Backyard Bits-n-Bobs

In America, of course, we say bits-n-pieces.  But don't you just LOVE the British bits-n-bobs!

Anyway....

Thanks to our Dutch friend, Janny, we've already had two fun outings this new year not far from home, one weekend after the other.

First, we drove to pick Janny up to go see the Leather Museum (De Looierij) in Dongen, 30 km. from home.  It's a museum about the history of tanning and the leather-making process, dating from the 1890's.  Dongen happened to be the home of a profitable leather industry in the Netherlands, back in the day.

Too bad we didn't know we could take photos until our visit was almost over.

But here are a few pics I snapped at the end, most of which are of the times, 

not of the leather-making process.  Oh well.

HOWEVER...not to be disappointed...a block or so away was this church with its half-ruins.

This is the Oudekerk (Old Church) from the 15th century.

Originally Roman Catholic, it was "confiscated" by the Reformed Protestants in 1648.

During a storm in 1928, the roof of the nave caved in and has remained a ruin since then.

I don't know if they still hold church services there but they do have a Facebook page!

Can you imagine getting married in those ruins on a sunny, gorgeous day?

We ate lunch there in Dongen where Astrid and I had our favorites:

latte macchiatos and uitsmijters!

The three vanes on the right are the ones we saw that day.

The bottom-right is apropos, of a leather tanner.

And the bear is from the home of someone whose last name is Bear (in English).

Thanks to Janny for scouting out my first bear vane ever!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

That was the weekend of January 14th, the day my brother, Nelson, turned 75 (since we're talking about bits-n-bobs)!

During that weekend, Janny told us about a vacated swimming pool in Oosterhout, 29 km from home, not far from where we were in Dongen.  Without even thinking about it, we went to see it the following weekend (which happens to be last Saturday).

Like I said, it's a vacated swimming pool, but did I mention...with 18,000+ art tiles!

Who thinks up these things?!

All I could think about was how my little camera could pick up details from 1200 mm away.

But first, I wanted to see the forest before zeroing in on the trees.

Some of the sections had multiple tiles in their themes.

Some were grids of only 9 tiles, following a theme.

"We are all angels with one wing.  We have each other to embrace in order to fly."

(How wonderful is that!)

This was one of my favorites of the multiple tiles.  :)

Then, from individual tiles, here, there and everywhere, I picked out my own themes.

This one for me is everything Dutch.

There were body parts lying around.  HA.

And animals, birds, insects and fishy things.

Some things actually reminded me of some of you who frequent here...

like Ruth's sumac in Michigan, and Robin's cactus in Arizona.

We're everywhere, aren't we.

But did I expect this?????????  NO!

And that reminds me of the Dutch response to Trump on YouTube, for those who haven't seen it yet:

It hit me after seeing this that one of the reasons why I fell in love with Astrid is
because of her humor, not connecting that it's DUTCH humor.  OMG.  It's true.

But back to the swimming pool...so many bits-n-bobs.

And when I went down to the "water's edge," I was able to see the 3-D effect on some of the tiles.
Not all were ceramic tiles.  Most were paper.  But what an effect.

THANK YOU to Janny who gave us the shout-out to these two outings in January.
What a great visual start to this new year!

Out in the Dutch Boonies

By now you know how much Astrid and I LOVE to veer off the main roads to go find Dutch treasures everywhere.  The ones the tourists never see!

And I had been hungry for new weathervanes for a long time (especially while working on the gazillion Malta pics).  So, dear Astrid spent time to work up a route that would take us to new places not all that far away...for a 4-hour drive this past Saturday.

Basically, the route followed the Linge river that runs through our city, Gorinchem.
The river is 99.8 km long, one of the longest flowing rivers entirely within the Netherlands.

See the graduation cap atop the flag pole?  That is NOT a Dutch thing...so don't you wonder!

We were out mainly to find weathervanes, since I was so hungry for them.

But look what else we found...and even got to eat an Elstar, one of my new favorite apples.

The Dutch invented it by crossing Golden Delicious and Ingrid Marie apples in the 50s,

first introduced to America in 1972.

It's apple-picking time here in the Netherlands (as elsewhere, of course).

How fun to stop and hobnob with the pickers.

Astrid had a lot to talk about because she was a picker herself in a past life.


Check out the apple "train," as I call it.

BTW, Saturday was our Open Monument Day here in the Netherlands,

held the second Saturday of September each year.

This is the De Vlinder (The Butterfly) windmill in Deil, built in 1913.

Isn't she gorgeous dressed in white!  We don't normally see white windmills here.

As I often say, more Dutch you cannot get!

But then...the surprise of the trip that Astrid found for me on the Internet:

a quaint covered bridge with this archer on its roof...in Tricht.

It took us awhile to find it...and it was private property from the bridge on...

but what we saw was better than enough.

And since it was time for lunch, there in Tricht we found this delightful café on the Linge:

De Lachende Gans = The Laughing Goose.

We were hungry for Dutch uitsmijters...as good as any we've ever had.

Just think:  We could have taken a boat from Gorichem along the Linge to this point!

We're only talking about 30 km.

So, did we find weathervanes????

You betcha.  Many are variations on the theme, as you see.

Like I said, variations on the theme!

A couple of them I have shown before, but who cares...or remembers, right?!

THIS, folks, is what I love about the Dutch polder and boonies.

T H I S.
(With many thanks to Astrid for making it happen!)

Fort Vuren on the Dutch Waterline

So, remember when we took grandson Nicholas to see Fort Vuren (and the Loevestein Castle and the Woudrichem windmill) in July?

Well, that reminded me that I had never found a "round tuit" to make a post on Fort Vuren when Astrid and I were there alone in April.  That visit, actually, was the main reason why we wanted to take Nicholas.

So, for the record, here's what we saw 5 months ago.  And it's only 1.5 km from home (Gorinchem)!

Every time we passed the sign while driving along the dijk of the Merwede river,

we said we needed to stop and visit this fort, part of the Dutch waterline.

Now we plan to take all our guests there, if possible.

The fort dates back to 1844 as a fortress on the river against any enemy.

Today, since 2013, you can use it as a B&B.  How ironic.

They even hold weekend concerts there.

And as we often do, we first stopped for a nice break in the cozy café...

...where we both had a delightful uitsmijter, accompanied by the café's own beer:

De Drie Mutsen = The Three Hats.

Fully satisfied, we then took our own self-tour of the underground fort.

I don't know how to adequately express our shock/surprise at what we saw.

I've decided it's one of the best-kept secrets of the Netherlands!

There are TWO levels that keep going and going, from room to room.

You'd need a map to figure it out, though I suppose the soldiers were quick learners.

Talk about a photo-op...and it's all free.

As we left over the moat, we saw the Loevestein castle across the river.

A fort and a castle opposite each other!

I bet they were always saying to each other, "We've got your back."

As we drove away on the dijk, we looked back on the fort, surrounded by its moat,

with the Merwede river on the other side.

I wonder if the cows are old enough to tell the stories hanging in the air?

In this day and age...

which is why I needed to add this for the record!

For Bill and Ange

On my Shutterchance photoblog (where Astrid and I met virtually back in 2007, remember?) will be the following collage tomorrow, in honor of Bill and Ange's 4-day visit with us from England this past weekend:

It's a nice little overview of what we did/saw.  All thumbs up!
[click any collage to enlarge]

Bill is one of The Three Stooges on Shutterchance, along with Chris and Chad (who come to visit in September, sans wives).  Chris is the one with whom we've stayed the last 2 years in Bath, England.  As you see, our little blogging community has reaped many wonderful benefits.

So, on Friday morning Astrid and I drove to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam to pick up our guests.  And because seeing Amsterdam was on their list of wishes, we decided to "do" it that day.

Even the airport is a photo op, you know!

We were especially happy that I AMSTERDAM was waiting for us as we departed the terminal.

From the airport we drove to the AJAX soccer arena to park

and then headed to city center via the Metro...first to eat lunch before, anything else,

at De Drie Graefjes (The Three Counts) near the Dam and the Royal Palace.

We all had uitsmijters...to start off some Dutch "introductions."

Then we took a one-hour boat tour around city center to get an overview.

Just what the doctor ordered...before continuing on foot.

There's so much to see in Amsterdam!  How do you pick-n-choose when you have only a couple hours?

We chose to zig-zag our way to see the Rijksmueum, as well as the Van Gogh and Concert Hall nearby...

before ending up at the one Wagamama I know like the back of my hand...

and then headed back to the arena to get the car and drive home to Gorinchem.

That was Friday, the warmest and sunniest day of the year to date!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

On Saturday, after breakfast, we had another agenda but not nearly as taxing as Amsterdam.  Good!

Our first stop was the Wijnhandel van Ouwerkerk wine shop in nearby Arkel.

It, too, is a photo op and one all photographer visitors will have to see when they come.

(We took Robin when she was with us last October, remember?)

From there we drove to Buren, less than 20 miles away, with ties to Dutch royalty.

The Prins van Oranje windmill, from 1716, was open to visitors so Bill got to see the inner workings.

(Ange is afraid of heights...just like Peggy when she and Bob visited us 2 years ago!)

Our main destination of the day was Wijk bij Duurstede to see the castle and drive-thru windmill.

By now some of you old-timers here will probably recognize these places!

We ate lunch at De Engel, our favorite café there, which never disappoints.

First the windmill, lunch at the café, the castle...and then home via the back roads.

That evening for supper Astrid made her famous spinach and apple tarts.  LUCKY US!

Afterwards we watched "Casablanca" on the couch...my first time from beginning to end!

It happens to be one of Bill's favorite movies and we had just bought it for €1 at our Open Harbor Day!

Another wonderful, sunny, full day.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Sunday was our last full day together, so we decided to stay relatively close to home, driving along our side of the Merwede river before crossing over to see the castle and sister city we can see from our citadel wall.

On the way we stopped by the stork village to see the "spring love."

Bill and Ange said later it was probably the highlight of the trip for them.

Have you ever seen storks?  They're a protected species in the Netherlands!

(I threw in the old Fiat and 3-wheeled motorcycle for fun.)

The Loevestein Castle is a medieval castle from 1357.

We can actually see it from across the river when we take walks here at home!  Seriously.

It was a good place to eat a light lunch of asparagus soup.

Just what the doctor ordered.

Then we explored...and had fun.  It's an interactive castle!

And as you see, it was another sunny day...but cooler than the first 2 days.  Perfect.

Then we drove to Woudrichem, Gorinchem's sister city across the river, and 2 miles from the castle.

One thing Bill mentioned over and over again:  water is everywhere!  It's so true.  

No matter where you go in the Netherlands, there will definitely be water nearby!
Water and dikes.

By that point we were ready to go back home to rest an hour before supper 

at our favorite pannenkoeken restaurant out in the polder.

We ordered 4 different pannenkoeken:

shoarma with pineapple and cheese

chicken ragout with curry

farmer's tomato, ham, onion, pepper, and cheese

goat's cheese, honey, bacon and grapes

We each ate a quarter and passed the plates for the next quarter.

OMG.

That evening we ate the last of Astrid's apple tart and watched "The Adjustment Bureau."

Another full day!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

On Monday morning, we stayed at home and took a walk around our citadel city where we live, here in Gorinchem.  

Last but not least...we wanted to show off where we live.

We LOVE our city.  We LOVE where we live.

And we're thankful whenever we have the time (vacation days for Astrid!) to entertain visitors.

We ate erwtensoep (pea soup) with roggerbrood (rye bread) and brie for lunch, 

before leaving for the airport.

We were so determined to give them a real taste of Dutch life.

And we did!  What a great visit! Thank you, Bill and Ange.

All thumbs up!