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Holiday 2012 - The Netherlands

Category: Ramblings | Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2012 7:36 am

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It's flat! *lol* We were going to drive across the Afsluitdijk, the big dike on the north-western coast, but I managed to direct my husband one exit too far in a roundabout near Heerenveen, so we ended up crossing the Houtribdijk from Lelystad to Enkhuizen instead. It was actaully a good thing, since we've never been there before.



A replica of an old ship in Lelystad harbour:



We had to stop because I spotted this statue. Sjoerd has shown it before. It's called "Exposed" and is huge! Locally they call it "The Pooping Man":



The wind blows hard in these parts, so someone took proper precautions:



Ok, then, let's get going again:



This is the dike road. It runs for nearly 30 km, or so the GPS insisted:



There were so many birds gathered on both sides of the dike road that I was beginning to wonder if there were any birds left in the rest of Holland at all! All those white dots this side of the rocks are swans:



We stayed at a farmer's camp site, and this was our view:



The town Hoorn is just north of Amsterdam. To my eyes it's very Dutch, and I like it a lot. Here are some street-and-house-photos:



Harbour tower from the land side:



Harbour tower from the seaside:



I wonder if these ducks were waiting for a guide to take them on a canal tour:



Hoorn has some really narrow alleys:



The houses aren't quite straight:





There are so many lovely details to see if you keep your eyes away from the shop fronts:





I love the little passageways, even though they aren't straight either:



There are pretty facades, gates and back gardens too:







This cat had found a secluded corner:



An ophans' home:



The house of Dadaism, formerly a church:



I think I prefer these decorations:



Plants manage to grow anywhere, even on brick walls:



This heron has managed to train the people from the fish shop across the road to feed it, so it's just sitting there, waiting for lunch:



We visited friends in Holland. This is not one of them, but it's very decorative:



A bit of our friends' garden:



I got to sit on this bench:



The blooms were lovely:













So were these potatoes:



Thanks, Sjoerd and missus, for the tour and taters. :D

When we were in Holland three years ago, we went down there to look at a Hosta, and then we went home. This time we wanted to sightsee and visit the Floriade. We went to lots of places around Hoorn. A small steam train is running between Horn and Medemblik, so we decided to take that:



For some strange reason the landscape was still flat:





The old station buildings are well maintained:



Rollin' 'round the bend:



The farmers had brought out the heavy machinery:



One half of this station building is a home:



Medemblik:



They have a nice windmill there:



We could take this boat to visit an outdoor museum, but we passed. It was raining pretty hard:



We also visited Volendam. It's a pretty little town:

















That was a fun day out, even though we had problems finding the way and other small mishaps. :D

I hope I didn't bore anybody too much with all these photos. I think I'll show the Floriade and steam train museum another day.

Last edited: Tue Aug 28, 2012 7:36 am

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Holiday 2012 - The Beginning

Category: Ramblings | Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:28 pm

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We've had lovely weather for almost two weeks! What a nice change. :) The holiday weather wasn't much to write home about. I won't run out of fingers on one hand if I count the entirely dry days we had. Well, never mind. We had a very long holiday, and we drove a very long way. We estimated the total to 4,000 km or 2,485 miles, give or take a bit.

We started sight-seeing rather close to home, Briksdalsbreen, the Briksdal glacier, close to Olden, a popular tourist destination:



Scenery:



On our way up to the glacier:





There it is!



The glacier front position in 1870:



The area is a national park:



Lucky for these little beauties. They live inside the park boundary. This is a rather common orchid:



And this is, believe it or not, a white buttercup! I've never seen one before and was very excited:





Ok, back to the glacier. Ten years ago the front was at these sand hills, and covered the entire lake:



And this is how it looks today:



A few years ago tourists were brough up and down by horse-drawn carriages, but not anymore. This is today's "horse":



The road is rather steep and winding:



We got back to the car to drive back to Stryn. That road is rather steep and winding too:



We took off late June. By Grotli the snow and ice hadn't melted yet:



We stopped at my uncle's place in Skjåk, reputedly the dryest spot in Norway. They were watering their fields:



Uncle has a nice view over the northern part of Gudbrandsdalen - Gudbrands valley - from his house:



Our next stop was a bit further south, to have a look at the White Shroud Priests, a rather unusual natural phenomenon. The road up was strenuous, but a lot better than it used to be. There were stairs!



And more stairs:



And a few bits with no stairs:



At last we reached them. I found them spectacular. It looks as if they're ready to fall down, but they've been like this for about 9,000 years, so I hope they won't disappear in my life time:





The view point is well made:



Next stop was Gothenburg, Sweden, and the amusement park Liseberg. The girls like those.









View from the big wheel. It's 60 meters tall but it's on a hill so it feels a lot higher:



There were little park-like pockets all over the place:



After Gothenburg we went to Copenhagen, Denmark's capitol. We wanted to look at the Queen's castle, the crown jewels and Tivoli, the old amusement park.

We passed a lot of yellow fields on our way through Sweden:



Copenhagen. This little church is made of Norwegian marble:



Amalienborg, the Queen's residence consists of four identical-looking buildings. I wanted to weed in the Queen's garden but there wasn't any greenery at all:



Ok, then, maybe I would get lucky in the King's garden, surrounding Rosenborg castle. After all Denmark doesn't have a King now and maybe the gardeners were slack:



Alas, no. The gardens were well tended, not a weed in sight:





I did find someone who didn't care a hoot about who's garden it was. It was time for a bath:



Then we ventured inside the castle to have a peek at the treasures. And boy! were there treasures! The oldest items dated back to 1590something. We were overwhelmed.

A ship made from ivory:



A very big chest had the loveliest intarsia work I've ever laid my eyes on. This little piece measured something like 10x15 cm:



A chocolate can made from coconut and ivory:



The old crown, not in use any more:



There were shelves upon shelves of gold items:



One of the jewelry sets to be worn exclusively by the Queen, Margrete:



The regalia:



The crowns worn nowadays:



We were so dizzy at the end of the tour that we didn't appreciate the beautiful handiwork anymore. *sigh*

What we did appreciate was the sight of this huge snail. It's a delicacy, but we hadn't brough equipment for snail gathering or -preparing so we let it run:



The day after we visited Tivoli, situated in the middle of Copenhagen. There was lots to do and see.

The horrible loop - and I went in there!



The Tivoli brass band:



There were lovely garden arrangements too:







We concidered getting ourselves a new summer residence:



This peahen and chick walked about as if they owned they place. I imagine they do:



We wanted a couple of quiet days before moving on from Denmark, and camped here:







Some of the locals seemed a bit weird:



Fortunately a passer-by knew how to put them right:



A couple of riders passed through and stopped for a drink:



The swallows nested in the most curious places:



And we found a lizard too:



Then we left Denmark and spent one night in Germany. This little chap met me outside the camper in the morning. He was pretty rude and called me "cheap" until I found some bread crumbs for him:



We were ready for the last leg of our trip south. The landscape was so flat it disappeared on the horizon on both sides of the road. Then finally we crossed the Germany/Holland border.

Welcome to Holland:



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