Dykes, bikes, sunny days and beach cabañas

• The Hague
• Kinderdijk
• Amsterdam
• Haarlem
• Antwerp

Chloe's Photos
Rolands Photos

The Netherlands has been great; awesome weather, fantastic hosts and plenty of fun out and about across the countryside.
Chloe’s relative Linda and her boyfriend, Nico, met us with broad smiles at the Hague train station and quickly whisked us off to their freshly renovated apartment in the centre of the city. We had a wonderful time with them, luckily for us they both had the week off from KLM and so we got to spend a lot of time hanging out.

Nico, the ever-ready tour guide, organised some bikes and we all rode around the city, past the government houses, along the parkways, out to the beach and sand dunes and through the woods. We even cycled to the highest point in the Netherlands, approximately 5m above sea level. We sat back in the afternoon at a beach-side cabaña drinking wine and watching the sunset over the North Sea.

On one day, we all drove out to ‘Kinderdijk’ and the largest concentration of original windmills in the Netherlands, then drove back along the dyke through very pretty county-side. This was a great way to get a perspective of the dykes and the water levels on either side. The country is unique in that it is mostly below sea level, and the amazingly clever system of built canals and dykes enable there to be farmland and cities where otherwise there would not be.

We took a canal boat ride one morning to a nearby town, Delft, famous for its blue and white pottery. We wandered the streets, browsed the antique markets and climbed the huge church spire (second highest in Europe) for amazing views of the surroundings. We eased our hangovers with traditional Dutch ‘frites’ with mayonnaise, the perfect remedy…

Chloe and I took a long day trip North to Amsterdam and took in one of the walking tours, and then continued on foot and wandered the kilometres of canals. We stared in amazement at the leaning, crooked houses, and wandered through the (pretty tame) red light district before catching the late night train home. It was a long day, and a full one.

We also took some day trips with Nico’s car; north to Haarlem (no, not in NY) and south to Antwerp, Belgium. More wandering the streets, getting lost in tight alleyways and taking wrong turns on freeways (and of course the obligatory waffles in Belgium). We were the luckiest people with the beautiful weather that was organised for us, and we even managed to fit in a swim!

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with Linda and Nico; they treated us like royalty and really showed us their city and their favourite things to do in the Netherlands. They cooked fine meals, supplied a few too many glasses of wine and fantastic coffee and fresh juice every single morning. We are secretly hoping that they can come join us somewhere in southern Africa in the near future.