zuid-holland & zeeland

today we left dunimar and going to our next address we first past by gouda, where we walked in the city centre and admired the nice city hall and waag-building

thereafter we went to restaurant pannekoe to have a coffee with poffertjes.




then we went on to the river rijn which we crossed by ferry and had a look at lenny's old house and garden in groot ammers.

 

then we went along the rijn dyke to kinderdijk where all those nice mills can be seen.

at last we drove on to haamstede to our temporary house next to the house of jeannette, jan kees, jan willem and lotte.

den haag

again nice weather today, and no rain!
first we went to the centre of den haag, where we walked from the binnenhof,

along the work palace of king alexander to panorama mesdag.

then we drove to madurodam and walked there a long time in the beautiful park.

afterwards we had a look at scheveningen: the kurhaus and the pier

we ended the day with an autentic indonesian dinner.

amsterdam 3

today again a not very cold day, with not much sun and only some rain when we were inside our boat.
we had a ticket for the hop on and hop off canal boat, so we could sometimes just enjoy the cruise and at other times we jumped off the boat to look at some sites.

we saw a lot of small museums : the tulip museum, the cheese museum, the houseboat museum.

as lunch we ate a pannenkoek.

we had a look at the begijnenhof and the kalverstraat.

we ate a haring at the spui and had a look at the flowermarket.

haring

then we had a look at the long queue before the anne frank house and then we jump on the boat for a last tour while it became dark and we could see the lights of amsterdam again.

amsterdam 2

after a late start we went to amsterdam, to the olympic stadium and parked our car there using the P+R system and went to the city centre with tram 16.

the day started with a blue sky and frost but it changed to misty weather in the afternoon.

we walked along the canals in the red light district 

  

 

turned again to the dam, where we had some bitterballen at cafe de zwart 

 

and then we visited the bijenkorf.

after some shopping we went to our temporary home dunimar where we prepared our evening meal.

amsterdam

after a little misty start, the day became sunny and it felt like summer, but in the evening it became quit cold...

this day we went to kudelstaart by car and went on by bus (seeing the enormous flower auction place flora holland in aalsmeer on our way) to the rijksmuseum.

the museum itself is so beautiful and also the presentation of the paintings and objects. really amazing.

and ofcourse we also admired famous paintings of rembrand, vermeer, monet, van gogh, frans hals, van steen, breitner, mesdag and many others.

NIGHTWATCH

then after sitting outside in the sun at the museum square and having a quick look at the diamant museum, we went by bus to schiphol.

there we met alper, who already had started to look around and was examining the albert hein shop.

then we went all together back to amsterdam, where we first  left his luggage at the central station and had a look at amsterdam by night. first walking and by tram to the dam square, later by boat looking at the objects of the light festival but also all the beautifully lighted bridges and houses.

beautifully lighted houses could also be seen on our bustrip back to kudelstaart.

family day

today we went first to philippine in overveen near haarlem and then after the arrival of jeannette, jan kees and jan willem, we went all together to a high-tea in the imkerij of frans and hettie kastelein in oud-loosdrecht.

noord-holland

after a late start we went to schiphol to buy our regio travel tickets for monday and then we went to the zaanse schans, where we had a look at the nice green houses of old zaandam and dutch specialities like cheese, wooden schoes a.s.o. together with many tourist from the far east.

then we went to beverwijk to visit the famous bazaar, where we made selma very happy because she had a proportionaly cheap eyebrow treatment from a syrean lady, but although the price was a lot less then in dutch beauty-centers, it was still 4 times as expensive as in turkey. but it was a very nice experience for us all.

we ended the day relaxed in our home in noordwijkerhout.

flevoland & noord-holland

after leaving our home near giethoorn, we went through the old zuiderzee, now ijsselmeer, using the new markerwaardse dijk, with land to be made on the left and the ijsselmeer on the rightside.

arriving on land again we were in noord-holland in the city of enkhuizen. here we had a look at the flessenbootjes (boat in the bottle) museum from the outside, because it was still closed.

and we walked along and inside the zuiderzee museum.

then we went to marianne in wognum, exchanged memories and had a nice cup of soup.

our home for the next week is in noordwijkerhout, where we checked-in and first started organising our important internet.

then we went on to amsterdam, to muziekgebouw t ij and restaurant zouthaven, where we first had a concert-menu dinner and then went to a concert of the virtuoso pianist fazıl say. he exited us with his beautiful interpretations of f.i. gershwin.

friesland

today the fog has cleared a little and temperatures are still very nice for the time of year.
today we will visit friesland and first we went to joure the city of douwe egberts.

we drove to the center and first walked through the main street (midstraat) where also a  very nice house with a clock-museum can be seen and then we went to the old tabacco shop of DE and afterwards to the joure museum next door, that has also very many items of DE.
DE stands for coffee, tea (PICKWICK) and tabacco.

I was surprised to hear the exact name of DE; his name was douwe egberts(son) de jonge, and the family de jonge own a part of the museum and spent money for the maintenance of the museum; the house where DE was born and their old house are also a part of the museum.


we also visited BLOKKER the store that sells amongst other things also the DE products that can be obtained with DE points nowadays.

then we went to LEEUWARDEN the biggest of the 11 fries cities; and first went to see the last bridge of the famous 11-cities-tour on skates in gietkerk, which has been transformed into a monument; a picture of skating people made from tiles with images of famous skaters, one of these has the picture of w.a. van buuren, the name that the dutch king used when he was young and skated this tour.

then we went to the centre of leeuwarden and visited the ceramics museum, where happened to be an additional exposition of erotic art.