Netherlands

Countryside.25

…and some last photos from various rides & walks around the Utrechtse Heuvelrug park.

Art / Nature.25

I’ve actually got a few consciously human-made artworks in nature, but since I was already posting from my Doorn visit, I saw this photo and remembered how art-like I found this naturally-occurring image :-).

Country Canals.125

Yes, you’ll find a canal somewhere in each of these photos from my easter-weekend visit to Huis Doorn. 🙂

Urban Canals.225

A sampling of Utrecht’s canals as taken during a lovely stroll early last week.

Urban Garden.255

Vondelpark’s rose garden has been lovely this year. The duck was from a stroll through earlier in the year, that I just never got around to posting :-).

Image

Village Views.135


Ah, Royalty.85

Sam and I both agreed that this grand entrance to Casteel Middachten (Middachten Castle) looks rather royal indeed. As part of our Veluwe-Zoom and Central-Gelderland exploration, we spent a lovely few hours exploring its glorious gardens, without going inside the building itself.

Lake Living.94

Since I do live just next to a lovely large lake, I tend to amass photos of it. Using most of those from this year in this post 🙂


Windows.44

This is your orientation photo. All shots in the gallery (in full view – otherwise series of top to bottom photos without design) below are from inside Arnhem’s Eusebius Church, especially within its spire which was destroyed in late 1944 and early 1945. Look closely about the midpoint of the thinner part of the spire above, and you will see a glass box extruding from the tower. There’s another on the opposite side, which you can’t see here – and all the photos below show those as seen from inside looking out.

Sam and I spent a few days last week exploring the Veluwe Zoom & surroundings, and I finally got him over to see this church and several other historically-significant and lovely parts of Arnhem, many of which I’ve shown you in past posts from 2022 visit. We both agree Arnhem’s a great city.

Sky Lights.34

The darker photos are both from February 2nd this year – so slightly more than six months ago. The sunrise photo below is from just now – took it out my living room window to show not only the lovely morning-cloud sky lights, but how big all those new buildings have grown this year! My last Urban Canals showed you the Pontsteiger Hotel as seen along one of our canals; above, if you enlarge and look to the right of the big crane, you’ll see it as I used to see it out my windows here 😦

Urban Canals.224

Above, the Pontsteiger building (which is a hotel, btw) as seen from one of our canals – now that I can no longer look out my window to see it, I figured I’d show it from other perspectives. Below, a few photos showing the ongoing work to stabilize and strengthen some of the older canals in the heart of the city.

Urban Garden.254

From an early-June stroll around my local park.

Small Wonders.304

A workshop recently got me back into this newly-renovated, 1638-founded Amsterdam institution, of whose newly-remodeled greenhouses I recently shared one photo in another series. 10 (imaginary) bonus points to anyone who can guess which beloved institution in the immediate neighborhood of our office we’re showing you here. Hint: it’s one of the world’s oldest of such institutions, yet somehow never makes the cut for most of my visitors, when weighed against other even more famous Amsterdam institutions…


Small Wonders.303

This particular plant truly lights up if I time my morning bike commute via Vondelpark so as to catch the moment when the rising sun first hits it, as I did on of the two days of shots you’re seeing here.

Small Wonders.302

Eetbaare kleine wunderen, bij ons taaltafel aan het Regina Coeli Instituut, Februari van dit jaar. 🙂