For most of the middle ages, Holland was ruled by the Spanish Hapsburgs, which wasn't very popular at the best of times. However, once the reformation swept through Northern Europe, Amsterdam's merchants became strong Protestant supporters and therefore on a collision course with the Spanish monarchs bent on crushing Protestantism. The usual battles back and forth, but to cut a long story short, the Spanish eventually lost Holland, and Amsterdam adopted a severe Calvinist protestant very similar to the pilgrims and puritans of New England. They busied themselves by "redecorating" the Catholic churches at first, but in 1620 they built their first church from scratch, the Westerkerk. The Protestants were hellbent on making churchgoing as boring as possible, so in addition to doling out boring church names like West Church, they also painted everything white, took out all images, stained glass, and pretty much anything of interest. Having said that, the interior is actually quite handsome. The church is very close to Anne Frank's house, and she writes about hearing the bells in her diary. Since I don't have a journal for this trip, these posts are in random order, but I guess that's the reason this post follows the Anne Frank one.

Keeping on a positive note, we were also big fans of Demel's, a touristy uberfamous bakery. Austrians are probably the world's best pastry and cake makers and Demel's is the oldest of these, operating since the 18th century. The cake displays in the entrance are crowded all day with gawkers, and the unhappy salespeople do their best to discourage purchases, but to no avail as the sweets fly off the shelf. There's a very busy restaurant in back as well, in 200 year old surroundings, where you can get the same rude service as in the takeaway counter up front. But the food is actually pretty good, and much lighter than the schnitzel and sauerkraut we've been eating for two weeks, so we stopped by pretty regularly. And once you become a regular, service doesn't improve a bit. And one final happy memory for us was Schonbrunn Palace, the summer palace for the Hapsburgs outside of Vienna, pictured here. It's the usual enormous, opulent palace with acres of gardens, all of which is enjoyable. But we also "met" one of our favorite historical characters, the Empress Sissy (her nickname, her real name was Elizabeth). She was a crazy girl, with hair down to her ankles, and she kept all sorts of wild animals in the palace with her, the Michael Jackson of her times. But the coolest thing is she was a fitness fanatic, and there are all sorts of weird gym machines in the palace, where she'd push and pull and lift herself into shape, making sure to keep her huge head of hair out of the way. We still use her name as shorthand for working out, like "don't lift so much, Sissy, you're getting old!" So with Demel's and Sissy and people waltzing and twisting New Year's Eve away, how could it be a depressing place?