About time we updated our trip tales !

* just a reminder - click on the photos to see the full size version.

Michael : We're back from our two week holiday in the Netherlands and Germany. It was very relaxing, while also being informative and educational - a great combination. I was in Leiden for a mouse models conference and we decided to take some holiday time right after that, which meant we were away for just over two weeks.

Leiden

Bikes, pedestrians and very few cars - I love it !

The Fabulous Four begin their ravaging of the Netherlands!

It was nieuwe haring (herring) season. I wasn't game to try any though, although I did try some karne milk (buttermilk?) and plenty of stroopwafels (syrup wafers) and speculaas (special biscuits had with coffee). The coffee in the Netherlands is just fantastic as well. We're starved of good/cheap coffee here in the UK, I have to say. After a couple of days in Leiden, which is a beautiful university city, we went via The Hague down to Vlissingen (Flushing) in Zeeland, where we spent a couple of (very wet) days.

Den Haag - The capital.

Vlissingen, on the south coast.

In Den Haage and visited the Mauritshuis (yes, we saw the Girl with the Pearl Earring!) and the Binnenhof (which houses the houses of parliament), though that was closed because it was Sunday and we couldn't go in. We then went up to Apeldoorn, where our friend Tim has relatives. Palais Het Loo used to be the major royal residence. It is known as the Versailles of the Netherlands and the stunning interiors were designed by the Daniel Marot, who also did work at Hampton Court Palace.

Palais Het Loo - Apeldoorn

This is the sleigh used by the children of the royal family in the mid 20th century

The Baroque gardens at Palais Het Loo

Another notable tourist attraction near Apeldoorn is the Nationaal Park de Hoge Veluwe, containing the beautiful Kröller Müller Museum, which has a large collection of van Goghs and a sculpture garden (see below)

In the middle of Nationaal Park de Hoge Veluwe you find the sand dunes :

This dead tree looked like an alien from War of the Worlds !

After our stay in Apeldoorn, we went up to Friesland to Franeker, a small town that we used as a base to explore the Afsluitdijk - which is just a marvellous engineering feat. We actually drove halfway along the dike from Friesland into Noord Holland. Having water on both sides of the road was just magic.

Wandering thru the market in Franeker, we found a stall selling Oliebollen !
We had heard from Tim about his family's tradition of cooking up batches of Oliebollen at Christmas time.

how sneeky ! - actually pronounced Snake

driving on the Afsluitdijk

The border between the provinces of Friesland and Noord Holland is roughly halfway along the dike.

Ian: We had a two wait at Leeuwarden train station (which incidentally, has a magnificient (art deco?) main hall to connect to the train which take us into Germany, which was enough time for me to realise i'd left my backpack on the last train. Thankfully, the NS officials were very helpful and were able to retrieve the bag from the train, which had begun its return journey to Franeker.

Michael: The trip to Germany was fairly uneventful. We spent 4 days in Hamburg, which is much bigger than I thought it would be. I hadn't realised that it's the second biggest city in Germany. It's full of great architecture and an excellent Art gallery (the Hamburg Kunsthalle). Tim left us at Hamburg to return to Australia and Daryl left for Paris.

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

Ian: Near our hotel in Hamburg was this ex war bunker. Now a music college, where the students can practice to their hearts' content, No one can hear them from the outside.

Our hotel was in an area of bohemian street art and activism which reminded me of St Kilda back in Melbourne.

This is the most amazing old Elbe tunnel which takes vehicles down 24 meters in a lift to tiled tunnels to come up again on the other side of the Elbe river. It opened in 1911 and still works today in a limited way.

Breakfast at Monikas place with Tim and Ann Katrin.
It's so nice to be shown around a new place by people who live there !
Tims freinds Reimer, Monika & Ann Katrin were great hosts and we were given lots of tips on what to see in Hamburg.

Miniature World! it was Huge!

... and below - the real thing.

On the way back to Holland from Hamburg, we spent a few hours in Lubeck (famous for its marzipan and for the fact that it was bombed to smithereens by the allies and has been rebuilt faithfully).

The Holstentor , Lubeck's gothic city gates, completed in 1478


Marienkirche - the largest church in Lubeck.

We were told about the white-washing of all church interiors and the removal of stained glass with the Dutch reformation - the removal of all traces of Catholic exuberance !

As a memorial to the war, this bell which fell and melted in the heat of the allied bombing has been left where it landed.

Then it was back to Amsterdam, where we had two days exploring the city. Lots to see. We particularly enjoyed the Dutch Resistance Museum, a deceptively small museum documenting the history and personal stories from the Dutch resistance against Germany during the second world war.

In the Dutch Resistance Museum there was one of the uniforms homosexual prisoners had to wear with the pink triangle to denote the offence of homosexuality. Between five and twenty thousand homosexuals were killed in the concetration camps.

Since 1978 these three pink granite triangles commemorate the past, present and future struggles for the human rights of Homosexuals.

We were intrigued by the abundance of wonky buildings which stood at odd angles to each other !

Mad woman on her floating garden.

I see crap fashion trends have gone worldwide.

We got back to Glasgow on Friday, and spent a relaxing weekend getting ready for the return to work.

Ian : Next, I'll have the pictures from my trip with Tim around the north of Scotland (the Highlands) which actually happened during the two weeks he stayed with us in Glasgow before we all left for Holland.