Hook of Holland
"It was still a couple of hours till dawn when we dropped anchor in the Hook of Holland [...] I hadn't known that Rotterdam was a few miles inland. I was the only passenger in the train and this solitary entry, under cover of the night and hushed by snow, completed the illusion that I was slipping into Rotterdam, and into Europe, through a secret door."
Paddy arrives in Hook of Holland on the 10th of december 1933. He took the train to Rotterdam here from the old Hook of Holland Harbour Train Station .
Photo on the left: August 2022. Hook of Holland train station, opened in 1893.
Rotterdam
"I wandered about the silent lanes in exultation... Snow was piling up on the shoulders of a statue of Erasmus."
Paddy saw the statue of Desiderius Erasmus, a dutch theologian, philosopher, writer and humanist, born in Rotterdam in 1466. Apparently it's the oldest bronze statue in the Netherlands, opposite the Grote Kerk.
Photo on the right: statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam, 1622.
"The Lanes opened on the Boom[p]jes, a long quay lined with trees and capstans, and this in its turn gave on a wide arm of the Maas and an infinity of dim ships."
In 1940 the bombing of Rotterdam destroyed most of the buildings of De Boompjes. The old seaman's taverns here are gone today, only a few old houses and crafts remain.
Photos below: you can still see some old parts of De Boompjes that were not destroyed during the war.
Paddy describes that at the crack of dawn he finds a tavern in De Boompjes that is already open. After coffee and breakfast, he prepares for departure, still before sunrise.
"I put on my greatcoat, slung the rucksack, grasped my stick and headed for the door. The landlord asked where I was going: I said: 'Constantinople'. His brows went up and he signalled to me to wait: then he set out two small glasses and filled them with transparent liquid from a long stone bottle. We clinked them; he emptied his at one gulp and I did the same. With his wishes for godspeed in my ears and an internal bonfire of Bols and a hand smarting from his valedictory shake, I set off. It was the formal start of my journey."
Photo on the left: the stone bottles are sold by Bols (1575) to this day.
"I hadn't gone far before the open door of the Groote Kirk - the cathedral attached to the enormous belfry - beckoned me inside. [...] Except for this church, the beautiful city was to be bombed to fragments a few years later. I would have lingered, had I known."
Paddy visits the Grote Kerk of Rotterdam on his first day in Holland before he leaves Rotterdam. During the bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940, the church was heavily damaged. Only the walls and tower of the church remained standing. The church was restored after the war. This took al long time; the restauration was finished in 1968.
Photos below: The open doors of the Grote Kerk (or 'Laurenskerk') in Rotterdam.
"When the snow stopped, the bright morning light laid bare a wonderful flat geometry of canals and polders and willows, and the sails of innumerable mills were turning in a wind that was also keeping all the clouds on the move..."
The village of Kinderdijk between Rotterdam and Dordrecht along Patrick's trail is a nod to the past. Everything here is below sea level. The nineteen remaining mills here were built in the 18th century to keep water out of the polders.
Photo on the right and below: the windmill complex of Kinderdijk (UNESCO World Heritage).
"My spirits, already high, steadily rose as I walked. I could scarcely believe that I was really there; alone, that is, on the move, advancing into Europe, surrounded by all this emptiness and change, with a thousand wonders waiting."
Today, Kinderdijk is the largest concentration of old windmills in Holland and one of the best-known Dutch tourist sites. The mills are listed as national monuments and the entire area is a protected village view since 1993. They have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997.
Dordrecht
"It was dark when I was close enough to see the tower and the town of Dordrecht [...]. The clip-clop of clogs on the cobblestones - a puzzling sound until I looked out of the window - woke me in the morning. The kind old landlady of the place accepted payment for my dinner but none for the room: they had seen I was tired and taken me under their wing. This was the first marvellous instance of a kindness and hospitality that was to occur again and again on these travels."
Photo on the left: the tower of the Grote Kerk or Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk of Dordrecht at sunset.
Gorinchem
After his overnight stay in Dordrecht, Paddy walks via Sliedrecht to Gorichem.
Somebody had told me that humble travellers in Holland could doss down in police stations, and it was true. A constable showed me to a cell without a word, and I slept, rugged to my ears, on a wooden plank hinged to the walland secured on two chains under a forest of raffish murals and grafitti. They even gave me a bowl of coffee and quarter of a loaf before I set off."
Photo on the left: the building at Hoge Torenstraat 10 was used as a police station at the time Patrick was here and it's probably the building where he spent his first overnight stay in a prison cell. Today the building serves as a home care institute. In the photo behind the former police station you can see the tower of the Dutch Reformed Church, the 'Grote Toren'.
".. at Gorinchem the Waal was joined by the Maas. In the morning I could see the great stream of the Maas winding across the plain towards this rendez-vous.."
Photo on the right: the rivers Maas and Waal join (photo to the right) at the fortified town of Woudrichem.
Photos below: what we see at Woudrichem is an old old branch of the river Maas that was dammed in 1904. This part of the Maas is located on the east side of Woudrichem.
Nijmegen
"It was dark long before I reached the quays of Nijmegen. Then for the first time for days, I found myself walking up a slant and down again. Lanes of steps climbed from the crowding ships along the waterfront.."
Nijmegen is located on the outer bend of the Waal. The outer bend of a river entails danger, because the river can move outwards. On the other hand, an outer bend is convenient for a trading city. Deep water at the quay is necessary for mooring ships. This partly explains Nijmegen's location on an outer bend of the Waal. Most of the buildings are uphill here for this reason.
Photo on the right: stairs from the Waalkade to the higher buildings above. De 'Bastei' on the left is a museum for nature and cultural history on the Waalkade.
Photo below left: area Waalkade Nijmegen and view on the Stevenskerk. Photo below right: the railway bridge was the first bridge over the Waal in Nijmegen (1879). The original bridge had three spans and was blown up during the second world war. The bridge was rebuilt after the war and modernized in 1984. Now instead of three, only one arch was constructed. At the time it was the railway bridge with the longest span in Holland.
"I knew it was my last night in Holland and I was astonished how quickly I had crossed it.." [...] "I stuck to the south bank and followed the road for the German border.[...] The officials at the Dutch frontier handed back my passport, duly stamped, and soon I was crossing the last furlongs of No Man's Land, with the German frontier post growing nearer through the turning snow. [...] Beyond it were the snow-laden trees and the first white acres of Westphalia.
Goch
"The first landmark is the town of Goch, which I reached by nightfall. [...] I think the inn where I found refuge was called 'Zum Schwarzen Adler'. It was the prototype of so many I fetched up in after the day's march ..."
The building where Paddy spent this (first) night in Germany is still there. It's no longer a 'Gaststätte' but a private residence located in the Ostkirchstraße in Goch, and dates from the second half of the 19th century. The name 'Zum Schwarzen Adler' on the building has disappeared but the decoration of the black eagle ('Schwarzen Adler') is still present. Apparently the decoration is part of the monument that the building currently is.
Photo on the right depicting the black eagle on the front of the former Gaststätte.
Photo below: the former Gaststätte Zum Schwarzen Adler (on the right side with the eagle) and the Ostkirche in Goch.
Kevelaer
"I halted that evening in the little town of Kevelaer. It is lodged in my memory as a Gothic side-chapel overgrown with ex-votos. A seventeenth-century image of Our Lady of Kevelaer twinkled in her shrine, splendidly dressed for Advent in purple velvet, stiff with golden lace, heavily crowned and with a many-spiked halo behind a face like a little painted Infanta's."
Since 1642, a grace statue (etching) of the Virgin Mary has been venerated in the Marian pilgrimage site of Kevelaer (photo's below). This statue of grace is known as the 'Consolatrix Afflictorum': the 'Comfortress of the Sorrowful'. The Chapel of Grace (photo on the right) was built around the original prayer column in 1654.
Photos on the right, below and far below: Our Lady's Shrine in the Chape of Grace and street scenes of the city of Kevelaer.
"Even the leaden sky and the dull landscape round Krefeld became a region of mystery and enchantment, though this great industrial city itself only survives as a landmark for a night's shelter."
Photos below: the surroundings of the industrial city of Krefeld. The Rhine is about 7 km east of the city centre.
Düsseldorf
"But, at the end of the next day, the evening flush of Düsseldorf meant that I was back on the Rhine! There, once again, flowed the great river flanked by embankments, active with barges and spanned by an enormous modern bridge (called, slightly vexingly, the Skagerrakbrücke, after the battle of Jutland) and looking no narrower than when we had parted."
The Oberkasseler Brücke (1898) was named 'Skagerak Brücke' in 1933 after a naval battle in the First World War. In 1945 the Skagerak Brücke was blown up by the German Wehrmacht to slow down the advance of the Allied Forces.
Photos below: a postcard (1908) with the old Oberkasseler Brücke and the same spot with the current Oberkasseler Brücke taken (by me) on the same spot in august 2022. The white castle tower on the right is called the 'Schlossturm', one of the oldest structures in Düsseldorf. The round tower was built around the year 1386 with a total height of 33 meters. Since 1984, the Maritime Museum has been housed in the Schlossturm.
"A tram clanged by with its lights still on, although daylight was beginning and when we reached the heart of the city, the white inviolated gardens and frozen trees expanded round the equestrian statue of an elector."
The statue that Paddy describes is of Johan Wilhelm ll, elector in Dússeldorf at the end of the 17th century. The statue stands right in front of the old Rathaus in the middle of the Marktplatz. Johan Wilhelm became a great promoter of art and culture. He founded an opera and an art academy in Dússeldorf.
Photo on the left: equestrian statue of Willhelm II in Düsseldorf (1711).