De Hoge Veluwe
Today was an interesting day. As we had missed out on the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam “Onkel Norby” politely told us that there is a much better gallery with more Van Gogh works than we could dream of. We woke up and headed back to the Netherlands to see the Knoller – Muller Museum situated in the middle of a huge park reserve called De Hoge Verluwe. The drive there to begin with was wonderful, driving through parklands and forest alike. The land was owned by a rich industrialist couple Knoller “und” Muller who happened to be one of the biggest private art collectors of the 20th century. Mrs Knoller in a very short time identified a number on artists that she thought were definitive to modern art. She collected 91 major works and 180 in total from Van Gogh to name just one artist. Not even mentioning the sculpture garden representing works from Gerrit Rietveld and Henry Moore that one could get lost in over weeks let alone days. It is a wonder mix of nature versus art set in a endless playground. If you are in the Netherlands please go and if you don't - lie to me that you did.
On our arrival back home we were informed by “Tante” Elizabeth that Norbert friends Engelbert and his wife Doris were coming for dinner. We were eating the local favourite “Spargel” also known to us non-“Neerde Saxon”-folk as asparagus. It was a meal filled with great stories and history, tales of the “terrible war”, to train trips to Russia in the height of communism. What a wonderful experience first hand about a world Ames an I could only imagine. A deep respect formed for the German children who lived on after the war and the mindset of reconciliation they had to adopt.
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