Day 25 - Den Haag

Johan and I aren't city folk. We've spent the better part of our adult lives in country towns, minus the five years living in Fremantle when we ran a newspaper business. Thus, when we travel, we tend to avoid the big cities. Though we have spent time in Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin and Munich -- and managed a good time without too much stress.

We've also spent the last nearly four weeks winding our way through the rural countryside and towns of the Netherlands so our fitness for urban reality is not good. Still, we thought it fun to spend a weekend in The Hague, slightly more manageable in size than Rotterdam or Amsterdam, plus there's a jazz festival on.

We cycle in to the centrum just past noon. Our aim is to tour the grand buildings of The Hague before heading out to the jazz festival in Scheveningen. Turns out it's Veterans Day in the Netherlands and the planned parade through the city center has resulted in many blocked streets, including the ones we need to get through to visit the grand buildings. We watch the festivities -- long lines of marching veterans from every war the Dutch have ever fought in the current living generations. Old men with their crook backs and rumpled faces, blue suits decked out with whatever metals of honor they achieved during their time of service, waving gnarled hands at the crowds. Overhead three WWII fighter planes fly over and the crowd cheers. Then three military helicopters, their thrumming blades offbeat with the marching boots. Finally, six present day military aircraft flying in precise formation, ear-splitting roars that drown out even the marching band. Is this a festive fly-over or a show of military might? (Putin, are you watching?)

The streets of The Hague are crammed with walkers, bicyclists, cars, motorbikes, strollers, skateboarders, roller skaters, old people in electric golf carts. Like any big city these days, the crowd is an amalgamation of multiple ethnicities, the result of mass migration over the past decade or two as the East flows into the West. The quintessential Dutch, with their wide eyes, unblemished fair skin and feathery straight hair, is lost in this sea of Asian, Middle Eastern, African, Latin American  and lots of hybrid faces. The new melting pot.

The buzz of the city is invigorating -- for a while. Tall buildings, ancient and new, narrow streets, endless shops, outdoor cafes and food shops -- so many! -- and bands and waves of people, flowing in and around each other like a trail of busy ants. The only way to manage the chaos is to go with the flow -- and then suddenly it's not chaos anymore and surprisingly few accidents happen. (We learned this driving motorbikes in Chiang Mai and now riding bicycles in Holland!) When it's time for lunch, we park the bikes and take to walking through the malls where only pedestrians and bikers are allowed.

We never manage to cross the barricades to the grand buildings, so instead we cycle to Scheveningen to check out the jazz festival. The "Jazz Flavors" music turns out to be a fusion of jazz, dance and popular music -- some good listening, some worth dancing to, all of it loud. One stage is in an old church, gutted of pews and props of its nearly four centuries of Christian service. The festival organisers haven't provided chairs so the crowd -- many of whom are over 60 -- are standing, beers in hand, craning their necks to see the band. The acoustics in the church -- built to swallow the hallowed music of organs and cantor choirs -- is appallingly bad for loud jazz. We sit at the very back -- what was once the sacred sanctuary -- amongst other older couples who are coveting the few available chairs.

The second stage is outside in the church tuin (garden), where the music bounces off the circle of three story apartment buildings surrounding the church. People of every age are dancing to Massada, a high-energy marimba band very popular with the Dutch in the 1980s. The musicians are now past their prime but still jiving with great rhythms and good syncopation.

But it's starting to drizzle -- as forecast -- which soon turns to rain. We put on our rain gear. Others huddle under umbrellas or just stand out and get wet in it. Many go home. The next band is late starting and the lead guy tells us all to go inside until they're ready -- 20 minutes? Inside a black man with long dreadlocks and a bright red and orange jersey is playing his trumpet -- improvisational, impromptu. A highlight of the festival.

We skip the last two shows and mount our bikes for a soggy ride back to the B&B. It's been a mixed-bag sort of day.

The Hague