So today on the summer solstice, in Amsterdam the sun will be above the horizon for 16 hours, 48 minutes and 28 seconds – meaning effectively about 18-1/2 hours of daylight or twilight in the sky. Long days mean lots of sun for the plants to grow fast and furious. We’ve just had (last weekend) Amsterdam’s Open Garden Days, showcasing some of that lovely growth. I visited this year for the first time (managing only about 10 of the 25 gardens), and assembled more than enough lovely photos to merit a special series which we’ll be sharing over the coming five days. These ten posts will share glimpses of what are truly Urban Gardens at their peak in the northern summer. This particular series began in May 2020, while I was on lockdown in Bangladesh without regularly-scheduled airline passenger service for many months, trying to walk and enjoy the covid-quieter city by way of outdoor and work-life balance. Mostly, I’ve shared in this series photos of parks, container gardens or plant vendors such as in that first post more than three years ago. But for the coming days, you’ll see true gardens, many of them private (like this one), some at museums, and all behind the houses and thus not visible to casual passersby. Enjoy 🙂
Sometimes an urban canal may look like a country canal – but as with our last entry in this series, note the high-rises in the background…and I think we we’re in the city limits of A’dam at this point on the bike path :-).
Though the long days do limit my exposure to city lights, they also give me more enerty to notice things like the glorious lingering light in a 10pm / 22:00 sky, and the city clock on Valeriusplein, as I walk home from another lovely concert at Concertgebouw :-).
This one is a bit more obviously a little island; I’d just never noticed it before. These must be heaven for the birds and small mammals of our urban park, since no one boats and I’ve never seen people swim in these canals, and dogs only going in to retrieve sticks…
(so much world, so little time....) 