luxemblog: Wilderness and Art

From Utrecht we drove about an hour to the Kroller Muller museum which is in the Hoguwe (sp?) National Park. The strange combination of a world class art museum and sculpture garden residing in a 6,000 hectare (how big is a hectare?) wilderness preserve came about when a very wealthy husband and wife met both of their needs. She wanted the museum, he wanted a crazy huge hunting preserve and lodge. my camera battery ran out of juice before i could take photos of the hunting lodge but it's incredible. huge, elegant, dramatic, and sitting in this very wild and untouched piece of land. you can see it at: www.hogeveluwe.nl and click on the british flag for english.

The other reason why i'm so bummed my camera battery ran out is that i missed taking a little video of all the different people riding the bikes. The park is so large and the museum is in the center of it and cars have very limited access. so, in true Dutch style, they offer free bikes (a total of 1700 of them) to everyone to ride to the museum, and/or to explore all over the park. the paths are all paved and pretty flat and super wide for two directions of traffic. The best imagey was how ALL ages of people were riding excitedly, whizzing through paths in all directions, exploring or making bee lines to the museum or the hunting lodge or just places to picnic. i saw many multi-generational families all riding together, granparents, parents, and kids. most everyone was dressed very nicely too. it was just so cool. such a unique experience. and this is definitely the coolest museum i've ever been to. the whole experience was amazing. i recommend it, highly!

Here is the starting point, one of 3 in the park. You just grab one of the white bikes, get your bearings and GO! The bikes don't have any gears, and you have to backpedal to brake. They were like beach cruisers.

Dave, zipping around, on our way to the museum:

Me, in front of one of the MANY Van Gogh paintings. This collection rivals that in the Amsterdam Van Gogh museum, but this place is far less crowded, from what I was told.

A Jean Dubbufet sculpture which you used to be able to get inside and walk around on top but some kid hurt himself doing that so they closed it. This is one of many, many sculptures by big names like Richard Serra, Lipshitz, Rodin, etc. etc.