Windmills, clogs and bikes...it must be Holland.
We had a great day visiting Kinderdyke, (near where Peet's dad was born) a UNESCO world heritage site with 19 windmills dotted across the landscape. We were driving along close to the river through a little town and all of a sudden looked out the window and there were all the windmills lined up along the canals. It's really quite impressive seeing so many windmills so close together (and hard to believe how many photos of windmills we could take!)
We were lucky that it wasn't a weekend as the place wasn't at all crowded (except for one school group which was just leaving when we got there). We took the bikes out of the van so the kids could ride along the pathway next to the windmills although I think Anika actually enjoys being dinked on the back of Arkady's bike more than actually riding herself! There was even one windmill you could go into and have a look around which was pretty interesting. The sails were working and when the breeze picked up the sails started turning so fast it was actually quite scary standing close by.
The next day we had a full on day in The Hague and packed the sightseeing in. We caught a tram out to Scheveningen, a popular beach side spot which looked quite uninviting in grey, blustery weather, but it was mainly to show the kids the area and the English Channel/North Sea. Then it was back on the tram to Madurodam a fantastic miniature model park of all of the Netherlands featuring highlights of all 11 provinces.
We spent a good few hours there with Arkady trying to break the record of taking the most photos in one day (something like 300 photos!). There were toy barges that went up and down lochs, trains that whizzed around the park, planes that taxied around Schipol airport, cars driving around the streets, even a garbage boat that went around the canals of the Amsterdam section.
The attention to detail in the street scenes was amazing with little processions outside churches, a person waterskiing on a lake, people sitting outside cafes in the squares, farmers in the fields. The model of the Rijksmuseum was huge and if you looked down into one of the windows you could even see a miniature copy of the 'Nightwatch' painting. There was even a model fun park with a working carousel, dodgems, ferris wheel and roller coaster. It was pretty funny watching it. We had a lot of fun there.
After that we went to see the Escher museum which was housed in an old palace. There were some amazing Escher's on display and at times it was headache inducing trying to follow some of the designs as they defied logic or the images got smaller and smaller and it was like looking into a spiral. It was all fascinating though. The other interesting thing about the museum was that each room featured a huge chandelier. Each one was a different shape - a violin, a spider, skull and cross bones, paint palette etc but there were all spectacular to look at.
To get to the top floor of the Escher museum (where it explained how Escher played with illusion) you had to go up a number of little wooden staircases and it felt like you were actually in one of Escher's artworks where you couldn't tell whether the staircases were going up or down.
Since then we've also been to Volendam, a little fishing village up north of Amsterdam which is probably most famous for being overcrowded with tourists during high season and also a popular spot where people dress up in traditional costume and have their photo taken, which we did as all Peet's family have had their photo taken there at some time so we had to too (to make Oma happy).
Anika was so excited about dressing up we could hardly shut her up. Of course Arkady was not keen to get his photo taken at all but eventually succumbed to family pressure (and I couldn't resist teasing him that by the time he got back to Fort St the photo would be all over school!) It was a very slick process with the photo - here are the clothes, sit here, hold this, smile for the camera and it was all over and done with in about 10 mins at most.
While we were up that way we also had a look around the village of Edam (as in the cheese) which was a beautiful quaint village with lovely trees lining the canals and old bridges (like the ones Vincent Van Gogh painted). We discovered a cheese shop with a fantastic display of cheeses and wine out the front so had to go in and admire the big wheels of cheese plus do a little bit of taste testing.
I must say I've been really taken with a lot of the window displays in people's houses. The Dutch like having the inside of their house on display with many places having no curtains or only little lace ones so you can look straight through into their living rooms and kitchens. Many of the houses have impressive displays of flowers in their windows or little collections of nature - pine cones, straw, wreaths, lots of pumpkins of all sizes, birds, chooks etc. Anika, being such a nature lover/collector loves them and has stopped to take lots of photos.
We've been in the van almost a week now and have settled into a routine - find a camping spot, set up the electricity, check out the bathroom facilities (good if it's a hot free shower, grumble if you have to pay for a quick 3 minute shower) then make coffee and relax. The first thing Anika does is go off and explore the campground which is great if it's on a farm, in the forest or beside a little stream.
That's about it for now.
Jood
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