Tag Archives: Friesland

Sloten, Friesland, Netherlands

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Sloten is another of the eleven ‘cities’ of Friesland, where they have ice skating races on the canals when they freeze hard enough.

Sloten Canal, Netherlands, Friesland

The photo below is just so Dutch, boats moored outside your house, a canal, a lovely hump-back bridge and a windmill – what more can you ask for?

Sloten Canal ,windmill , Friesland

Well, another bridge with Jack standing on it is all I have of Sloten, it’s a very quiet but scenic small town. Even smaller than I thought when we were there, apparently it only has about 700 inhabitants. It’s the smallest Elfsteden in Friesland, the smallest of the ‘eleven cities’  five of which we have visited. Hopefully we’ll be able to visit the others some time in the future.

Jack Canal, windmill , Sloten, Friesland, Netherlands

 

Hindeloopen, Netherlands

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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.

Dokkum, Friesland

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When we were in the Netherlands recently we visited Dokkum which is a fortified town in the north-east municipality of Noardeast-Fryslan in the province of Friesland. It’s a very scenic town.

Dokkum Canal + Brewery , Netherlands

Of course there are canals all over the Netherlands, but Dokkum is at the end of the road so to speak. During really cold winters when the canals freeze over enough they have ice skating races on the canals in eleven towns in Friesland, and this is the last one.

Dokkum Canal, Friesland, Netherlands

Dokkum Bridges ,Canal, Netherlands

 

Canal Boats, Dokkum, Friesland, Netherlands

Small canals lead into a bigger one. In some places people have their boat moored in front of their house, much better than a car!

Dokkum, Small Canal, Friesland

I think this a laburnum tree by the side of the canal in the photo below although it’s difficult to say as the flowers weren’t properly open yet.

Dokkum Canal , Laburnum Tree

This is a lovely town, well worth visiting if you are in the vicinity, but we were there on a Monday and not all of the shops were open, this is quite common in Friesland.

 

 

A Dutch dog walk

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Back in May we were in Holland, visiting relatives, and although for once the weather there wasn’t great, we did have a few good days. On one of them we went on a long walk with the dogs and as the area in the north-west (Frisian) part of the Netherlands is mainly rural, we were walking around farmland.
Foals and horse in Holland

Foals and horses

Unfortunately it isn’t like in the UK where you can get up close to any animals in fields. Most of the fields are surrounded by wide drainage ditches, I really wanted to get nearer this mare with her foal, but unless I waded over mud it wasn’t possible.

Foal and mare

There are horses all over the place, a real paradise for horsey people, apart from the fact that you usually can’t get close enough to pat them. They were always interested to see us though.

horses