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Countries, Europe, Music

Haarlem Vinyl Countdown

3rd September 20253rd September 2025 funtime65

What goes around comes around which is where we’re at with the Haarlem Vinyl Countdown.

The Haarlem Vinyl Festival in the Netherlands from September 26-28 celebrates old-fashioned 33 and 45rpms.

And is billed as the first global festival to dedicate multiple days simply to the vinyl culture.

Time was, before Spotify, when you would go into town especially just to browse through the records.

And when you found yourself in a new city you’d head straight for the record store.

Record stores across the world

From Oxford Street and Camden Market in London.

To Grafton Street in Dublin to Greenwich Village and Harlem in New York.

Which brings us around to the original Haarlem which gave its name to the borough when New York was New Amsterdam.

Pressing on

The Haarlem Vinyl Festival will give you the chance to immerse yourself across music genres.

Join talks, singing sessions and concerts including the best Dutch acts and a Pussy Riots performance.

And guided tours at Record Industry where you can find out just what goes into the pressing of LPs, or long players.

The factory building houses a recording studio and cutting and mastering rooms.

Galvanics, DMM production, sleeve folding and gluing machines, vinyl pressing, packaging and a print shop.

We’re told that customers will be able to supply RI with an audio master and artwork and they take care of the rest.

From cutting the master to printing sleeves and assembling your product.

Cutting edge

And in their recording and direct-to-disc facility, Artone Studio, you can record your music straight to lacquer or multi track.

All of which reminds us that we’re still waiting on our recording of our John Lee Hooker cover from the Grammy Museum Mississippi.

Spoken into a box or boom, boom, boom, boom box, which I’d put my email on.

But hey, it might not have passed a quality test.

So we’re ticking down the days in the Haarlem Vinyl Countdown to a celebration of the long-playing record.

Now Haarlem is just 20km from Schiphol Airport so plenty of time to explore Amsterdam.

Countries, Culture, Europe

Van Gogh is truly in with the bricks

22nd June 202522nd June 2025 funtime65

A famous contrarian and anti-establishment figure, now Vincent Van Gogh is truly in with the bricks.

His paintings are sold for nine figures around the world and celebrated by elites, ordinary folk and the world of arts alike.

Vincent’s work has, of course, been reproduced on everything.

From tea-towels to t-shirts, ties to swimming trunks to trousers.

And everything in between.

Ginger genius

And now the Ginger Genius has taken on in a new artistic form.

With a new installation in the definitive Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

In the frame: With Rembrandt in Amsterdam

Which should be on every visitor’s trip to the great Dutch city along with the Rijksmuseum and Rembrandt’s house.

Where everyone is invited to get in the picture as part of the living structure in the centre of the city.

It was all yellow

The new installation, the Yellow LEGO house, built from 18,109 bricks brings Vincent’s world to life.

Every detail is inspired by Van Gogh’s life in south France.

From his search for purpose to his rise as a master of colour and form.

Flower power

Blooming marvellous: Can you tell them apart?

The Van Gogh museum is hosting two special workshops this summer in collaboration with the LEGO Group:

Say It with Flowers
Design your own bouquet and discover the symbolic meaning of flowers across different cultures.

Build & Chat
Explore art and creativity through conversation – while building with LEGO bricks.

And what’s more we can have a permanent installation of our own.

Whether that be in your man cave, or more tastefully placed elsewhere in the home.

Your own Van Gogh

You’ll receive a unique Art Print for free with your purchase of the LEGO Art Sunflowers set from the online shop.

What the Great Man would make of his place in the pantheon or building blocks as an art form.

Van Gogh is truly in with the bricks.

Countries, Deals, Europe

Tulips from Noordwijk to Haarlem

26th February 202517th March 2025 funtime65

When it’s Spring again we’ll sing again tulips from Noordwijk to Haarlem.

Because while we rightly celebrate the awesome city of Amsterdam we should also get out and enjoy the rural bulb fields.

Which we first did 35 years ago at the riot of colour that is the flower market in the Dutch capital Den Haag.

Of course, the biggest market of all is the natural landscape of the Netherlands.

Hop on Le Boat

And what better way of savouring it than in a self-driven boat along the iconic Dutch canals?

Particularly when Le Boat is offering up £650 off any departure in 2025.

Valid on any boat except the new Liberty fleet, when booked between 26 February and 18 March 2025.

April marks the start of the boating season when the tulip comes into bloom with the centrepiece the Dutch Flower Parade.

Grand Classique

Gliding along the Dutch canals you’ll take in windmills and waterside villages.

With no experience needed, Le Boat’s self-drive cruisers can go at their own pace.

Le Boat encourages us to stop at traditional markets and soak up Dutch Easter traditions.

A seven-night self-catered stay in the Netherlands starts and finishes at Le Boat’s base in Vinkeeven.

On board a Grand Classique sleeping 10, arriving April 7, priced from £249pp/£2,049 per boat.

Which was £1,429, a saving of £2,699.

Countries

Art, the herald angel sing

25th December 202425th December 2024 funtime65

Art, the herald angel sing.. this is how our great painters are interpreted to have captured our Christmas Tree scene.

From Banksy through Dali, Rembrandt, Monet, Munch, Picasso, Pollock and Van Gogh to Warhol.

And many other great artists in the pantheon too.

All of them reminding us through modern mastery and technology that every Christmas is unique.

And how great art keeps our stories alive and enriches us all and pictures can be understood in any language.

Banksy to Dali

It will surprise us all too how many of these artists we know.

And have embraced too on our travels.

The ubiquitousness of Bristol’s favourite son (we think) means wherever we go, near or far, we get to see the world through his eyes.

In truth, we can see these artists in most of our towns and cities.

My own native city long promoting Salvador Dali’s Christ on the Cross as the apex of its art collection.

Dress up your trees

Amsterdam and Paris (and Rome) have long been centres for art.

And, of course, we wouldn’t dream of visiting the canal city without going to the Rijksmuseum or the Vincent Gogh Museum.

While in this humble art-lover’s view you can keep your Mona Lisa we’re all about the Monet in Paris.

And Munch in Norway makes us Scream for joy.

Now if you’re into your alternative Christmases then the New World brings new interpretations in Pollock and Warhol.

Both of which you’ll find at MOMA in New York and Warhol in his own homestead of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The baubles of your life

Your tree, of course, is yours and you’ll have it dressed up with all the baubles of your life.

But for your downtime after dinner… check how others do it.

Art, the herald angel sing

America, Countries, Europe

Uncle Samta Claus

20th December 202420th December 2024 funtime65

He’s the world’s most recognisable man with his red and white felt fat suit and bobble hat and bushy white beardie but he’s really an American… Uncle Samta Claus.

The Father Christmas we all know and love is surprise, surprise, a US creation and more precisely a New Yorker.

Which the more historical, or Dutch, will recognise as New Amsterdam.

And this matters because it was the early Dutch settlers.

Who brought their Sinterklaas across the Atlantic with them in the 17th century.

Sinterklass act

The colonialists being the masters of reinvention turned the thin Sinterklaas into a more rotund Santa Claus.

In furs rather than bishop’s robes and riding a sleigh pulled by reindeers rather than a flying horse.

And arriving on Christmas Day rather than January 6, Epiphany.

Twas the night

Of course, we should credit writers Washington Irving and Clement Clark Moore for the part they played in the Uncle Samta story.

With Irving’s Knickerbocker’s History of New York popularising the name Santa Claus as the translation of Sinterklaas.

And Clement Clarke Moore’s poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, or Twas the Night Before Christmas, turning Santa into a jolly old elf.

So how do holiday revellers best mark these pioneers and Santa’s journey?

A New Amsterdam Christening

Skate expectations: Rockefeller Center ice rink

Well, there’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (100 years this year) the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting and ice rink.

And the Radio City Christmas Spectacular (The Rockettes).

An Old Amsterdam Christmas

While Old Amsterdam also puts on a show.

With Museumplein turned into Amsterdam Christmas Square every year with markets and an ice rink.

While the most famous lighted area of all in Amsterdam puts Christmas illuminations gloss on the season.

But whether you’re celebrating in New Amsterdam/New York, Old Amsterdam or any point in between or further afield.

Offer a big show-ho-ho of gratitude to Uncle Samta Claus.

Countries, Europe

Tulips on 80 years since Arnhem

23rd September 202423rd September 2024 funtime65

For Brits it’s poppies, but for today it’s the Netherlands’ turn to display their flower, the tulips on 80 years since Arnhem.

The peace poppy is immortalised because of a Canadian officer reflecting on how only it survived the Flemish mud as soldiers fell.

But the story of the tulip, just one of many, is less travelled.

And now with apologies to Robert Burns and his ‘red, red rose’ and William Wordsworth and his ‘golden daffodils’ but it is the tulip which is the king of all flowers.

It is, of course, ubiquitous in the Netherlands and even out of his spring season you’ll see these hooded wonders wherever you go.

Whether you’re arriving in by plane into Schiphol Airport and your eyes are diverted towards House of Tulips.

In the fields obviously and markets, and also in the fascinating Tulip Museum in Amsterdam.

Where, in truth, most of my knowledge about this peripatetic plant originates.

Crowning glory

Making monkeys of us: Breughel captures it all in art

The tulip, for those who haven’t heard me extol its virtues before hails from the foothills of the Himalayas.

And came to the Netherlands from the Ottoman Empire where it was known as the tülbend, or turban.

Revered for its beauty it was passed around the royal courts of Europe and became a huge status symbol.

It helped, of course, that it was perfect for the damp, flatlands of the Netherlands.

Put the two together and remembering that the Dutch had become the mercantile masters of Europe.

And soon the most exclusive tulips were passing hands for the price of a canal townhouse in the Netherlands’ commercial powerhouse.

Until, of course, the market imploded and the Dutch economy was ruined in what was the first trade market bubble.

Manna in the Hongerwinter

Weight of history: The moneymen and the tulips

Not to blame the tulip though but rather the greedy money grabbers because when it came to the Dutch darkest hour the tulip became manna from heaven.

When the poor people of the by-now occupied German territory facing up to the Hongerwinter, or Hunger winter, of 1944-45.

When the Germans burnt the fields, turned again to the flower.

And boiled the bulb for sustenance.

All of which resonates with the Dutch to this day and is why their liberation from the Germans that winter is being marked with tulips.

The first Airborne Tulip Memorials were presented at Montessori College Arnhem last October 31.

In advance of this year’s commemorations of Operation Market Garden.

And maroon tulips were planted at seven local World War II sites as part of the Airborne Tulip Memorials trail.

Maroon to mirror the hue of British paratroopers’ berets, and chosen by one Darren Key, whose grandpa fought at Arnhem.

The next generation

Arnhem’s commemorations for the nine-day battle have been sombre and dignified.

But the Dutch town is also aware of the legacy of the battle and is front and centre in educating visitors today to what happened here 80 years ago.

Visit Villa Hartenstein, the former headquarters of the Allied forces in Oosterbeek which has been transformed into the Airborne Museum.

And witness The Airborne Experience in the basement where you can see the planes and jeeps in the darkness of the battlefield.

And walk among the troops and hear the sound of gunfire.

The soldiers’ story

Follow too in the footsteps of those heroes of old in the centre of Arnhem at Airborne at the Bridge.

Take in for yourself the spectacular view of the world-famous John Frost bridge.

And discover the personal stories of three individuals who fought and died at the bridge during the Battle of Arnhem.

Arnhem is an hour and half drive from Amsterdam.

And don’t forget to buy, plant, or maybe even eat them… the tulips on 80 years since Arnhem.

Countries

30 years with the Travel and Strife

17th September 202417th September 2024 funtime65

You Pearler… 30 years with the Travel and Strife and time to look back and forward.

Our journey, in truth, started four years earlier in Herself’s Homestead, the Royal County of Berkshire.

With our first pitstop a city which for that reason, and its own, will always be magical to us, Amsterdam.

Off the beaten track

Can I be trusted on a bike? In Amsterdam

Twenty-five years spanned our visits to the pride of the Netherlands and we ditched the ubiquitous bikes along the way.

We had taken the road less travelled on our first trip, going to Edam on its half day.

And then taking the wrong fork on the road back to Amsterdam.

We took a different tack when we were invited out to the Dylan.

And so it was canal boats and the luxury of the hotel George and Amal frequent in theirs, and now our, visits to Holland.

Wear slip-on shoes

We all form attachments to those countries and cities we first go to as children and couples.

And Portugal holds a special place too in our hearts despite another cycling mishap in the Algarve.

But one we got to put right in Portugal Centro years later under the guidance of our own Special One Jose Madomis.

Malta would follow when in an unguarded moment I bent down at dinner to tie up my shoelace and she screamed ‘Yes’.

The Scot in me, I went back years later on my own to see if I could redeem on the bottle of Champagne we didn’t finish…

And so Corfu followed for our honeymoon when the handsome Greek waiter was most attentive to our table.

And my bride was blushing when it transpired he was eyeing me up.

On our Travails

We made the most of those intimate moments then, knowing holidays would never be the same when Him and Her came along.

And waited until we could take off again together, to the Soll slopes in Austria.

That road trip around Portugal Centro.

To George and Amal’s gaffe in Amsterdam.

And up the fjords of Norway and around the Rieperbahn of Hamburg.

Still stumbling along the way and trying to get back on track.

And all the time still following Her lead.

Even when that meant us getting on the bus to Berlin instead of Keil.

The Mother of all Dragons

Or turning up in Monaghan a weekend early and turning that Irish Midlands town upside down.

There have been travails aplenty and pleasures like poppy seeds in Rome and Venice and travels to come.

With an anniversary Loveholidays trip to Dubrovnik to come next month with my very own Mother of Dragons.

Just another marker in 30 years with the Travel and Strife.

Bring on the next 30.

MEET YOU ON THE ROAD

Countries, Deals, Europe

Van Gogh travels so learn to paint on holiday

12th September 202412th September 2024 funtime65

When the world’s most famous artist comes to town you start to regret not sticking in at art class, but, here, Van Gogh travels so learn to paint on holiday.

You might instantly think that the Netherlands would be your first port of call.

And we have found a hotel where you can learn the secrets of Rembrandt.

The very same establishment, the 5* Pulitzer Hotel, which fellow travellers have advised has turned guests into budding Vincents.

Artugal for inner Vincents

Luxury Travel Advisor, well, advises us that the Pulitzer introduced a Van Gogh Art Programme a few years back.

So keep your ear to the ground (soz), and we will too, for whether they’re still churning out Van Goghs.

In the meantime we learn that amateur artists are brushing up on their depths of vision in Portugal.

The Hyatt Regency Lisbon is offering its guests a range of art classes.

And you can choose from an Abstract Oil Painting Workshop from £30 per person or Watercolour Landscape Workshop from £25 per person.

And our favourite, of course, Paint like Van Gogh Workshop from £30 per person.

Prices start at £294 per night based on 2 adults sharing a standard room with a queen bed and River View. Price based on October 2024 stay.

A National obsession

Now art need not be forbidding and I venture that it is the most accessible of pastimes.

Free in many museums with the chance to see the world’s foremost painters’ work up close and personal.

And which other discipline can we say that about?

All of which is why there is such excitement at the Van Gogh exhibition Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery, London.

Which is running from September 14 through to January 19 with tickets on sale now.

And boasting more than 60 of the Dutch geniuses.

With the National Gallery inviting us to get up close to his Starry Night over the Rhône and The Yellow House.

As well as the National’s own Sunflowers and Van Gogh’s Chair, among many others.

All as part of the museum’s 200th birthday celebrations (from £24).

Master the art

Now, if, the National Museum’s exhibition pricks your interest then, of course, you should make a Vincent pilgrimage to Amsterdam.

And immerse yourself in the Van Gogh museum.

And maybe even compare your new-found skills for his genre which you learned out in the Hyatt in Lisbon.

Because, despite what my old art teacher Joe Reilly might have said, back in the day.

There is an artist in all of us.

Van Gogh travels so learn to paint on holiday.

And I give you an original Murty… Mill in Tobago. Priceless!

Countries, Europe

Anne Frank’s legacy 80 years on

4th August 20244th August 2024 funtime65

You’re reminded of the anti-Semitism still sweeping the world and Anne Frank’s legacy 80 years on when you visit Amsterdam.

There are few young women who have had quite the impact the German-born, Dutch-raised teenager has had on the world.

It is difficult to envision the life Anne lived with her family and their friends in the cramped annexe in Westermarkt.

But visitors to the Anne Frank House can get a physical sense.

When entering through the false door and treading carefully through the attic.

Until they were given up by an informer on this day 80 years ago.

And the occupants were sent to concentration camps where all but her father Otto died.

The voice of Anne Frank

Somewhere over the rainbow: The inspirational Anne Frank

Many are struck by the claustrophobia, by the torn pictures of Hollywood idols of the day and flowers ripped from magazines on the walls.

Today’s visitors can also hear an actress narrate excerpts from Anne’s diary on headphones.

Something not afforded this visitor the first time I went to Anne Frank’s House 34 years ago.

It chronicles her diary, her many thoughts and observations.

Of her cloistered life one spoke right to this journalist’s heart.

‘I finally realised that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want!’

That Anne would have gone on to become a renowned journalist is undoubtable.

That much is clear from her writings in her diary.

In the footsteps of history’s greats

My peers and I shared that dream at her age.

And we managed to pursue that vocation for 36 years or more.

And it is something I have never taken for granted.

It has also afforded me the opportunity to travel the world.

And retrace the footsteps of the true great figures of history, like Anne.

Anne Frank’s House will, of course, remain a time capsule.

Of a Jewish family’s incarceration in an annexe in World War II.

But it has always served as an outreach programme to warn against the recurring threat of racism.

And visitors are drawn as they exit to boards and literature.

All of which reminds us that anti-semitism and racism is on the rise.

Amsterdam revisited

A house in time: The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam

It was a message I took away from Amsterdam on that first visit in 1990.

Little knowing that come my next trip, on what would have been her 90th birthday, that the situation would have worsened.

As we mark another landmark today it is timely to consider Anne Frank’s legacy 80 years on.

And profer the view that we should all revisit her story, visit her annexe in the biggest city in the Netherlands.

And consider how far we’ve come in the past 80 years from families holed up in annexes because of their faith.

To Muslims hiding in their mosques in today’s Britain.

Countries, Europe

Meghan an Insta impact on Buck House

25th March 202425th March 2024 funtime65

And as if we could ever get away from her… a poll to remind us of how a young American back in the day was already Meghan an Insta impact on Buck House.

With the revelation (small beer in today’s world of big royal reveals) that London is the most Instagrammable city in the world.

Because there was a world BC (Before Catherine) in which Meghan was queen which she know doubt would want to be.

And any hagiography about her had to include a picture of her as a young tourist outside Buckingham Palace dreaming and plotting of nabbing a royal.

All of which peregrinations is my way in today to celebrating London as the Insta destination of kings, queens, Z-list American actresses and us little people.

London calling

Experts at NZCasinoClub analysed numerous city break-related hashtags for European capitals, including #[city], #[city]travel, and #[city]tourism.

With the number combined to create an overall total per city to discover the most Instagrammable European destinations.

London scores 163,530,000 Instagram hashtags with over 2,000 years of history and famous landmarks like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben to get your selfie in front of, although we prefer the Tower.

Paris lights

Of course the NZCasinoClub survey is something of a tale of two cities with Paris coming in just behind.

The City of Lights has 141,283,300 Instagram hashtags.

Et naturellement the Eiffel Tower is a must-have selfie while if you want to dodge the traffic you can try for a piccie round L’Arc de Triomphe.

Now, we’ll let the researchers do the heavy lifting here with their table underneath.

Others in the frame

Only to flag up that our favourites Amsterdam, Rome and Prague all figure.

And, of course, we’ve jumped up at the opportunity to be photographed in the Rembrandt Night Watch, on the Spanish Steps and on the King Charles V Bridge.

But we must of course mention that Ankara features in third, Berlin in fourth and Madrid in 5th.

A victory here for the capital of Turkey over Istanbul and that in itself marks it out as somewhere special.

Ankara, we are told boasts a vast selection of parks, mosques, museums, and performing arts venues dotted around the city and the annual International Ankara Music Festival.

While of all its charms, the researchers flag up Berlin’s visual masterpieces that are a beautiful background for a photo opportunity.

With Kripo’s Yellow Fist outside Friedrichshain station high on that list.

While in Madrid we’re encouraged to get our photies taken outside the Royal Palace and Almudena Cathedral.

All of which our favourite ‘non-working royal’ (most of us who are non-working, are er, unemployed) would have on her list of self-promotion.

Which all started out when she was Meghan an Insta impact on Buck House.

City sights

Bridge of highs: On the King Charles Bridge in Prague

And that list for you…

Rank

City

Number of Instagram Hashtags

1

London

163,530,000

2

Paris

141,283,300

3

Ankara

56,000,600

4

Berlin

53,776,700

5

Madrid

49,639,000

6

Amsterdam

36,359,100

7

Baku

34,930,200

8

Rome

30,237,600

9

Prague

18,871,400

10

Vienna

16,456,700