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Ah, Royalty.76

Taken two mornings after the last palace post – nearing completion, it seems!

Ah, Royalty.75

The castle at Ahrensburg, outside Hamburg, was completed in 1585 during the hundreds of years in which most of what’s now the German State of Schleswig-Holstein was Danish. At least one Danish king visited this place in the 1700s at some point. It was the very first rather-legitimate nobility-related castle I saw with my own eyes, back when I spent a year living nearby before college. Oddly enough, I never went inside, never even entered the gardens and grounds to explore, ’til last weekend when I was back for a longer visit than I’ve managed in recent years.
If you’re in large-screen or full-view mode, you’ll see three round photos in a row below; the one in the middle was taken from the ground-floor turret room front left in the photo above, looking inwards, and if you enlarge, you’ll see areas where recent renovations uncovered some centuries-old paining, which they’ve tried to match a bit to show what the old colors would have been when fresh.

Ah, Royalty.74

They’ve been steadily renovating and sprucing up Amsterdam’s Royal Palace – never a residence, only where the the royal head of state holds state meetings when in A’dam – for quite a while now. The gold ornaments on the roof are looking nice and shiny and, spoiler alert, I’ve managed a few more legit royal-adjacent digs visits recently, so we’ll very soon be showing you this view again- next time with sunshine :-).

County Views.176

The Mendocino-county village of Gualala, as seen from the south side of the Gualala River, from Sonoma County. Lovely coastal drive to start my new year, followed by a lovely movie with dear friends. Already more than two months ago, yikes!

City Views.276

Recently I promised more photos from den Bosch, et voila. I (and work) treated me to a week of intensive Dutch at a school just south of the city, which ended on the weekend of Carnaval. Den Bosch is one of the two main provincial capitals in which I’ve always heard they take the whole Carnaval thing seriously. Above is the Saturday car parade with Den Bosch Centraal train station in the background: frogs, the red – white – yellow, jackets (usually black) with many patches, and general festivity are the theme. Below, more from Saturday and Sunday.

Small Wonders.286

This, now, is the very last photo from the Ice Age Trail 🙂

Lake Living.86

From the Air.96

99% certain I’m showing you the city of Ijmuiden, a lot of North Holland (the province) including Amsterdam, the Markermeer & the Ijsselmeer, a lot of Flevoland (the province) and even bits of Overijssel & Friesland (the provinces)…what makes me 1% unsure is that, enlarge it as I try, I can’t really quite find Amsterdam landmarks that I recognize, which just goes to show how perspectives can change, or how much resolution one mobile phone’s camera can generate. These are all from shortly after takeoff for my December flight to ORD.

From the Air.95

Pretty sure that’s Baltimore down there, seen from my return flight to NL back in early October.

Mountains.95