Cycling in the Netherlands
07.01.2020 - 07.01.2020
27 °C
After a "teary" farewell to 'Patience' our rental car at Warsaw airport we were ready to fly to Amsterdam, a major debacle at the airport. Poor planning on behalf of the airlines led to fairly angry reactions from passengers that nearly led to blows in a couple of cases.
Picked up a new rental at Schipol airport, and met John's brother, Keith who directed us back to his place in Delft. We set off the next day with Keith and Gerda to Groningwen in the North East corner of the Netherlands. Keith had organised a couple of bike rides through the local countryside following a well-prepared set of pathways through farmland and small villages, it was a lovely way to see the country and so relaxing stopping for cake, coffee or beers.
We came across some amazing rock collections called Hunabeds which archaeologists believe were burial sites for the stone age people from over 6,000 years ago. The rocks are not local to the area but it is believed that they travelled there in glacial movement from the Nordic countries.
At one spot we came to a wide canal where we needed to cross on a tiny ferry. along with the four of us another couple came along too. This craft was tethered to a cable that took it across the canal, and the three men took turns winding the handle to gradually pull us across the water.
We also saw storks nests (actually we had been seeing them all through Eastern Europe ) but this time with a stork nesting in it. The nest is built of sticks, about the size of a large sunhat and it balances atop a tall pole.
We also visited Westerbork a Dutch concentration camp during WW2 where Dutch Jews were sent to before being transported to one of the many extermination camps. Anne Frank was one of the inmates there. There was an excellent museum and then a bus trip to what is left of the campsite. Gerda's uncle was executed there during the war for listening to 'illegal' radio broadcasts, he was 24.
From there we headed off to Goes, south west Holland and John's sister and Jim and Myjanda's wedding.
Posted by Seniorcitizens 10:14 Archived in Netherlands Comments (0)