ROBIN: Our First Blogger Visitor

Last post I gave you the teaser of our second overnight visitor here in Gorinchem, Netherlands, where we have lived now for 3 years:

I met Robin through my Vision and Verb colloration site.  She actually makes the 3rd woman I've met from the group.  Petra is no longer with us but because she lives nearby, we have met up with her twice.  Cherry is the other one, from England, whom also we have met up with twice.  It's a small world after all!

When we found out Robin's hubby was going to be in Amsterdam for a conference, we connected with each other to make sure we grabbed her for as many days she could give us.  It was 3 days, technically, but only one full day in between.  Needless to say, we packed it in.

 On our long way home after picking her up in Amsterdam, we stopped at the

 Wijnhandel van Ouwerkerk wine store/business/museum from 1860 in nearby Arkel.

Talk about a photographer's heaven!

Once home and after getting her settled into her guest room across the courtyard, Robin joined us for Astrid's homemade spinach tart and an evening of relaxation.  It was the calm before the storm.  HA!

As with Bob and Peggy when they visited a year ago, we had a route planned.

Of course, we went the back roads to see the real Holland and stopped at every whip-stitch.

Astrid is very used to stopping on a dime, of course, and we let Robin know!

Culemborg was our first real stop to see the ornate city hall and the city gate...

and to have our koffie met appeltaart!  Just a quickie stop.

The bulk of our time we spent in Wijk bij Duurstede, first to see the Rijn en Lek drive-through windmill...

and actually drive AND walk through it...only 35 miles from us.  

It's a big deal for us because it's the only one in the world, supposedly.

Besides the windmill, the Kasteel Duurstede is the other main attraction.

When Bob and Peggy were with us, there was a wedding taking place, so it, too, is a big deal.

It's nice when you can shoot 2 birds with one stone!

And yes, that was where we also ate our lunch, at the same café as with Bob and Peggy.

I think we need to start getting a tourism commission, don't you?  :)

That evening, by the way, once we were back home, we took Robin to our favorite pannenkoeken restaurant out in the polder to let her experience the real deal.  We will take everyone there who visits us, so start licking your chops.

The next day, before returning Robin to Amsterdam, we chose Hoorn as our final city/place of interest. 

This is just one of many Dutch harbors but famous as Amsterdam's sleeper community.

Another fabulous photographer's heaven!

The Hoofdtoren is no doubt Hoorn's most famous landmark, from 1532.

From the wharf, we watched lots of sailing activities out in the IJsselmeer.

We were short of eyes, of course....

...and were actually followed around by this gentleman, Cor, a photographer who knows his stuff.

Robin might remember how old he is but 87 sticks in my head...or was it 78?
[Robin remembers 87 because he's as old as her dad!]

We especially enjoyed this gentleman cleaning his boat with the harbor water.

I bet there's a Boaters Have More Fun bumper sticker somewhere!

Except that we really have fun eating, which surely is more fun!

We parked outside of Amsterdam and took the Metro into city center to return Robin safe-n-sound.

She and hubby then proceded to wine and dine us, along with his co-worker.

After dinner we walked to one of Amsterdam's brown cafés and had a huppelolie.

That's what I'm sipping in the top left image:  a sweet kruidenbitter (= spice bitter).

How's that for saying Good-Bye to a new-found friend.

We actually left her with a catch in our throats.  We didn't want it to end!

(sigh)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

So, instead of leaving on that note...here are the goodies I collected while out-n-about with our new friend:

Weathervanes....

...and all those gevelstenen (= gable stones) I love. 

I wonder when Robin can come back???  She's already talking about bringing a girlfriend next time!

You'd want to come back, too, if you ever have the chance to come the first time.  :)

For Bob and Peggy

In my last post I mentioned we had just had our first overnight guests ever to our apartment here in Gorinchem, Netherlands. For 5 days and 4 nights, we had the pleasure of their company!

Peggy goes back to my assisted-living days, when she was our Executive Director. Lucky for me, and I might add with some surprise, after we both retired we kept in touch, meeting for lunch once a month. Somewhere in there, she, who had been widowed, married Bob, who had been single for years after his divorce, with two grown children. I had the good fortune of attending their wedding 7 years ago and ever since, it's been a delightful acquaintance. Peggy often was my confidant when I needed a listening ear and both have been there for Astrid and me from the get-go, supporting us and waving us on to victory, sometimes before anyone else was able.

So it's appropriate they were our first guests! This post is for them.

Our apartment is a one-bedroom apartment with no sofabed, so it's lucky for us that our complex here has 2 guest bedrooms available directly across our courtyard.

Every day we could watch them come-n-go...
(click any image/collage to enlarge)

...for breakfast, first, and then for whatever else was on the agenda after power naps!

That Wednesday when we picked them up at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport (first collage above), we scheduled nothing but a walk around half of our citadel to give them the lay of our land.

I've already taken you on this walk, remember?


See how we celebrated afterwards?! Italian ijs.

That was Wednesday. After a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, we spent Thursday in nearby Culemborg, Wijk bij Duurstede, and Buren, all cities we've visited and wanted them to see.

In Culemborg we wanted them to see the gate and city hall as you can see here from 2010.
As it was, we spent more time at the gate and only peeked at the city hall (seen through the gate in the bottom left-hand corner above).


The biggest thrill for me, however, was seeing this De Hoop windmill from 1854 being painted outside the city gate. It was a first for me.

Then we continued on to Wijk bij Duurstede, our main destination of the day. We just had to show them the world's only drive-through windmill, which we saw in April of 2010.

Yup, Bob and Peggy are in our car (Granny Towanda). They drove through!


Then, on to the Duurstede castle a short walk away...


...where a wedding was actually taking place!
We had read that this castle was often used for weddings, so we were delighted to see it.
(BTW, if an image is Astrid's, I'm adding an 'A' to identify it in my collages now.)

We decided to make one more city stop on our way home and made it Buren from our time there in March of 2010. Some places nearby really impressed us that much, to show them off.

But the surprise of the day was when we walked to De Prins van Oranje windmill....


...and found it was open for us to tour, on a Thursday!
Talk about a gift for Bob who loves to see how things work! It closed right after we left.
(I won't mention that Peggy is afraid of heights and didn't walk up to the top with us.)

We had had a long day....

...but still stopped at our Gorinchem second-hand store before supper that evening.
We are often surprised by little goodies that are vintage and Dutch!

That was Thursday. On Friday, we had a 2 p.m. tour scheduled at the nearby Trappist brewery, but first Astrid headed us to a new city for me, Heusden:


To be honest, it's like a sweet little tourist town! And it's a citadel city, like Gorinchem.


Full of gevelstenen, too! I was in heaven.


But it was the harbor and the windmills to die for.
First, the Nr. 1 windmill from 1971....


...and Nr. II behind it, from 1973. What creative names, right?!

All that before our brewery tour at the Abdij Koningshoeven near Tilburg! Remember when we were there this past February? This time we took the tour because Bob just happens to be a beer connoiseur and even makes his own beer!

Before the tour started, Bob and Peggy sampled the beer.


Then the tour...only 6 of us plus the guide, speaking English...


...followed by another beer that came with the package! No, we're not drunk yet.


And then another beer with our meal. Still not drunk!


Maybe it was the monks sitting outside. Maybe it's just good beer!

You'll be glad to hear that we basically did nothing on Saturday instead of what we had originally planned. We took it easy and finished the remainder of the citadel walk we had already started on Wednesday.

Enough photo-ops to last a lifetime.
And this time Bob treated us to a refreshing drink on our market square,
not far from the ice-cream cones we had had on Wednesday. Full circle.


Astrid propped up her camera and did the timer thing. I love it!


That evening we celebrated our "last supper" at our favorite pannenkoeken place.

And then on Sunday we drove them back to Amsterdam for their Viking River Cruise to Basel, which they just finished yesterday before flying back to Atlanta:

They said their time with us was a good appetizer. It was Peggy's first time in Europe.
And guess what WE now want to do, as soon as we are able! HA!
That Viking boat really looked nice. Only 200 passengers.

Talk about a great visit, chock-full of the things we love best! Thank you, Bob and Peggy, for coming. We still can't believe the time came and went so fast. Here's till the next time!

And to our next visitors. Who will it be?

You Can't Walk on One Leg

First of all, it's my turn again at Vision & Verb and if you really want to understand what this title is all about, that's where you'll have to go to find out. Clue: it has more to do with Dutch idioms than with this black sheep grazing somewhere around Buren, Holland. Second clue: it has more to do with generosity than how fit you are!

Now, to the post at hand. This past weekend was gonna be real iffy when it came to Granny Towanda and if we'd have a date with her. It was predicted to rain the entire weekend so we basically decided not to do another photo hunt. However, come Saturday morning with only cloudy skies greeting us, we spontaneously went for it. Another outing nearby, all of 77 km (48 miles) to Culemborg and Geldermalsen...followed by lots of rain later that night.

First stop was Culemborg, where the water tower greeted us as we entered the city. Astrid knows by now that I will always ask her to stop Granny Towanda so I can take a picture...this time from the car window. It's the larger of the two cities at 12 sq. miles and approx. 28K inhabitants. Its market square is large and historic, known most for two things: it's Binnenpoort gate and its Town Hall as seen in this collage below (click on collage to enlarge).

Between Culemborg and Geldermalsen, driving along the back roads, we passed this church on the side of the road in Buurmalsen. In 2006 the town had 1,058 inhabitants. These towns may not be big but they sure do have big churches!

Geldermalsen, less than half the size of Culemborg, with 10,551 inhabitants in 2007, and with barely a smidge of a market square to speak of, gave us two delights. First, a place for a nice cuppa koffie at Le Mélangeur Koffie Thee Choco Vlaai café. Out in front of the shop is this delightful statue of three dancing ladies. I think of the Three Graces but have no clue what it's called or who the artist is. Note to myself: Google will not always help you find what you are looking for, so write it down while you're there...or take a picture of the plaque!

The outside statue is above; the café's mural is below, right next to where we sat on the left.

Besides the statue and refreshing koffie break, Geldermalsen's De Bouwing windmill filled us up for the rest of the day before returning home. Luckily it was open to visitors, so we had the chance to stroll around and talk to the ladies [wo]manning the shop. We even bought some corn meal that was ground by the mill and are eager to try it out. Incidentally, one lady told us that the woman who runs the working mill in Holland, Michigan, is the only female miller outside of Holland. I have 3 siblings who live in that Holland, so that bit of trivia is delicious!

The top-left pic in this collage is actually De Hoop windmill in Culemborg. But all the other pics are of De Bouwing mill in Geldermalsen. You know me. I can't ever get too much of them. So soulful to me!

As a side note, THANKS to sister Ruth for getting me hooked on Picnik.com where I have access now to collage-making. I've needed it for a long time because of how many pictures I take. I will continue to make my photo albums for me, to document the trips. But these collages will help you, I do believe. You can see my photo album of this trip here.

Don't forget to go to Vision & Verb if you want to find out about the title of this post. You really CAN'T walk on one leg! That's why we had to go to both Culemborg and Geldermalsen.