The SIS visit to the Netherlands in 1991, on the occasion of the opening of the Museum Boerhaave, the National Museum of the History of Science and Medicine, was fully reported in Bulletin 29.
This second visit was by no means a carbon copy of the first. For example, as the Maritime Museum (Scheepvaartmuseum) in Amsterdam was closed for refurbishment, we visited its Rotterdam counterpart, which gave us a chance to include the nearby Unesco Heritage site of the Kinderdijk windmills. We also travelled to the rural north to see the truly unique 18th-century Eise Eisinga Planetarium, the oldest working planetarium in the world.
We made our base at the Malie Hotel, a Hampshire Classic Hotel (4-Star), in Utrecht, but delegates were free to make other accommodation arrangements if they preferred...our Secretary walked in three miles each morning to pick up the coach!
Conference Programme
Tuesday 6th May Leiden - Museum Boerhaave
Haarlem - Teylers Museum
Wednesday 7th May Delft - Store of the Techniekmuseum (Technical Museum)
Rotterdam - Het Maritiem Museum (Maritime Museum)
Kinderdijk - Windmills
Thursday 8th May Franeker - Eise Eisinga Planetarium & Museum Martena
Groningen - Het Universiteitsmuseum (University Museum)
Friday 9th May Utrecht - Sonnenborgh Observatory & Universiteitsmuseum (University Museum) including a demonstration by Nicolas de Hilster of his reproductions and replicas of early navigation and surveying instruments.
Conference Dinner
Saturday 10 May: Post Conference Event (optional) - Demonstrations of some instruments designed and made by Tatjana van Vark, including her recent version of the Antikythera Mechanism and Hypothetical Planetarium. For more information see the updated Craftsmanship Museum Website