Two shots from an afternoon walk in early January at a moment when the sun had managed to break through the clouds briefly. I’m back in A’dam now with far longer days than when these shots were taken – so you’ll be seeing more A’dam and still lots from the recent US visit, in weeks / months ahead.
The lone gate of Haarlem’s old city walls that still stands is the Amsterdamse Poort (A’dam gate, originally named the Spaarnwouderpoort or Spaarnwouder Gate) and dating to the late 14th and early 15th centuries. One bikes right past this when one bikes over from my place to meet a friend for lunch in Haarlem, as I did on this particular day…
No, it’s not pretty – but it’s the last view I had of my Amsterdam home before the plane entered the heavy cloud layer. Below: the last photo I took before we landed about 10-1/2 hours later at SFO. Bit of a contrast, eh?
Briefly a royal palace from 1808 to about 1810, when Napoleon’s brother Louis was briefly King of the Netherlands before Napoleon took direct charge, this historic Haarlem building now apparently houses various provincial administrative offices for the Province of North Holland. For the curious, North Holland includes Amsterdam as well, and stretches from the island of Texel down almost to Leiden – which is at the northern end of Zuid Holland province. Yes, there is more to NL than A’dam :-).
Seen last Monday in Haarlem, when I biked over for lunch with a friend on the first day of this glorious ten-week vacation that I’m currently taking. As our last post showed, I’m now back in the Bay Area, having traveled Tuesday (my yesterday) much further away from home than a simple one-hour bike ride. Expect more California and US in the coming weeks, but don’t be surprised when NL, BE and CH photos crop up.
These are all of Erasmus Park, a smaller park which is mostly on an island created by – you guess it – the Erasmus canal. All taken on the 7th of January, one of the first reasonably sunny and clear days we’d had for several months. Below and right you’ll see the standing water which, there and other parts of town, is still standing. Everything feels waterlogged and muddy, even now when the rain hasn’t been quite so constant…
(so much world, so little time....) 