By Rachel Tefft

George Van Valkenburg (Br 1) and I bought a package tour to Amsterdam for the first week in April 1999. which included an additional three-day stop. The package included air fare, hotels and transfers. Otherwise we were on our own.

Since the package did not include a transfer to the Intel Hotel in Amsterdam, we had to figure out how to get there from the airport. A taxi would have cost around $20 but the train to the Amsterdam train station cost less than $2.00, so we opted to take the train. After some difficulty in knowing which train to take and getting the right ticket, we managed to get to the Amsterdam train station. From there we walked, with our luggage, the few blocks to the Intel Hotel.

From the Intel Hotel we could walk to the center square where Key Tours offered a variety of sight-seeing tours every day. We could make our reservations at the hotel desk and the cost was charged to our hotel account. We went on a different tour every day which still left us time to see and do things in Amsterdam, such as going to the Anne Frank House or taking a canal boat trip.

One day, however, we went on our own to Valkenburg. We walked to the train station, got our ticket, and boarded the train. During the three-hour trip to Valkenburg we had to change trains several times. We would get off the first train, wait a few minutes under the proper sign, and get on the next train that went to that destination. We asked questions of train personnel or passengers to make sure we were getting on the right train. One time on the return trip we took seats in a First Class car by mistake although we had Second Class tickets. The conductor pointed out our mistake but didn't make us change cars since we were the only ones in that car. It seems there is a "1" or a "2" painted on the outside of the cars which we had failed to notice.

When we got to the Valkenburg train station, we asked how to get to the castle. The ticket man said, "Which one?" I said, "The one in Valkenburg." He said he'd have to know which one in order to direct us. We then decided to walk to the Princess Juliana Hotel because I'd read that you could see the castle from there. However, it had started to rain pretty hard, so we went back to the train station to get a taxi. We asked the driver to take us to the Valkenburg Castle. He said, "Which one?" If I would have known to say "To the Castle Ruins" through all this, perhaps we would have faired better. However, we didn't know that at the time. Lacking a better idea, the taxi driver took us to Aud Valkenburg where I took photographs of a couple of castles and an old church and its cemetery (no Valkenburgs). The taxi driver gave up on us and took us back to Valkenburg.

We asked to be dropped off at the Police Station. In there, we asked for directions to the castle, saying we'd come a long way and hated to leave without seeing it. The man in the police station knew immediately where we wanted to go and directed us to the Information Office. Although it was still raining, we walked and found the information place with no difficulty. Following their directions, we headed for the castle. Soon we saw the ruins high above the city.

We bought our tickets to go through the ruins at a booth in the small outdoor cafe area. It was too early in the season for the cafe to be

open, but we bought a couple of booklets about the castle, and began our self-directed tour.

Each area of the castle was numbered, along with a few sentences of description. I took a few photographs, but one ruin site began to look like the next to me, and it was raining. If I were to do it over, I would take a picture of each numbered site and spend time with the photographs later.

Our ticket included entrance to a cave under the castle. We almost didn't go in the cave because by now we were both wet and tired. However we thought we should go in since we were there. It would have been a big mistake not to have gone in because the cave turned out to be a memorable part of the trip.

In early times blocks of a cream-yellow building stone called Marl had been mined, leaving galleries, now called "caves" like this. Over the years this particular cave had been shelter to people in the castle and soldiers and civilians during wars.

Our only light was from a hand-held lantern carried by the guide, but we could see the charcoal drawings on the wall made by soldiers during World War II. Many soldiers had written their names and addresses on the walls with charcoal. The guide gave a full and interesting narration of those and other times in the cave's history. When the guide found out George's name was Van Valkenburg, he told the directors of the place who made a fuss over George and gave him a booklet like one he'd previously bought.

We went back to the tourist place in the rain and bought some cards and stamps so we could send cards to Van Valkenburg friends hoping they would be stamped "Valkenburg" by the post office