Apeldoorn to Groningen

This morning I'm writing from the best location so far. (Dad, you will love this.)I'm sitting at the base of an old windmill. The canal is only a few yards away. There is a sailboat tied to the dock on my left. Beautiful Dutch homes on the other side of the canal to my right. Right in front of me is a small bridge. Today is garbage pick-up day. Many people in the village bring their garbage pails to the base of the windmill for pick-up. A man just came by to get his garbage pail wearing wooden shoes. Eckta Hollanise!

Yesterday (Tuesday - I note the day more for me than you. It's quite challenging to keep track of the days. I have a slight fear of mixing the days up so that we miss our flight home!)was absolutely wonderful. Another very full day but what a day!

We had decided to leave Apeldoorn right after I finished blogging. (I blog every morning right after breakfast. If I didn't, I wouldn't remember everything that happened the day before.) We were going to head for Friesland. We'd been told about the palace in Apeldoorn but decided not to see another palace. As we drove past it, we changed our minds and we're so glad we did. What a beautiful palace - and the gardens were unlike anything we've ever seen!

Het Loo (the palace) was mostly used for hunting in the fall. It was built in the late 1600's. A number of kings and queens have lived (and decorated) the palace from day one until quite recently. Every room we were permitted to enter was fully furnished. Most were from different time periods - with the focus on the very early residents. The most modern room was from the 1930's which the current queen of Holland, Beatrice, decorated as a teen. We found out that a lot of the very old furnishings were found in the palace's attic.

After going through the castle, and a special exhibit for Maxium (the current Prince's wife), we headed to the restaurant where we had a fabulous lunch. We had soup very similar to what I make at home (the kids call it green/Dutch/meatball soup), a croquet, a pastry with sausage inside, and a wonderful apple/almond dessert. We each had a bit of everything. The food has been great here. So much so, there'll be more of me coming home than left. :(

After lunch we went out to the gardens. It was so very hot yesterday. Thankfully there were lots of fountains from which we could get some water to splash on ourselves. The gardens were huge! I've noticed that many of the plants here are the same as what we have at home (petunias, marigolds, lillys). This is somewhat disappointing. I guess I assumed everything would be different. The gardens were mostly very short hedges perfectly trimmed in geometrical shapes. What a lot of work! There were huge vacuum hoses in the garden where the trimming was being done - to suck up the clippings. The fountains had a variety of statutes. There was one with dragons with water coming out of their mouths. I have a great picture of Dave getting a drink from one of these.

At the palace (in the public bathroom) I found yet another way to flush a toilet - step on a button on the floor. I think this is the best option.

About 2 pm we got into an insanely hot car (it's black inside and out) and headed north. In about 90 minutes we were in Groningen - a city in the very northern part of Holland. We always go straight to the city centre when we arrive in a new place. Parking here is interesting. There are ticket machines along the street. You put in money until the meter indicates the time you'll be ready to leave. You then print a ticket and leave it in you car. This is much easier than using individual meters. Most of time we can't use the machines as they only take cards with "chips" in them. (I believe I've already talked about cards with chips.) On occasion we have just left the car without a parking ticket in it because we have no way of obtaining one. When we were in Eindhoven, we found out we'd been parking in reserved parking for 2 days. So far we haven't received any parking tickets.

As we headed into the city square (walking of course) we saw the market was there but beginning to close down. We were able to wander through it a bit. (One of the things I wanted to do while here was go to a market.) There were lots of produce, cheese, and fish stalls. I'd love to stop and carefully check out all of the types of fish but the sellers keep asking you what you'd like. When you say you're just looking, it's not received so well. We were told by my cousin, Jon Thompson, that we needed to try smoked eel. We saw some at the market - they look like dried up snakes. We plan to go to a fishing village on Thursday. Maybe we'll try eel there.

Cars weren't allowed in the city square but there were bikes everywhere - the most bikes we've seen yet. Crossing the street was a dangerous undertaking. Dodging the bikes was a challenge! We went to the tourist information center (again something we do when we first arrive in a new place) to try to find a bed and breakfast in the country. We thought we were in Friesland but it turns out we weren't there yet. The search for a place to stay turned out to be frustrating so we left. We thought we'd ask Flo if she had any suggestions. We chose an address 10 klms from the city center and away we went. (Adventure and the unknown are great parts of any trip.) --- Something I need to mention here, while in the tourist center I saw cards with our last name on them. Van Harten means "from the heart", so it's something that appears on cards of congratulations.

When we arrived at the address Flo suggested, we were at the base of the windmill I'm currently sitting under. Yes, we slept in an old windmill!!!! Dave and I were both beaming when we found out they had one room left - there are only two rooms. Most businesses are closed on Monday and Tuesdays here but the chef happened to be in kitchen - with the door open because it was so hot. He was preparing food for his brother's wedding on Friday. He showed us our room and we were all set. The room could be an apartment. It's about 600 sq feet and has the first couch and mini kitchen we've had yet. I have great pictures of it. Laura, the whole thing is painted orange - you'd love it!

We lugged our suitcases up two flights of quite steep stairs and headed right back out. We wanted to see some countryside. Lots of beautiful farms - houses and barns are in the same building. I took pictures of cows by windmills. The livestock here are very healthy - but they should be considering all the huge fields of lush grass they have to roam around in. We were on one lane roads wandering through many fields and farms. Very nice. We were able to find a small place to have a bite to eat. Beside it was a bar with a table of men having a beer after work. It didn't take long before Dave was sitting with them. He arranged a farm tour for today. The bartender sat with the customers as Abba played in the background. He'd get up once in awhile to go into the bar to get something. You could hear him singing. One song was the disco song "burn, baby, burn". Seeing this middle-aged Dutch man singing this song in northern Holland was amusing.

We headed back to the windmill and watched a movie. The name of the town the mill is in is Onderdendam.

Today we head to Texal - the island where Dave's mom grew up.

One thing I learned today - in the 1700's the king of Holland was also the king of France
One new thing I experienced today - the orange juice of Holland. I don't know what's different about it but it's really good!
Most powerful moment of the day - hearing that the SS took over the Het Loo palace near the end of the war. This was much more disturbing than powerful.
One pleasurable experience - watching Dave bump his nose on a window that was so clean he didn't know it was there :)