After a few weeks lead up wondering if we would be able to fly out of Australia due to the erupting volcano in Iceland we left Perth on our ticket date of the 28th April.
HARDERWIJK - APRIL 2010
Ellen and Jan met us at Schipol airport and we drove back to Harderwijk in the Province Gelderland on a nice sunny day. Typical of Holland where every bit of space is used, these solar panels line the freeway.
It was wonderful to see the tulips blooming in the fields at this late date because of the long cold winter, usually we miss seeing them in the fields.
Jan and Ellen live in the Vischmarkt and our room overlooked the lovely old Market Square surrounded by 2 story historical houses with the town gate at the end looking out onto the water which was once the Zuider Zee.
In the evening we went for walk around town and passed the Coffee Shop which isn’t a coffee shop
and into the town square where the partying was already starting for Queens Day.
Next day was Friday the 30th April when all of Holland celebrates Queens Day. The Queen visits a different town each year and it is a day when people have a giant sale in the streets where all sorts of household items, once loved toys, old tools, bicycles, you name it and it is on sale.
We woke in the morning about 6am to the sound of sellers getting their stalls ready, some had started to stake their places the evening before and slept there. What a sight! The whole Square covered in goods for sale on tables or on the footpath offering hundreds of bargains out side my window just waiting for me to buy. Kevin buried his head under the pillow as I got dressed, walked 10 metres out of the front door and into a bargain hunters paradise.
What fun! Back for breakfast then off out with Ellen and later Kevin. Every street in the town was covered by stalls or music stages.
We saw this bicycle parked and I wondered how this mother was going to carry any bargains home after she had loaded up the children.
Saturday morning I looked out the window onto the square and an entirely different view.
It was raining a little and the temperature was getting colder as we visited the Het Loo, the late Queen Juliana’s Palace in Apeledoorn,. It is full of wonderful furniture and paintings, an interesting Carriage Museum and has a beautiful Formal Garden.
On Sunday Jan and Ellen took us by car to Arnhem to visit the Outdoor Museum with houses and factories brought in and reconstructed from all over Holland. It is always amazing to go from point A to B by car and then look at the distance and time we would need to travel by boat at 8 km an hour.
We took the tram around the park stopping off to look through the different houses.
These houses were from Tilburg the town where my friend Sylvia came from when her family migrated to Western Australia.
Time for a coffee in an old fashioned real coffee shop
In the forge the blacksmith was busy making bottle openers for sale in the gift shop. The one he made while we watched he gave to Kevin stamped with his name.
A walk through the forest on the way to another village in the park.
At the end of a lovely day the smell of the Poffertjes saw us eating again before heading home.
On Monday morning it was raining and very cold as Jan drove us to Kuikhorne to our boat, what a lovely time we had with them and now it was the start of our 2010 journey with Courlis as our travelling home
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