Fun fact, this residence was built for the one and only Dutch pope, who died after a short term in office & without ever living in this lovely building. I’m told he was rather unpopular in Rome because of his ascetic, non-partying ways, and the same source told me that the men who elect popes never again elected a non-Italian one, until they elected the first Polish pope during my own lifetime.
We’ve had a lovely spell of sunny days with nights cool enough to keep all the lovely spring flowers blooming longer. So on walks and bike rides I’ll see not only still-blooming daffodils & tulips, or cherry and apple trees, but also wisteria like this. Many homes in Amsterdam – and also, as you see here, in Utrecht – have gorgeous, big wisteria plants trellised and blooming in spectacular profusion. Sadly, when I see them in A’dam, it tends to be when I’m rushing past on my bike during the morning bike-to-work rush hour, with no ability to stop and snap a photo. Will try to change that in the weeks ahead, before I lose the chance this season…
Apple blossoms, I believe, along the Kromme Rijn, which I think carries some (small portion) of the water that’s in the Rhine when it enters the Netherlands. Lovely day walk last weekend along this path into Utrecht, with many photos yet to be posted of both that city and its rural agricultural riverside neighboring areas.
You might not recognize it with this very different lighting and format, but you’ve seen this church & canal view before :-). It’s close to work, so I pass it often but only photograph it every now and then…
Some explanations may be in order for beloved members of my viewing community who see these posts only as email alerts or on your phones, where the categories & tags I always apply to posts are less visible to you: I was traveling around the US a bit, from the 23rd of March until last Sunday, the 3rd of April. I spent some time with family in Pittsburgh & Oberlin (apologies to Oberlin friends whom I didn’t connect with during my 24 hours in town), then out to California to touch base. If your viewing style for the blog doesn’t show you the categories & tags, then for example you’d think yesterday’s beautiful tulip photo was taken here in Amsterdam – logical, for many reasons – but in fact both that and the earlier orchid photos were taken at Pittsburgh’s lovely Phipps Conservatory, whose spring flower show is a lovely taste of spring in a place where spring does in fact arrive later than it seems to here in A’dam. It’ll get even more confusing the next week or two for anyone who doesn’t select the option to see the full blog view, because I still have lovely flower photos from the Phipps trip, maybe still one or two from California, and tomorrow I’m going on a walk through the blooming tulip fields you’ve seen on postcards and tourist sites from the Netherlands. It’s a safe bet I’ll take even more tulip photos then, so you might consider checking the full site for the category and tag, if you’re curious what you’re seeing. That said: this photo is clearly and undisputedly Amsterdam, on a rainy morning as I headed to work. I will be showing you both NL and US photos in the weeks ahead :-).
Last of the photos I took on December 25th when my friend Kiki invited me to spend the day with her in Heusden (south of the Meuse / Maas in Nord Brabant) — last few Village Views were from that side of the Maas / Meuse; today we’re featuring photos from a walk around Nederhemert village in Gelderland, north of the Meuse / Maas. The mailbox photo, Kiki tells me, has three key symbols of the Netherlands: orange mailbox, stork mating platform in the middle, and windmill in the top left. Aside from the creepy graveyard at the village church (seriously Voldemort look, there…), it was a lovely and cool exploration :-).
(so much world, so little time....) 