It needed the exhibition „From Asia to Amsterdam“ in the amazing Rijksmuseum to let me understand why every time I am in the Netherlands it feels to me such more global and cosmopolitan than my home country next door. Colonialism and the Golden Age of Holland when enormous treasures had poured into Amsterdam, the then bustling ‘capital of the world’, are luckily long gone. But in Amsterdam it’s not too difficult to see beautiful lacquer work, porcelain silver, silk, ebony, jewellery and enormous quantities of porcelain either in one of its great museums (I like the Tropenmuseum in particular) or even by sneaking a peek into one the beautiful apartments of the  Dutch bourgeoisie, Quite surprisingly these often do not have curtains and their windows are often easily accessible when sauntering along Amtserdam‘s beautiful canals.

 It‘s just great to have such a neighbour like the Netherlands. It has great cheese, the best Indonesian restaurants in Europe, three sizeable Chinatowns (Germany has none). In 2018 I ate at De Kas Restaurant in Amsterdam. Its architecture is amazing and in my entire life, I never beforehad veggie food never looked and tasted so good.

 New architecture is serious business in the Netherlands and for me reason enough to travel to. With little travel travel effort, there are, all in Rotterdam, the ibrary of Delft University in the form of a cylinder, the containerlike OMA Building and mirrorlike Depot Bojmans van Beuningen, the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility and the new „Markthal „a temple of food which is adorned with an 11.000 square meters artwork. On a business trip in to Amsterdam I stayed in the Conservatorium Hotel a beautiful neo-Gothic building with a soaring new atrium in dark tinted glass creating a lofty and dramatic space holds the  brasserie, my favorite breaktfast place (great eggs benedict). A short bicycle ride away are the new floating residential houses in the Ijburg area. The Durch are masters in conversion: In Maastricht a monastery had been converted into „Kruisherenhotel“ and a Dominican church became the most beautiful bookstore in the world.

 All over the Netherlands, there is probably the best bicycle lane infrastructure in the whole of Europe. When I last rode my bicycle I could not help but think of the Queen classic:

Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like…