Hindeloopen, Netherlands

Hindeloopen is another one of the eleven ‘cities’ of Friesland, in north east Netherlands. I’ve always fancied being able to moor a small boat by my house so that I could just pootle about on a river, you can actually do that in the Netherlands, well their canals look just like rivers.

Dutch house, Hindeloopen, canal

 

Hindeloopen ,Small Canal, Netherlands

How scenic is the photo below, it almost looked like something from a children’s story book.

Hindeloopen, Bridge, Netherlands

There are plenty of bridges and locks.

Hindeloopen Locks, Netherlands, Friesland

But Hindeloopen is very popular with sailors. I thought it would be similar to the coastal villages in Fife, but it was very different. There wasn’t much in the way of shops at all, just eateries, and there were millions of midges. You might think that coming from Scotland I would be well used to midges but I had never see anything like it, and it was a really windy day. I would hate to be there on a still day – if they have them.

Hindeloopen Harbour , Friesland, Netherlands

There were lots more yachts than can be seen in the photos.

Hindeloopen Harbour , Friesland, Netherlands

Beyond the harbour is the IJsselmeer. This used to be the Zuiderzee but in 1932 they constructed a dyke to close it off from the open sea, and now it is a freshwater lake.

IJselmeer , Hindeloopen, Netherlands

It is very different from the North Sea in coastal Fife.

Dutch dog walk – part 2

Back to that long walk we had with the dogs and family in Holland – one of the things I love about that area is that most of the houses are very individual, generally designed by the original owners and built by a local builder. So below are a few of the rural houses we passed whilst walking the dogs.

Thatched House

Dutch House

Dutch house + topiary

The hedge and trees in the photo below look like they’ve been trimmed by manicure scissors, and apparently the man who cuts it does it all by eye, no guide string required.
Dutch House + Hedge

The house below has ‘built in 1918’ on it, it looks fairly modern to me though. I find it difficult to judge how old the houses are as they are all built of the same sort of bricks as nowadays. I haven’t seen any stone built houses there at all. It’s rare to see an unkempt house and garden, Dutch people seem to be very houseproud.
Dutch house 1918

The photo below is one of the roads we were walking on, amazingly straight. If you have no hills to manouever roads around then there’s no reason not to have straight lines I suppose.
Dutch road

We were there in early May, the spring was late, so lots of the trees were just beginning to get their leaves.
Dutch view

Dutch view

The sheep were gathered expectantly at the gate for some reason, but we had to disappoint them, we had nothing for them.
Dutch sheep
We walked round in a big circle and must have gone about four or five miles on what turned out to be the hottest day we had there. Well it keeps you fit!

The Spell of Holland by Burton E. Stevenson

It was my friend Joan of Planet Joan who pointed me in the direction of The Spell of Holland by Burton E. Stevenson, she’s a keen armchair traveller and you can read her thoughts on the book here.

house 2

I really enjoyed this book and I’m just glad that I intend to go back to visit Holland again sometime in the future as I’ve taken notes of lots of places to visit next time we’re there.

The book was first published in 1911, Joan has a lovely old copy of it but I made do with a free download from Forgotten Books, if you’re interested you can get it here. The author and his wife Betty hailed from Ohio and were unusual in that unlike most travellers they wanted to see the real Holland so they dodged the tourist hotspots and visited towns which were off the beaten tourist track.

What amazed me was just how little things seem to have changed in the Netherlands over the space of 103 years! All right – you don’t see people going about in their traditional costumes nowadays and the only person I saw actually wearing wooden clogs was selling them, but otherwise there are lots of things which haven’t changed at all.

house 1

I’ve always thought of Scotland as being until recently a strict Presbyterian place, but it’s over 30 years since shops in Scotland started opening on Sundays, and I can’t ever remember anyone avoiding working on the Sabbath day. Stevenson and his wife were surprised by the strict observation of it and it’s still exactly the same today. No shops open at all and my brother’s neighbour once complained about him working in his garden on a Sunday, when he should obviously have been reading his Bible. Jacky of course had a very good answer to that complaint which was – Did you go to church this morning? His neighbour of course replied that he did go to church. J asked him if it had been warm in there and the neighbour replied that it had been nice and warm. So J then said that it was only warm because a man in a power station had been working to supply the energy for it – on a Sunday! So that shut the neighbour up and he never had any problems with him again!

house  very dutch

Stevenson described the staircases in Dutch homes as being more akin to ladders than stairs, and that is true in modern Dutch homes too. I couldn’t believe it when I saw my niece’s stairs. I would just like to know what the statistics are regarding accidents on stairs in Holland. I almost went up her’s on my hands and knees and going down was scary, in fact Stevenson said that he was always tempted to turn around and go down them as if they were ladders. I felt the same!

Breakfasts in Holland were described exactly as they are now, lots of different bread and rolls, cold meat, fruit, cheese and eggs. The only difference was that my Dutch family memebers also ate porridge/oatmeal but that might have been the Scottish influence and it might not be Dutch at all. The porridge was made in a magnetron which is what the Dutch call a microwave. We think magnetron is a much better name – so science fiction-ish so we have given up microwave for magnetron. Obviously those things didn’t exist in 1911 though.

a garden

It seemed that way back when the book was written the men didn’t do much in the way of work, whereas the poor women were run off their feet, usually whilst a man just looked on. They walked for miles with their milk pails on yokes when there were carts which could easily have been used to transport the milk, and the milkmaids. The women were even out scrubbing the streets and I have to say that nowadays in rural Holland everything does look clean and tidy but I don’t think they go that far now.

house distance

I took all of the above photos in or near the small town of Opende in North East Holland. I didn’t see two houses the same in Holland, people seem to design their own homes. I just wish I had thought to take a photo of some of the suicidal staircases. I believe that the third house, which is the one with a for sale sign outside it was actually built in 1911, when The Spell of Holland was published.

If you fancy a bit of armchair travelling yourself you might want to take a look at The Spell of Holland too. If you want to have a look at a Dutch magazine have a look at Seasons here.