We have had a great experience staying with our Vrienden op de Fiets host Beppie at her home. We had wonderful visits with her and she also gave us the space to relax. Our room is massive, very comfortable and the “cherry on top” was a superb breakfast.
She thought of everything and set it up so beautifully. We feel honoured to be treated so well by someone we have just met.
What a lovely woman and a great sense of humour. We managed to have some good conversations despite language barriers. Thank you for your warm hospitality.
Along came this woman with three dogs, two of whom were instantly wanting a cuddle. The third one at the front is quite nervous of strangers. All of these dogs are rescues from bad situations.
This woman has fostered rescue dogs for a long time. She told us that she no longer fosters as these three dogs continue to be vulnerable and she feels they need to stay together. So she decided to keep them as her own pets. It looks like it has been a good solution.
The dog on the left is very nervous of strangers and we were advised to keep our distance. It was rescued from Romania where some idiot threw it, while still a very young puppy, into a garbage bin. The mother couldn’t reach it but she stayed close outside the bin.
This Chow watched me from the Art Gallery where his owner works. There is nothing like a Chow with its beautiful coat on a husky frame, its fan like tail, sunken dark eyes and a black tongue. Love the relaxed rear leg that seems to be a balancing feature. A character.
Our ride since Maastricht has been rich with old manors and castles. This one is quite beautiful and has a moat surrounding it with ducks and water lilies
We shudder when we see tress like these ahead, which are full of the parasite mistletoe. It is so sad to see trees which have been stripped of all greenery and dying as a result.
We can’t imagine this type of road being possible in Canada. It is basically a one lane road - for two lanes of cars including designation for bikes. Perhaps it works here because usually we see more bikes than cars, plus bicycles are a valued part of the culture here. Somehow the cars and bikes coexist in harmony.
Karen PoretPeople are so respectful of those on bikes in Netherlands ! I agree, Barry. We are all lacking this “regularity” here in the USA and Canada.. Reply to this comment 2 months ago
Barry BartlettWe agree. We live on a Gulf Island in B.C. and we have finally gotten guys with their trucks (most of them) to give us room and not honk or yell at us. Reply to this comment 2 months ago
There is so much to appreciate about this Dutch home ….the shutters, roofline, lace curtains, interesting front door and attention to detail with the painting.
It is a joy to cycle in Holland with so many like minded people enjoying the day on their bikes as well. All shapes and sizes… all levels of expertise come together for a ride.
We are on our way to our accomodation in a small village by the lake. We can’t find any stores on google maps, so we have decided to cross the River Meuse to a larger community. All of the grocery stores were closed so our only option was to get take out omelets to go.
We could feel this coming and it rained very hard. What a cold day it is,, but we have cooked omelets for our dinner.
Next we headed to a pub to get some brojies (sandwiches) for our lunch tomorrow. When we went into this town we thought that we were still in Holland. We couldn’t figure out why there were decorations in support of the Belgian football team as the few people in the bar were watching Holland vs Poland. When we went outside we met a couple who were excited to see that we were from Canada. We said that we love Holland very much. The couple said,” this isn’t Holland it’s Belgium!” Oops!
The border between Belgium and Holland is located in the middle of the River Meuse. We hadn’t realized this until we had royally put out foot in our mouths.
The bridge over the River Meuse spans the border between Holland and Belgium. The towns on each side created this symbolic connection between the two countries with this cooperative image of support from both sides.