The Netherlands & Belguim

The barbecue with the relations was a great success – we caught two trains to get to their house, carrying our sausages and salads with us – an unusual experience for us kiwis. They have a very nice house – semi-detached with a large backyard. We didn’t have a lot of language in common but they couldn’t have been more welcoming and we got by with little bits of their English and some help from Darcy and Tanja. Tanja’s father had even brought a NZ flag with him and replaced the German flag they had flying on their flagpole in our honour. Tanja’s little sister (10 years old) had cut out little kiwis with a stencil to decorate the table. So we really enjoyed our last evening in Germany and after a cooked brunch Gus and I set off for The Netherlands – just the two of us again.

The countryside is really interesting in The Netherlands (by the way Holland is a province of The Netherlands just in case you didn’t know – we didn’t). There’s lots of cattle, sheep (Texel Gus thinks), and horses. It’s nice to see stock in the paddocks again; they seem to keep them all in sheds in Germany; also windmills (of course!) and numerous canals. The water level of the canals is often several metres above the land. It’s quite bizarre to look across a paddock of cows and see a barge moving along behind them. It is however extremely flat; the only hills are the manmade ones such as bridge abutments.

We camped near Groningen then headed down via Leeuwarden so that we could cross the Afsluitdijk – it’s a 30km long dike, with a four lane highway, that was built to prevent the Wadden Sea flooding the land. Gus just reeled off too that it’s 70m wide and 7m above mean sea level. It was finished in 1932, so was no mean feat of engineering. The inland water is now called Ijsselmeer, and is all fresh water, and has completely different fish in it. This can’t have been the case when it was built, but would have happened over time as the rivers drain into it. Apparently water is released twice a day through the control gates when the sea is at low tide.

We are now camped south of Amsterdam near Aalsmeer. As we drove in we were intrigued to see houses on the edge of canals with boats parked out front instead of cars – reminds me a little of Venice...

It took us two buses to get to Amsterdam and we weaved our way around lots of suburbs – nice gardens though. We then decided to take a hop on/hop off boat cruise of the canals. The city is full of bicycles – I had heard this, but was still surprised at the numbers parked in every available space. There is a 3 storey bicycle park near the main railway station, with 2,500 spaces but it still isn’t enough. On any given day at least 9,000 are left around that area; they are looking at finding more space under the station - we’ve never even seen a one storey one anywhere else!

There are canals and cycle lanes everywhere – you can see why not many people use cars; there’s not a lot of room for them. The boat drivers of our canal boats were very skilled at manoeuvring the extremely long vessels through narrow arches in the bridges and around tight corners. It was a good way to see the city and we saw a lot of the sights that way.

Some of the boaties obviously not quite so skilled, have left their boats out in the rain a little long perhaps?

One bicycle we were particularly intrigued by was this one with timber mudguards; cowhide seat; cork handgrips and a beer crate basket – a handywoman’s bike perhaps?

There was also a funny shaped pier that got our attention – on closer inspection it turned out to be a “homomonument”. It is put there by the Society for Tolerance of Homosexuality - or something similar, can’t quite remember the wording. I remember that in Berlin they are in the process of putting up a memorial to the homosexuals that were killed during the holocaust; as well as one for the gypsies – it seems Hitler didn’t approve of much!!

There were a lot of houseboats lining the sides of the wider canals too; apparently some of them have electricity, running water and a mailing address.

To be honest we didn’t find it a very exciting city. We saw Anne Frank’s house, but the queue was horrendously long (right around the block) and we weren’t even sure we wanted to see inside it. The museums were very expensive so we kind of gave those a miss.

We didn’t really find the main part of the red light district but we had a laugh at this selection of condoms in the window. Marijuana may be legal here but it appears to be sold in the very dingy dark little cafes in the worst part of town – needless to say we didn’t venture in... So all in all we were a little disappointed with Amsterdam but don’t judge the city on our limited experience because I’ve spoken to other people who love it!

As we left Amsterdam we saw this 747 crossing the highway! Bit of a relief to see that the road went down under the runway, it did look odd though.

We could tell when we crossed the border into Belgium because of the street lights on the motorway right out in the country – looked very odd, not sure why this is the only country that feels the need to light all their motorways.

We are “In Bruges” – now if you don’t know why that is in speech marks you really must see the movie of that name, it’s one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen (as long as you don’t mind a little bad language). I can well see why they decided to set the movie in Bruges, it really is very beautiful, one of the most scenic towns we’ve seen – and that is really saying something, because Europe does scenic towns well.

Some of the houses along the canals are really gorgeous.

We went for a canal cruise; a lot cheaper than Amsterdam and we found it more fun. Mind you the boats were a lot smaller, and we were crammed in. Perhaps also fortunate that we didn't get a thunderstorm in the middle of the cruise as we did in Amsterdam!

We didn’t feel the need to climb the 365 steps to the top of the tower. I’m sure the view is amazing but I saw in the movie how horrible, narrow and steep those steps are.

Even inside the shops are lovely, check out the artistry with the bread, I don’t suppose it’s for sale though.

I had to include this shot just because I was proud of my photographic artistry – the houses are reflected in the cake lid – we had a beautiful coffee and cake here. Just randomly we sat next to a young couple and when the young man spotted Gus’ hat he said “Kia Ora”; yes more kiwis. And Happy Birthday Liam – yes our oldest son turned 21 today – we did ring him, not completely neglectful parents – just swanning around on the other side of the world...