Amsterdam

I am in Amsterdam for a few days with my brother John and his lovely wife Carol.
The girls have gone to stay with Bonnies friend Michelle in London and go shopping (!!!)

Just down from Johnnies apartment is the Slanty Pub (because it leans) with a great view down the canal. Here Johnny bought me a beer and a Jenever (gin) which is traditional Dutch way of drinking. Once was enough. Note the cardigan , it was bloody freezing and raining in Amsterdam

Saturday. We hired a car and started our three day drive around Holland.
First to Fryslan which is in the north west of the country. Johnny wanted to drive over the two large dykes up there
The Houtribdijk which is 27km long and goes from Lelystad to Enkhuizen - it was blowing a gale and raining as we drove over there

On to Den Helder which is the Western most part of Holland and we were going to catch a ferry to Texel but it was too windy and rough (and bloody cold and wet!)

so we went to the local maritime museum where we had a great lunch of fresh hamburgers

saw a RAM ship - made with re-enforced bow to ram boats

and a Submarine (and lots of other stuff)

Then we drove over the Aflsuitdijk (50km long , almost dead straight) at the speed limit of 130km/h. Again very stong winds and rain. We stopped at a lookout tower that was about 30 feet tall and concrete and still swayed in the wind

at the very end was the first of many canal bridges that was up to let the boat traffic through

We drove into Sneek (pronounced snake), a very pretty little town with a watergate at its entrance

with lots of canals

here a cute dutch tradition was shown - how you announce a baby

We had a beer in the town plaza

We stopped at De Daalbergsplaats hotel near the railway station where Joris looked after us.

Because of the rain the local culture festival was called off, and the hotel was going to have a herring party so I jokingly said to Joris you must have lots of herring left over I and what were you going to make - so he made me a local herring dish - lightly marinated for an hour called Vittelo Tonato - fantastic - and local drink Hollans Genoegen which tasted like Jaffa (sorry about the picture of food, thought I had photo of the Genoegen!)

On the way there we drove the non motorway route on the GPS and went through many miles of farmland - corn, potatoes, wheat (we think), silver beet - and also through very small windy roads through cute little villages with Thatched roof's

here is a view of the roadways with the farms on either side

Sunday.
Heavy rains overnight and then bumped into these yanks rollerblading around Fryslan! in the rain. One told me he breed kangaroos in the states and showed me picture of him with albino joey!

From there we drove to Urk - which is a fishing village where they still wear clogs around the town. Unfortunately we forgot to tell them we were coming and there was no-one in the streets. probably still at church!

After that we drove to Apledoorn which we found was a very booring town.
On the way there we were stopped by lots of raised bridges letting canal traffic

We had lunch at a pancake place, very interesting even though we didn't eat pancakes. I had vegie soup which had meatballs in it!.

We drove on to Beekbergen to see and ride on the steam train.

An interesting ride that went 10km to Eekbeck and return. Luckily they had beer.

After there we drove on, and to our surprise we saw Walabies in the paddocks, including albinos

We drove on to Zutphen to stop overnight. Stayed at the Eden Hotel.

Zutphen was a nice town, with a few interesting buildings. The church opposite the hotel has plain glass windows and you can see through them, which is unusual

and a great town hall

Monday we are driving to Zeeland, in the south-west of the land, with a series of islands going up the coast. We drove to Middleburg which has a great square and fantastic town hall.

and a massive church that had been almost leveled during the war. This had a huge cloister surrounded by very large buildings

It had been rebuilt and had a fantastic organ in one of the chapels

and even the bald spot made its appearance

Johnny wanted to have lunch by the sea so we drove to Vlissinger which was a seaside resort. It was freezing but that doesn't stop the kids swimming

and lots of apartments overlooking the water

good to take artsy photo's

Lunch at a nearby restaurent was good

We drove back to Amsterdam and dropped off the car at the airport. Beware the airport charges 1euro more per litre for petrol than others.

Boy I am rambling on.
Last couple of photo's are things around amsterdam. Houseboats, funny cars, bikes, Hollyhocks growing out of the pavement etc, and of course beer