Netherlands

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Ok so it’s actually the world’s oldest artificial rowing course in the word, but it is connected to the water various other canals that you’ve seen before. In fact, you’ve seen the Bosbaan (forest course) itself in another post under more dramatic lighting conditions. This was taken last weekend during this year’s edition of the grand old Holland Beker rowing competition Quite fun to watch all the teams race past, though this was taken during a quieter moment between heats.

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Yep, I still live in the Netherland which has greatly abundant gardens & parks, both urban and rural 🙂 … which, in case you’re wondering, is why these trees aren’t yet fully in leaf: this photo was taken more than two months ago but I’ve only caught up with it now 🙂

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As noted in the last post, Rotterdam has a lot of funky cool modern architecture, often alongside some lovely old buildings that survived the war. This is an area called Museum Park – the tall tower is the most famous museum, called apparently Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, closed for renovation for a few years now. The mirrored round building is the “Depot” where ordinarily the main museum houses works not currently on display. At the top left is Het Nieuwe Institute, showcasing design and architecture. The reflections of large groups of school children out for some special evening of school-kid activities, all moving in real life and reflected below the mirrored skyline in the depot building, made the experience honestly rather magical for me 🙂

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Yes, there’s air-bubble writing in that there canal. If you can tell me what it says, you’ll win my thanks :-). Rotterdam, as every Dutch person seems to know, is a much more hip and modern city primarily because it had to rebuild itself after being very heavily destroyed during WWII, so it decided to go quite modern in its rebuilt architecture. Stay tuned for more :-).

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I always think of Alice Walker’s wonderful collection Revolutionary Petunias… 🙂

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Roses abloom last week in Rotterdam 🙂

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Biking home from tennis one evening, the sunlight caught this lovely field of bluebells so strikingly that I simply had to stop, hop off the bike, and snap some photos so as to share the beauty with you all 🙂