We started in Holland following the LF3 Hansa route. However, the more we are here, the more we meander on various routes as we know that we can go where we want and there will always be another route to take us where we want to go. The map on the bottom right shows the LF (long distance) routes throughout Holland.
When we arrived at the hotel last night, we were both really cold and ready for a hot shower and an early night. We like it here - they offer secure indoor parking for our bike, they gave us a spacious room with a patio, it is super quiet and best of all, the internet is excellent. We have been behind in our journal as the internet has been unreliable and frustrating to load photos.
Winterswijk train station. Holland is a country with more bikes than people, and the parking lot of bikes tells the same story.
We have been reading about Winterswijk and have discovered that their Saturday market is considered one of the best in Holland, plus, the artist Mondrian grew up here and his family home is a museum. What better way could we enjoy the King’s birthday than by staying a second night here and exploring this small city of 29,000 people. Plus, we can finally get our journal up to date.
We both slept well and despite being cold, the changing weather has helped to ease the problems we have had coping with allergies since getting to Europe.
We awoke to an overcast, rainy day. It is a short ride to the town centre, so we headed out on Seavo and explored a bit more of an area of the Netherlands that is new to us.
Many people have come to the market on the King’s Day.
The flowers at the market were of exceptional quality and reasonably priced. We have noticed that the Dutch love to garden, love flowers and this stand was very popular as most people were buying bouquets to take home.
Most people are dressed in orange-the brighter the better. Houses and businesses are decorated with orange banners. Store fronts are fun to look at as they have been very creative in how to incorporate orange in to their design. All in all, the day feels festive and joyous. The Dutch clearly love their king.
This young man, Douwe, was a delight to deal with. He happily obliged to let us sample some cheese before we decided on 2 types.
Cheese is so tasty In Holland and samples are freely given. So many to try.... we bought a chunk of the green cheese. It is very creamy and it has red pepper, onion, black peppercorns, etc in it.
The Market was bustling, full of families and people of all ages. Most people arrived by bike and we were lucky to find a place to park Seavo. We joined the locals and feasted on fish from the local fish stalls -so delicious. We sampled Dutch cheese and bought some from a local farm. We sampled and bought freshly made Stroopwaffles. And then we finished our market visit with a stop at an Eis Cafe for a bowl of ice cream. Throughout the day, we had pleasant encounters with locals who recognized we weren’t from here and just wanted to be welcoming and find out what brought us here, We had such a fun day and thoroughly enjoyed spending time in this town.
There were a number of fish stands at the market, selling fresh fish and also offering cooked fish. These were the most popular stands at the market.
Rob and his wife took us under their wing. We couldn’t find an ATM and he took us with him to make sure we found it. In his spare time, he is a miller at a windmill.
We have always associated the colour orange with Holland. On earlier travels we would see camper vans decorated in orange when their national football (soccer) team was playing.
As their national flag is made up of stripes of blue, white and red -but no orange, you may wonder why is orange the national colour? Well, it is pretty simple as the royal family are descended from the House of Orange- Nassau. Willem 1st of Orange organized the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, which after the 80 years war led to an independent Dutch state. As we discovered yesterday, Holland turns orange on April 27th. It is traditional for all Dutch flags to have an orange pennant above it on this day. The Dutch can be heard singing,”Orange on top. Orange on top. Long live the King,”. During WWII, housewives honoured the day by hanging out their washing in a particular pattern of red, white, blue and orange.
What a happy bunch this group is, celebrating King’s Day with friends attired in orange at an ice cream parlour. We have a feeling that if we came back here next year that we would see them again in the same spot.
The artist Piet Mondriaan was born and lived in Winterswijk until he was 20 years old.His family home is now a museum which features details of his life and more importantly, a collection and exploration of his early works. We have heard it was quite good, but unfortunately it was closed for the holiday. Perhaps next time...
We met this man at the grocery store, Albert Heijn, while shopping for dinner. Naturally we had a complimentary coffee and sat down to enjoy it before shopping and we enjoyed a visit with this man.
