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Visiting the Netherlands by plane

image Because I have been learning Dutch over the past year or so, I have been flying to Holland on a regular basis to practice both my flying and my (very poor) language skills.

Here are a few articles on this blog about my various Dutch flying experiences and some interesting places to visit when you get there.

Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague

Mauritshuis Museum It might seem a bit self-indulgent to fly all the way to Holland to go to a museum, but the Mauritshuis in The Hague (Den Haag in Dutch) is worth it.

It is home to some of the greatest masterpieces of Dutch painting in the world, including Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and the View of Delft (which ripples with light and texture on canvas but defies reproduction). I loved the way that Vermeer’s girl catches your eye across the room. “Don’t look at that painting of a Goldfinch,” she says. “Look at me.” Michiel Sweert’s eyes down, demure painting of a young maid is the perfect companion.Girl with a Pearl Earring

When I visited there was also an exhibition of Dutch portraiture which had displaced much of the permanent collection. I was delighted to see it, however, because I had missed it in London, despite buying tickets in advance and generally intending to go for weeks on end. This exhibition ends on 13th January 2008 so I just caught it.

Besides the Vermeers, there are some world-famous paintings – some Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp or Fabritius’s Goldfinch, for example – but the less familiar (but equally noteworthy) paintings are not ashamed in their company. I enjoyed them more because of the joy of discovering something beautiful for the first time. Who knew that paintings of church interiors or people skating on the ice could be so enchanting?

image It is a compact museum. The basement contains the obligatory shop and cafe and there are just two floors of exhibitions. With so little space, every painting has to be a masterpiece and they don’t disappoint.

The museum doesn’t overwhelm. The modest scale of the rooms and the well-judged organisation of the paintings mean that you can go to the Mauritshuis and emerge a couple of hours later without feeling like you’ve run a cultural marathon (as at, say, the Louvre or the Met in New York). It’s art without the pain barrier.

Information

Website: www.mauritshuis.nl

Address: Korte Vijverberg 8, The Hague

Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm, Sundays and holidays 11am-5pm

Admission: €9.50

Nearest airport: Rotterdam

Rotterdam (EHRD)

Airport information

Nearest town: Rotterdam (about 15 minutes by car), The Hague (Den Haag, about 30 minutes by car), Delft (about 20 minutes by car)

Opening times: H24

Longest runway: 2200m, Asphalt

Fuel: 100LL, Jet A1

Phone: 01271 919 9000

Website: www.rotterdam-airport.nl, Wikipedia entry

Netherlands AIP with plates and airport information

Airport picture

KLM Jet Center Rotterdam

KLM Jet Center at Rotterdam Airport

Airport map

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Facilities

  • Handling: KLM Jet Center (+31 (0) 10 298 4949, www.jetcenter.nl). Expect to pay around £170-230 for a light aircraft including a return taxi trip to Delft, Rotterdam or The Hague. Handling is mandatory and expensive but very helpful. They can sort out your flight plan, weather, ground transport and so on. There is a comfortable pilot lounge and computers for accessing the internet. KLM Jet Center is very suave but a (slightly) cheaper option for handling is Avia Partners. Their handling runs to about £70 and then you have to pay a landing fee to the airport authorities of around £20. However, you don’t get the red carpet treatment and you have to go through the main terminal security checks (take the crew line, not the passenger line) and then wait for a crew bus to the plane. It takes 30m or so to get from curb to plane compared to 5m at KLM.  Your money, your time, your choice!
  • Taxis. There is a taxi rank at the main terminal but it is a five minute walk from the GA terminal.
  • Car hire. Avis (+31 (0)10-4332233), Europcar (+31 (0)10-4371826), Hertz (+31 (0)10-4158239), Sixt (+31 (0)10-4627221), National (+31 (0)10-2865966).

On the airport or within walking distance

  • Restaurants. The Grand Cafe / Restaurant Horizon is located airside in the main terminal.

Restaurants

Activities

  • Delft. Delft is a 20 minute taxi ride from the airport. A beautiful town full of canalside cafes and shops, like a scaled down and more intimate Amsterdam. It was Vermeer’s home town although little remains of his presence (although a Vermeer centre reopened in January 2008.) There are many shops selling the famous Delft Blue porcelain but there is also a factory shop and museum outside the town centre.
  • Mauritshuis Museum. Fantastic and delightfully compact museum of Dutch painting in The Hague. Read the Golf Hotel Whiskey review.

Useful information

Parkheuvel Restaurant

I fly from a small airfield, Denham, in Northwest London. Because it is sandwiched between Luton and Heathrow airspace, it is always a challenge to gain altitude and join airways quickly. On the day of our trip to Parkheuvel, I was lucky. A friendly controller let me begin the climb within minutes of take off and we quickly reached 8,000 feet over North London. The view over the city was crystal clear. The flight to Rotterdam was over quickly and we taxied up to KLM’s smart private aviation terminal. A taxi was already waiting and we went from the plane to the car in under five minutes.

Parkheuvel entrance

I had been looking forward to visiting Parkheuvel for a long time. It is one of just three restaurants in Holland to have three Michelin stars. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t live up to the occasion or its reputation.

The food – lobster salad and sea bass for me – was well cooked. The location was charming: a modern building on the strand between a park and the river Maas. But Parkheuvel was badly let down by the service, which was slow and absent-minded. For example, the pre-starters were delivered without the cutlery to eat them and the coffees we ordered never appeared. We may have caught them on an off day as the place had changed hands a few weeks before our visit. However, if it wants to keep the three stars of a world-class restaurant, the new owner, Erik van Loo, will have to get a grip.

Contact information

Parkheuvel
Heuvellaan 21
Rotterdam
The Netherlands

Tel. +31 (0)10 436 0766

Fax. +31 (0)10 43 67 140

E-Mail: info@parkheuvel.nl

www.parkheuvel.nl

Important information

Lunch & dinner
Monday-Friday
12.00-14.30 and 18.30-22.00
Saturday
18.30-22.00
Closed on Sundays

Nearest Airport

Rotterdam (10km, 15 minutes by car)

Nearby Towns

  • Rotterdam
  • The Hague (Den Haag)