This weekend we embarked on a faintly optimistically titled tour that promised we would 'Discover Holland', and that we did. We set off at 8:30 on Saturday morning and then coached it around northern Holland. My art skills aren't up to much, but here's a rough approximation of what we did:
So we covered quite a bit of ground (and sea according to my drawing!). Here's a little bit about each place we visited:
Elburg is an old fishing village that doesn't fish anymore now that they've dammed off the sea. They have though found a novel use for their fishing nets - they adorn the houses as outdoor decorations. It was really picturesque and old-worldly, if a little bit touristy. We were only there for an hour or so, but in that time I managed to partake of a particularly Dutch past time, the raw herring as this picture so gracefully demonstrates:
My first reaction was that it wasn't that bad, and I almost went back for seconds. However, five hours later when I could still taste that lovely taste of raw fish my initial enthusiasm had somewhat rescinded.
Giethoorn is described as Holland's version of Venice, albeit only in village form. The whole village is built around a canal network and you can't reach it by car, so the only way to explore is by boat, and that's what we did. Nine of us piled into a boat and almost immediately went the wrong way cue much confusion about where we actually were on the Dutch directions we were given. Still, despite a few wrong turns and some great reversion by Yu, it was good fun, if a little cold.
The village itself was nice, but was certainly geared up for tourists with most of the houses having 'for rent' signs displayed rather predominantly, but despite that it was actually quite charming and I wouldn't mind going back again for a slightly longer visit next time.
This was the headline of the tour and our official destination. To be honest, it was a monumental let down. We got there when everything was closing and it was getting dark. Our city tour was about 15 minutes long and consisted of two market squares, the town hall and the university. We had a meal and a drink before retiring to hostel for the evening, and this was about the best scene presented:
Shall not be making an effort to go there again. But at last I've been to one of Holland's most northerly cities. I think it said quite a lot that the depression rate there is so high that they've laid yellow bricks in the pavements to raise peoples' spirits...!
This is quite amazing. A dyke that's 40km long. You can see it in the map above (the red road with the red blob in the middle. It's not actually much other than a straight road with water on either side when you're driving along it, but from a satellite picture it's stunning. An amazing achievement, so much so that it has a monument to itself in the middle.
- Enkhuizen (Zuiderzee Museum)
This was good too. The Zuiderzee Museum is an outdoor historical museum preserving an old Dutch village, and you can only get to it via boat again. Unfortunately we didn't have that much time there to look around, but it was lovely:
There were plenty of old shops and I partook of an apple pie and some
booterbrot which is like shortbread, but about 90% butter. Delicious. I also had the opportunity to try out walking on stilts, which wasn't quite as difficult as I thought it would be. No pictures of this unfortunately, but there is a movie that might find its way onto YouTube if I come under enough persuasion! A group of us have said that we'd like to go back again one day, so hopefully that'll come off.
All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend and was good value. It was good to get away from Utrecht for a while and see some parts of Holland that I'd never have seen on my own. The group that organised it are running a weekend to Maastricht in November, so hopefully that'll be just as good.
When we got back to Utrecht we saw this sign at the bus station:
Based on the success of the weekend, then if that doesn't present an incentive to travel around more, then I don't know what will!
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