At the side of the Groote Kerk Arnhem holds a weekly market which is
scarcely more distinctive than that of Groningen but so popular with
the peasants that it overflows into the neighboring streets, and places
trolley service through the vicinity in a state of disruption. Having
driven into town the evening before, the country people unhitch their
horses and leave their wagons standing in the square so as to lose no
time in getting ready for business in the morning. Much faith they must
have in the honesty and orderliness of the citizens of Arnhem, for
their loads of vegetables and whatever they have for sale remain in the
open, when the weather is propitious, without even a covering.
A few blocks to the east of the market square lies the
Eusibiusbinnensingel, a beautiful park-like place, but a mouthful to
pronounce, with a lake in the center surrounded by great shade trees
and geometrical flower plots. If you follow this to the northward,
you will come, after a short walk, to the Velperplein, the pulse of
Arnhem’s trolley traffic, the principal feature of which is a large
building that goes under the poetical name of the Musis Sacrum,
containing a restaurant and various halls for exhibitions. Here at
the tables of the open air café the German tourists are wont to
forgather for refreshment purposes, guarding the while their little
ten-by-two-inch satchels, scarcely large enough to hold half a dozen
cigars, as if they contained the entire wardrobe and family jewels of
their owners.
In the Velperplein one may board an electric car for any part of the
city and many of its suburbs. And it is best to patronize the trolley
service of Arnhem whenever possible, because taxicabs, horse drawn or
motor propelled, are not to be found in operation. The buccaneering
cabbies of Arnhem, next of kin to the piratical baggage porters of
Fiume, charge a goodly price to take you out upon a drive in the
environs, and double the amount to bring you back, on the ground that
your ignorance of their language, not considering their ignorance of
yours, was the cause of a misinterpretation of directions. And the
worst of this tourist bleeding system is that the hotel head porters
connive with the cabbies.
On top of a real hill half a mile to the north of the railway station
is Sonsbeek, a favorite rendezvous of the pleasure-seeking Arnhemers,
thickly wooded, containing a small lake or two, and, of course, the
inevitable café, while the ascent of a tower called the Belvedere
is offered as a temptation only to those who expect to obtain a
magnificent and inspiring view where only a mediocre one exists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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