I met Jos & Christa almost 40 years ago, when I worked at Nationale-Nederland Property & Casualty Insurance in Keene, NH. Jos was on a 3-year assignment in the US from the parent company. We have been friends ever since, although mostly only through holiday greetings and an occasional email. But every time I come to the Netherlands, I try to see them; the last time was a few years before COVID.
Jos was nice enough to meet my flight at Schipol and drive me to their current home in Warmond (about 15 or 20 minutes from the airport). It's a beautiful, if quirky, combination of a couple of different farmhouses that were attached some years ago. My favorite thing about it is that in the dining room there is a dining table: round, with glass in the center, as a topper to a stone well that rises several feet about the floor in that part of the house. It's stunning. This visit, the water was higher in the well than the last time I was there. Anyway, it was lovely to see Jos at the airport, and Christa when we arrived at the house.
We had sat and talked for a while once I was there, then had a home-cooked dinner in the back yard (garden). Then talked some more. I was happy to go up to the guest area and be sleeping in a house instead of a hotel!
Jos & Christa are currently renovating a house in Amsterdam; they may move there eventually, or maybe not. It's actually a building that was an extension of the building that housed the surety company that Jos led for many years. He had expressed an interest in it when the company was still there, and eventually it came on the market and he was able to buy it. It's about 4 meters wide on the street (less than14 ft) and has four floors and a basement. It's in a historic district, so they aren't able to make practically any changes to the outside, but the inside is being totally redone.
Here is the outside (a couple of views) and one of one of the canals that cross right outside the house.
On Monday morning, they were meeting with the architect and builder, so I went into the city with them, and while they were meeting, I walked around that area a little and then headed over to the Royal Palace. It's open for visitors this summer, so I took my opportunity to see it.
The building was built as the Town Hall of Amsterdam, opening in 1655. It was only able to stay the town hall for about 150 years. After the revolution that ended the leadership of the House of Orange, the new Batavian Republic was forced to accept Napoleon's brother Louis as the new king about 10 years later. After being in The Hague and Utrecht, King Louis I moved to Amsterdam and had the Town Hall converted into his royal palace.
The place is really beautiful. I have curated the photos I took down as much as possible, but there was so much to look at!
We met back at the new house, and then headed back to Warmond for some lunch. Christa had a meeting to attend, so Jos and I then headed to Lieden, a city only about 4 km from Warmond. Leiden is known for its centuries-old architecture and for Leiden University, the country’s oldest, dating from 1575. The university Botanical Garden, founded in 1590, where the tulip was introduced to Western Europe. We mostly just wandered around the city (Jos is a great tour guide) and we did visit the botanical garden (witness lots of pictures of nature!).
Then back to Warmond, a phone meeting for Jos, a Zoom meeting for me, and then dinner at a restaurant right on the beach a couple of towns over. A wonderful day!
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