The Netherlands are growing on us

We are in Groningen, capital of the equally named province.

From our parking spot it’s only around 20min by bike to town. So after breakfast, my human and Carmelo took off to explore.

First stop is always the visitor center or tourist information. Get a map (yes, a real map, made out of paper, usually. And yes, we know of the existence of Google Maps.), pick up some tips and then have a look around.

Well, so far the theory. Mostly the people in those info points are really nice and helpful. But not always. The city of Groningen has some training to do with their staff!

This city is another old one, many houses proudly present the year they were built on the facade. Just strolling through the streets is a real pleasure. A landmark is the Martinitoren, a 97m high church tower. It is forbidden to build anything higher than the horse shaped wind vane on its tip. Needless to say, that my human climbed the 261 stairs to the highest platform you can get to, which is “only” 58m. But that’s plenty to get a very nice view over town and the surroundings. 

This is the largest bell, it weighs in at 7500kg

 

On this occasion she learned that Groningen is the birthplace of one Able Tasman, the guy who set out to discover the island which was later named after him, Tasmania, in 1642. You learn something new every day, right?

They also have a very pretty train station here. It's meant to be the nicest in the Netherlands.

The Vismarkt was in full swing, but not just with fish, but all sorts of edible things. We are still stunned by the flowers you can buy everywhere for next to no money. 10 tulips for 2 Euros. Now that I think of it, why don’t I ever get flowers?

Vismarkt

The Prinsenhof

What else is there in the Netherlands but flowers? Yes, bicycles! So it was time for our two-wheeled friend to be subjected to some love and care. New paddles, a bit of grease and oil, tightening of chain and brakes, some spray paint to pretend there is no rust (that’s my job), and she looks like freshly out of the factory! Not sure what that would cost back home, but here it came down to 40 Euro all in. Considering the difference in looks and smoothness of riding - money well spent!

Well, and then there are these bicyles...

After being unable to find a pub which would show the semi-final that night, we just stayed home, had dinner and watched the game online. I think it’s a bit spiteful not to show the rest of the tournament after getting knocked out. I mean, it’s not like we made it very far…

The next morning we visited a couple of tiny villages which are known for having been badly affected by the great flood of 1953. A combination of a very high spring tide and a severe windstorm over the North Sea caused a storm tide and flooded the coastal areas to a height of almost 6 meters.

There are many of these one-horse-towns around here, and many have lost all their men and boys in this flood, because they were all out fishing when it happened. After the flood they started shoveling up “hills”, 4 - 5 meter high mounds, called “wierden”, and put their churches on top of them, so as to have a safe place to go to when the next one would hit.

Meeting some friendly locals

One of those "wierden"

On the way down the coast, we found ourselves a nice place to spend the night, in the -literally- 5 building village of Swarze Haan. It’s set right on the coast behind a dijk, which is, you guessed it, a dike. See, Dutch is easy!

So you can imagine it being a bit windy there. The small campground was very sheltered by a lot of trees, though, and so we set up camp. While putting up the sun/rain sail, my human broke one of the attachment thingies. You might want to talk about excessive force here. But in good old MacGyver style, she fixed it; with a pocket knife and a needle! Becoming handy after all, my girl!

After that she went for a run on the dike and I enjoyed the sun, which was suddenly shining, after the sky looked like Armageddon when we arrived an hour earlier. In the early evening, she figured it was a nice idea to go walking in the tidal flats. Well, technically yes. But practically, it looked like this:

The mud was so deep where it hadn't dried up, that she sank in almost to her knees, and it must have felt a bit like getting stuck in quicksand. While I was laughing at the sight of it, she took some 15 minutes to wash all that sticky stuff off again. And another 15 minutes to get it out from under her toenails! I'm still laughing, actually!

From the life in a van, today we talk about the rubbish situation. Although we try to avoid is as much as possible, there is always some rubbish. So far we made do with a cut-in-half cornflakes box. Good, until it falls over. Not good! So now we have this fancy dog food container with a lid. Much better!