Rembrandt, Edam, windmills, bicycles, canals. It’s almost the full suite of
Netherlands institutions — add Johan Cruyff and weed cultivation, and you’d
have the lot. So, one thing is clear: holidays don’t come any more Dutch
than cycling past windmills in search of Rembrandt while eating cheese
sandwiches and lodging on a barge overnight.
This year is the 400th birthday of Holland’s second- most-famous son (Van Gogh
beats him only by virtue of being madder and having fewer ears), and the
nation is in the throes of a painterly party to celebrate his achievement.
There are new art installations, birthplace walking tours, even a new
musical inspired by Rembrandt’s life. More important, there is the largest
collection of his masterpieces ever gathered in his homeland — which means
it’s a great time to get on your bike and see them.
The 189-mile Rembrandt cycle tour has been dreamt up by the tour operator
World Expeditions, which provides a guide and lays on your hotel boat —
handily berthed at the end of each Lycra-clad leg of your tour, with
on-board chefs ready to fuel you up for tomorrow’s stint at the handlebars.
The route adds up to a perfect week, averaging about four hours’ easy
cycling per day.
You’ll visit Rembrandt’s haunts and ogle his major works, but what are
especially beguiling are the bits that link them together — the soft-focus
landscapes of the Dutch back country, which inspired many of his paintings
in the first place. The barge carries your gear, but if you don’t mind
packing a fat pannier or two, you could easily tackle all or part of the
circuit independently.
Either way, adrenaline-fuelled mountain bikers need not apply. The cycle
culture here mirrors the Golden Age lifestyle: sedate, explorative and just
a little bourgeois. And most of the bicycles on Holland’s roads are of the
sturdy, down-to- earth type — built to carry Mary Poppins on a morning jaunt
to the confectioner’s rather than Floyd Landis on the Tour de France. True,
the Dutch are not averse to squeezing into lurid spandex bodysuits, but
you’ll find those after dark in the seedier quarters of Amsterdam, not
riding the open roads.
And that’s where the trail begins, in the throbbing metropolis — the city
where Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s story came to an end. Amsterdam was
the painter’s home from 1631 until his death in 1669, and the showpiece
Rijksmuseum is exhibiting every last etching of its Rembrandt collection all
year long, headlined of course by The Night Watch, his defining work.
Outside its gates, a specially marked “Rembrandt route” makes a nice
amuse-bouche to the meatier journey to come: get yourself comfy in the
saddle and bump gamely over the cobbles towards the museum on
Jodenbreestraat, located in the Jewish quarter where Rembrandt collected art
and generally lived beyond his means until he went bankrupt in 1656. Look
around and you may well spot grizzle-bearded faces straight out of the
painter’s Old Testament scenes — he frequently tapped up his Jewish
neighbours to model for them.
Beyond the city, urban sprawl quickly melts into full-on farmland, your jarred
spine straightens out again and the whole week’s expedition seems to stretch
ahead to the horizon beneath immense white clouds. Here is the familiar
countryside captured on Rembrandt’s early canvases, but now inlaid with a
filigree of cycle lanes and tracks. Moving through the landscape this way is
a joy: the Dutch have even flattened out the hills to stop anything getting
in the way of their favourite pastime.
About 35 serene green miles later, you’re in Leiden, a university city girdled
by canals and dominated by the gothic ostentation of its 15th-century
church. Rembrandt was born here in 1606, the son of a miller, and you’ll
find his family home in Weddesteegplein impeccably humble and unassuming —
especially compared with the square beside it, which has been transformed
into an avant-garde installation dedicated to his work.
Rembrandt’s other home-town birthday present is another city trail, this time
tracing his beginnings: education at Leiden’s Latin School, apprenticeship
at the studios of Jacob van Swanenburgh. The true aficionado must also visit
the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, currently exhibiting enough miniature
Rembrandt etchings to make your eyes hurt.
Sally south from Leiden for just a couple of hours and you’re in Holland’s
political capital, the Hague, mostly associated with war trials and
humourless austerity. If you come with those preconceptions, you’ll find the
city centre a joyous surprise, its litter of old brick churches the perfect
complement to the stately angles of the Binnenhof parliament building.
Since it’s art you’re after, head straight next door to the Mauritshuis
picture gallery: the Rembrandts here include the pleasingly gory Anatomy
Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, in which Amsterdam’s top surgeon carves up the
forearm of a weirdly luminous corpse. Painted in 1632, this is the canvas
that announced Rembrandt’s arrival as a portraitist of extra-special
vitality. Afterwards, you can survey the other end of his career by viewing
the very last of his 80 self-portraits.
Next, it’s back to Leiden, and then a bumpy day’s ride across coastal dunes to
the picturesque town of Haarlem, dominated by its enormous Grote Kerk. Spin
on northwards, through fields striped with market gardens, flat pastures
humped with black-and-white bovines, and dozens upon dozens of creaking
windmills. Two or three hours more, and you’ll reach the comatose villages
of De Rijp and Schermerhorn, apparently undisturbed since the Peace of
Westphalia.
It’s not hard to pick out the subjects of Rembrandt’s rural sketches here, but
for an impression of how Holland really looked in the Golden Age, reverse
direction and head for the heritage village of Zaanse Schans.
It’s just eight miles up the road from here to Amsterdam again — where, in
truth, the Rembrandt hero-worship seems in danger of spiralling out of
control. Even the city’s Resistance Museum is cashing in on the orgy of
national pride with its exhibit on Rembrandt in second world war propaganda.
But as you settle down for a well-earned drink in Rembrandtplein — perhaps
after a performance of Rembrandt the Musical at the nearby Royal Carré
Theatre — you’ll know that you’ve journeyed far beyond the big-city hype.
Raise a glass to the master, and the soft-pedalling pilgrimage that brought
you a little closer to his vision.
Philip Sen travelled as a guest of World Expeditions
Travel brief
The package: World Expeditions (0800 074 4135,
www.worldexpeditions.co.uk) offers an eight-day guided group cycle on the
Rembrandt Trail for £555pp, including twin-cabin accommodation on the barge
and all meals, but not flights. Tours start each Saturday until September
17. Airlines flying to Amsterdam include: British Airways (0870 850 9850,
www.ba.com), KLM (0870 507 4074, www.klm.com), EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) and
BMI Baby (0871 224 0224, www.bmibaby.com). Or try HF Holidays (020 8905
9556, www.hfholidays.co.uk).
Do it yourself: get hold of the excellent cycling atlas
Fietsrouteatlas 7 — Randstad en Groene Hart, sold at the ANWB shop
(Museumplein 5, 00 31-20 673 0844), behind the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Cycles can be hired from MacBike (20 620 0985, www.macbike.nl), beside
Centraal Station, from £3 per day. If you want the art without the exercise,
Hertz (0870 844 8844, www.hertz.co.uk) has a week’s inclusive car hire from
£129.
The characterful Bilderberg Hotel Jan Luyken (00 31-20 573 0730,
www.bilderberghoteljanluyken.com) is very near Amsterdam’s museum enclave;
doubles from £86. In the Hague, Hotel Corona is converted from historic town
houses (70 363 7930; doubles from £58); and in Leiden, try the Golden Tulip
(71 408 3500, www.goldentulipleidencentre.nl) — unbeatably located, with
doubles from £60.
Birthday treats: where to make the most of the master’s 400th
Amsterdam: as well as its permanent collection, the
Rijksmuseum (00 31-20 674 7047, www.rijksmuseum.nl) has a large exhibition
of Rembrandt drawings; from August 11 until December 31; adults £7, children
free. The Rembrandt House Museum (20 520 0400, www.rembrandthuis.nl) is
displaying the artist’s etchings until September 3; it then plans a show on
the Uylenburgh Company — through which Rembrandt traded — from September 16
to December 10; £5/£1. There is Rembrandt propaganda at the Resistance
Museum (20 620 2535, target=newwww.verzetsmuseum.org) until October 31;
£4/£2. And true enthusiasts can catch Rembrandt the Musical at the Royal
Carré Theatre (20 5249 452, www.theatercarre.nl) until December 10 — it’s in
Dutch but with written “explanation displays” for each scene in English.
Seats are priced from £14 to £48.
Leiden: Rembrandt’s Landscapes is at the Stedelijk Museum De
Lakenhal (71 516 5360, www.lakenhal.nl) from October 6 until January 7;
£7/£4. Next door, the Rembrandt visitors’ centre
(www.rembrandt400-leiden.nl) has regular presentations and scheduled walking
tours; £2pp. Rembrandt’s house in Leiden is not open to the public.
The Hague: the Mauritshuis’s Summer Full of Rembrandt show
runs until September 17 (70 302 3435, www.mauritshuis.nl); £6.50/free
On the web: full details of the nationwide Rembrandt 400
season are available at www.rembrandt400.com. And before you start
pedalling, it's worth getting hold of a Museumkaart, which offers free or
discounted admission to most Dutch museums. It costs £20, or £12 for
under-25s, and is available at museum counters.
