First of many photos I’ll be showing you from the lovely island of Texel, off the coast of the mainland and the northernmost part of “Noord Holland” aka North Holland.
Rotterdam, one learns, is Europe’s busiest port and was until fairly recently the busiest in the world. It also has a long history of shipping, and in its urban center features both an indoor maritime museum (which I’ve not yet entered), and a living outdoor museum that you can walk through for free (as I did during the evening walk which yielded these photos), or do tours with information shared if you book and pay…I assume. Haven’t yet researched that part. And as you’ll see, some of the lovely older buildings did manage to survive WWII. I’m told that the one you see here was temporarily moved so that they could build a new tunnel under it, then brought back to its plot once the tunnel was constructed. Good engineers, these Dutch folks, eh?
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.
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 🙂
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 :-).
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 🙂
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.
