Urban Canals.174
Urban Canals.173
It’s been back in the news lately with the complicated prisoner swap several nations arranged with Russia: the bridge formerly known as Bridge of Spies. We showed it to you in an earlier post, little knowing it would soon be back in the news. Above & in the gallery below, all remaining shots of it from that lovely visit with Steve end May / early June. Also, all the remaining shots of the lake – river – canal system that we explored on our round trip from Wannsee with views to Potsdam (bottom photo in this post), under this bridge, around past Pfaueninsel and thus back to Wannsee itself on the Havel River and accompanying lakes. Back when the wall was deadly and this a heavily-fortified border, the boat trips of course were not being done, and we’d not have had this opportunity to drink our Berliner Weisse beers in loving tribute to our mother, for whom Berliner Weisse was the only beer she ever even considered drinking.
County Views.143
Signs of the City.93
Amsterdam Pride centers around 3 weekends in late July and early August, this year with a “Pride Walk” the first weekend, this post’s featured “Pride March” the second, and the “Pride Boat Parade” the third weekend. I finally joined or observed all three this year, including the boat parade this weekend just past. So nice to live where one is legal and less fearful of physical, social or legal harm and threats.
Village Views.83
This entry is perhaps my most robust plug thus far for any of my friends, relatives or other readers who might be considering a visit to the Netherlands and / or me to remember a very important and oft-overlooked fact: though small as nation-states go, the Netherlands is much, much more than just Amsterdam. At the risk of incurring his wrath should he recognize himself, I’ll cite the example of one dear young relative whose original plan for his first-ever NL (and Paul) visit had been to use a connecting flight situation to spend a few days here, plus a few days in Stockholm. As plans evolved, said same fabulous relative decided to stick with NL only, had what I believe to have been a lovely visit exploring many cities and towns in this lovely, bike-friendly and well-organized nation…and has now planned another NL-only return visit with significant ambitions again to explore further afield than the (indeed lovely) “capital” city of Amsterdam. (Capital because that’s what everyone says it is – not, as previously noted in these pages, because it’s the seat of either the State or the government.) The connection to this current post: these are all from the lovely village of Heusden, on the Maas (Meuse) river in Noord Brabant an hour’s bike ride from Den Bosch (‘s Hertogenbosch, formally). As noted last month, I had the pleasure of spending a work-week living here at a friend’s house due to some tourist-visitor-related house swapping arrangements. I first visited Heusden on Christmas day in 2021, and shared my first Heusden posts in January 2022. You’ve seen it off and on since then, but today and in a couple future posts, we’ll be sharing more of its lovely charm. And any future visitors please note: NL is chock-full of such lovely, explorable towns and villages surrounded by moats and boasting picturesque streets, windmills and shop signs…and magnificently bike-friendly infrastructure. Just sayin. (Insider tip: you can use this blog best to plan potential visits by being sure you’re in the “full view” mode, and then looking for the small-print “categories” and “tags” that do very definitely appear at the bottom of every single post here, and then simply tap / clicking – for example on this post – “Heusden” to pull up all past posts that I’ve tagged as from Heusden. :-))
Islands.63
From the Air.53
Mountains.43
City Views.233
(so much world, so little time....) 