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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
Ah, Royalty.33
All from the Royal Palace in A’dam, which we showed you once before when we’d just returned from the US and had no backlog of remotely legit “royal-ish” stuff to share with you. I’ve now stocked up on royal stuff from Berlin as well as a few different corners of NL so I can just share all these overly-impressive and imposing doorways, sitting rooms, waiting rooms, etc. etc. all in one big post. Fascinating are all the coats of arms in the gallery below, with SPQA at the top. (As in, Senate & People of the City of Amsterdam in direct imitation of classical Rome’s SPQR.) I’d never noticed that before, but have since seen the same thing on a bridge or two around town. One thing I will say about constitutional monarchies such as this one: they allow the State (by which int’l law means Nation State, not New Jersey or Alaska) itself to retain a certain dignity that rises above the politics of the moment. IMHO the US has lately tended to test the value of a single person being both head of state and head of government, often with disconcerting results when it comes to the dignity of the State itself… 
(so much world, so little time....) 