of Dutch defiance."

My guidebook tells me of Rotterdam harbour's great commercial activity,

and it seems that some things haven't changed.

Since the 17th century,

thanks to its connection to the river Rhine, Rotterdam's docks

had provided the infrastructure for the vast Dutch maritime empire.

And, in 1913, the docks were expanding.

The port of Rotterdam has come a long way since then - literally.

It now stretches 25 miles from the city centre to the North Sea.

Hello, Rob, I'm Michael.

Rob works at the port.

What an extraordinary scene this is.

With no human beings - I can't see a human being in the entire scene.

That's correct, there are no human beings here -

it's an automated terminal.

It works with transponders in the ground.

The AGVs have antennas and they send a signal to the transponder

and the transponder reacts with its coordinates and the AGV knows

exactly where it is and where it's going to, so they never collide.

So it's a very smooth system.

Even politer than a Dutch motorist.

Absolutely politer than a Dutchman.

Every year, an astounding 465 million tonnes of cargo

pass through these docks,

making Rotterdam the largest container port in Europe.

Now, containers - what do they contain?

Everything.

Everything you wear, fruit and vegetables, meat, poultry,

but also iPads, iMacs, smartphones, everything.

The container is everywhere.

Nearly 900,000 containers a year are brought to and from

this port by rail.

And despite the march of the machines,

look carefully and you will find a person.

Nearly 30 metres up,

I'm getting a chance to test my skills with Ben.

-Ben.

-Hello.

How do you do?

Oh, it's a long way down.

I'd been in a crane before,

but in practical things, I'm a slow learner.

Ben, what do we do?

-You drive.

-That's right.

I'm driving to the right,

at high speed.

My God, this is absolutely terrifying.

You tell me when to stop, Ben.

I don't speak a word of Dutch - let's hope that's not

going to be a problem.

Where are we going now, Ben?

-Now?

-Downstairs.

-Down?

-Yes.

-Down goes the grab.

-Yes.

-Down it goes.

-Downstairs.

Downstairs, as you put it.

There we go.

LAUGHTER

I didn't expect that.

We got a hole-in-one. OK.

-This one here?

-No, upstairs.

Yeah, upstairs.

Upstairs, sorry, here we go.

We've got hold of the container and up it comes...

..and jolly fast. And now we've got the container

above the level of the train

and we're going to drop it onto that wagon there, Ben, yes?

Concentrating like mad here.

-Is that right, Ben?

-Yes, downstairs.

Yeah, do you think?

-A bit this way.

-Yes.

Aiming to get those pins exactly in the right place.

-How are we doing, Ben?

-A little bit right.

A little bit right.

-Back a bit.

-Left.

A little bit to the left.

-Downstairs?

-Downstairs.

Another hole-in-one!

Hole-in-one.

You're a good teacher, Ben.

If you think that Rotterdam looks good from the land,

put 500 horsepower under you and take to the water.

This water taxi is taking me east along the Nieuwe Maas River

towards some icons of Dutch innovation

which the Bradshaw traveller would have been keen to see.

My guidebook promises, "Thousands of windmills,

"everywhere in use for drainage."

Today, some of the finest preserved examples are at Kinderdijk.

Here it feels like I've walked into a postcard of the Netherlands -

this is everybody's childhood image of this country.

I suppose it's worth remembering that these are the machines

that enabled the Dutch to conquer the water,

and the people who can do that are capable of almost anything.

Hello, Peter-Paul, it's good to see you.

Former millwright Peter-Paul helps to maintain

this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After the skyscrapers of Rotterdam, this is really quite a contrast.

Yes, well, skyscrapers don't have sails.

Indeed they don't.

These windmills at Kinderdijk -

-how many are there?

-19.

-19.

And these are for drainage?

Just drainage, yes, just to pump water in different stages

from the polders out to the river.

The polder is?

Is a stretch of land surrounded by a dyke which is lower

than sea-level, and when it rains we have to pump out the rainwater.

Thank you very much.

With half of the Netherlands lying at or below sea level,

the Dutch first began working together to keep their feet dry

more than 1,000 years ago.

What do you have to do to get it started?

As you can see, the head of the windmill with the sails is pointing

in that direction but the wind is coming from that direction.

So we have to turn the head round to the right - 30,000 kilos.

Wow.

Well, I'm your man.

Here we go then.

Winding the chain.

This windmill dates from the mid-16th century.

It's the oldest machine at Kinderdijk

and has been carefully restored.

And now we're beginning to move the windmill in the direction

of the wind.

And tough work it is too.

The first part is always the hardest.

This way you use your weight.

30,000 kilos,

and I haven't even broken a sweat.

That's it.

But my work's not done yet.

Here's the sail.

We untie this and then we'll climb up and put the sail on.

Sorry, who climbs up?

You climb up?

Off you go.

With all four sails at top speed, this windmill generates

enough power to move 50,000 litres of water a minute.

The brace is off.

Off she starts.

What a beautiful sight.

As they conquered the waters with windmills,

the Dutch put wind in the sails of their ships and extended

their influence far beyond their own borders.

The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602.

I'm on my way to one of the six cities which raised

the start-up capital for what might be considered the first

global corporation in history.

My next stop will be Delft, which the guidebook describes as,

"An old-fashioned town with clean canals bordered by lime trees.

"The pottery was renowned in the 17th and 18th-century."

Now that involves very intricate work.

I wonder what made the craftsmen of Delft so deft.

Throughout the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company

brought back all manner of goods from the far reaches of the globe

and generated the vast wealth of the Dutch Golden Age.

This square in Delft is really a very charming place -

everywhere little gabled houses,

higgledy-piggledy, leaning this way and that.

And all around these soaring towers telling me

that this city of ceramics must once have been very rich.

Edwardian tourists would have been familiar with the city's

most famous product, also known as Delft Blue.

Blue and white patterned china filled British homes,

although much of that so-called delftware

was an imitation made in Britain.

By 1913, this place was the only pottery left in the city

where this iconic earthenware was fired and hand-painted,

and it remains so today.

Helen Taylor is showing me around.

Bradshaw's talks about Delft being renowned for pottery

in the 17th and 18th century.

Why Delft?

When the Dutch seamen brought the Chinese porcelain back from China

and it became very popular in the Netherlands,

after a couple of decades there was Chinese Civil War

so we couldn't import the Chinese porcelain any more.

In Delft there was an ailing brewery industry -

there were lots of factories empty

so there was space to make pottery.

So that's what they started to do.

And was what the Dutch made here actually porcelain?

No. As soon as they started to make it here,

it changed into earthenware.

And how do you make it?

This is fluid clay and we pour it into a plaster mould as such.

If you want to try?

You have to pour carefully.

Up to the rim.

When we leave it for a couple of minutes like a thimble like this,

a thin crust appears in the mould.

Pour the remaining clay back into the jug.

Good?

And now we just need to leave it to dry.

I have one I made earlier down here.

This is just dried clay, and as you can see you can just

lift the thimbles out because it's shrunk in the mould.

You see an example of a vase over there which is dried clay.

And that came out of a mould like this?

Exactly, yes.

Each piece is then fired for the first time before it's ready

to be decorated.

But this apparently is decorated in black?

Yes. The black paint consists of pigment cobalt oxide

and that undergoes a chemical reaction in the oven

and turns it from black into blue.

Beautiful.

A favourite with the Dutch monarchy,

the factory received its royal warrant in 1919.

Royal Delft factories' special pieces are hand-painted

by highly skilled master painters.

Hello.

Are you Leo? I'm Michael.

Leo De Groot has been honing his craft for 38 years,

and he's going to show me how it's done.

You place the stencil on the tile.

We have a bag of charcoal powder here.

You rub over and it's perforated,

and those tiny little holes leave a mark like a sketch.

Press firmly.

OK. That will do.

Then we take it off and if we're lucky we see the picture.

That's lovely.

We start with a very fine brush.

Now we're going to trace the lines on the tile.

Don't push too hard on the brush.

If you mix the paint with water, you can make some light shades of grey.

Leo, I have a great sympathy with my subject, so this is really

a great pleasure.

But I'm making a bit of a mess, as you can see.

I know how difficult it is.

Thank you.

It's going to look like a train now.

Well, that's a coincidence, I think.

Do you think that the Dutch royal family would like to make

a present of that tile to foreign dignitaries?

I'm not sure.

I doubt.

I think I might be better at riding trains than painting them.

I'm leaving Delft bound northwards.

In 1913 this area was at the cutting edge of Dutch rail travel.

Just five years earlier, the first electrified railway

in the country connected Rotterdam with Scheveningen via The Hague.

I'll leave this train at The Hague, which Bradshaw's tells me

is the political capital of Holland,

the residence of the queen and the seat of the government.

"A town of broad and handsome thoroughfares,

"with stately public buildings and houses."

Already the sweet smell of power fills my nostrils.

Bradshaw's tells me that its Dutch name, 's-Gravenhage,

means "the Count's enclosure".

Once a hamlet close to the castle of the Counts of Holland,

it grew to become the political centre of the Netherlands.

Its heart is the Binnenhof.

Set on the beautiful Hofvijver Lake,

this complex of buildings contains the Senate,

the oldest house of parliament still in use in the world.

-Eddy, hello.

-Good morning.

Eddy Habben Jansen educates citizens about democracy.

I'm just thrilled to be amongst this beautiful collection

of government buildings.

My Bradshaw's says the Binnenhof is an extensive range of buildings

dating from 1250.

That's correct. It was originally built as the castle

of the Counts of Holland in the middle of the 13th century.

So how does it go from being the castle to being what is now?

And particularly associated with parliament?

When the Republic of the Netherlands was established

in the 16th century, they needed a neutral place to gather, to meet.

Having thrown off their colonial masters, the Spanish Habsburgs,

the Dutch formed a new country that was a loose federation

of provinces, and each one zealously guarded its autonomy.

The Hague was the ideal place to meet

because it was not one of the cities.

So none of the cities had the advantage of becoming

the capital city, so it was the perfect neutral ground to meet.

But the Dutch provinces did recognise the benefit

of banding together when it came to foreign affairs.

And on important occasions, political leaders would meet here

at the Ridderzaal or Knights' Hall.

Nowadays it hosts the annual state opening of the Dutch Parliament.

What a glorious building, absolutely stunning.

This is where the Dutch political system was born actually.

We have established a tradition of seeking compromise.

It still plays an important role today in our politics.

We always have coalition governments of two,

three or sometimes even more political parties.

That sounds to me very, very awkward, I'm not sure I'd like that.

But how does it work here?

Well, it has been working like this for more than a century

with a system of proportional representation.

We're very used to negotiating.

And what character does that give Holland on the international scene?

In the 19th century and until the Second World War,

the Netherlands was always neutral in international politics.

So this made it an ideal place for International Peace Conferences.

Here in this hall we had the Peace Conference of 1907.

As tensions rose between the major European powers before the outbreak

of the First World War, the Netherlands protected its economy

and security by remaining resolutely neutral.

Yet the Dutch were not mere bystanders -

in The Hague they twice hosted international negotiations

on the proper conduct of war.

But before a third Peace Conference could take place, war broke out.

And in that total war, those so-called Hague Conventions

were quickly broken.

So here we are in The Hague in this really marvellous set of buildings,

talking about the very ancient origins of your democracy,

talking about your history of neutrality,

of moderation -

do you feel very proud of this?

I think the Netherlands is proud of it, yes,

and particularly the city of The Hague which is the city of

peace and justice where lots of international institutions

are related to peace and negotiations.

I'm keen to see more of this worthy city of peace,

and luckily for me The Hague offers

an unusual sightseeing experience by rail...

Watch your step.

-Hello, fellow lunchers.

-Hello.

'..on board a tram which serves haute cuisine.'

Would you mind if I join you?

Yes, of course.

-This is lovely, isn't it?

-Yeah.

OK, let me start with a cupcake.

Good idea.

-Lekker.

-Lekker?

Delicious, in Holland.

-Lekker.

-Lekker.

Yeah, everything is lekker.

That looks amazing.

So the longer you add the flavour,

the more flavour this broth will have.

-Like a tea?

-Yes. Enjoy.

Here we go.

I never ate on a tram before

and I don't think I ever had food like this before.

Me neither.

-Lekker again?

-Yes, again.

The man behind this magical gastronomy

is executive chef Pierre Wind.

Chef.

My great pleasure. Did you like it?

I loved the lunch, thank you so much.

Satisfaction?

Absolute satisfaction, complete.

But listen, how do you do it in this tiny kitchen?

It is really mathematics and a kind of science.

It's very difficult,

but the first time is difficult but the second time is easy,

the same as love.

I love it, thank you, Pierre.

Thank you very much.

-A great lunch.

-OK.

A memorable lunch.

Next time my Dutch tour continues

as I root around the world's largest flower auction.

Tell me there are some rules here, right?

There are some rules of the road, are there?

Well, they say they have traffic rules.

Discover the story of the Dutch Golden Age.

Amsterdam was the Dubai of the 17th century.

And tackle a fusion banquet from the age of Empire.

-OK! Very good, peace.

-Thank you.

Enjoy!