It was SO SO foggy this morning. We noticed late last night the mist was rolling in over the Amstel and it settled eerily in the still night. This morning, we could not see the river at all but could hear the rowboats' thudding splashes so we knew there were people about! Even when we were driving on the motorways at 11AM, the fog was so dense that visibility was about 30 metres and we couldn't see anything on the side of the roads. Just as we neared our destination, Elburg, the fog started to lift and in no time it was a sunny clear day.
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| Fog from our window |
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| Our paddocks! |
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| The barn and sloot |
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| Road to Elburg |
We had a lovely welcome by Karl's cousin, Anita, her
partner, Henri and daughters, Tamara and Chantelle at their lovely house
in Elburg the garden of which backs straight onto a water way or
"gracht". Another cousin, Paul, had made the 50km journey to see us,
too. We soon settled into lovely conversation once Luke was occupied
with dinosaurs and the big kids were playing music. Of course, there
was coffee and cake and more food including krokets and frikandel (great
word!) sausages. Their menagerie of gerbils, hamsters, rabbits and
tortoises was lovely. We particularly liked the gerbils and hamsters
which are illegal in Australia which we have oggled at in petshop
windows.
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| Paul, Karl and Henri |
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| Lovely garden backing onto the gracht |
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| Tim jumping over the sloot |
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| Reflections in the river |
After lunch we all walked over the fields to the historic part of
Elburg. Elburg is an old town and although there have been Neolithic
relics found, it was really established as an affluent, fortified city
between 1392 and 1396 with a moat and wall.
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| Kids on the bridge |
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| Karl and me on the bridge at the entrance to old Elburg. |
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| Walking into town |
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| Lane with lone bike. |
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| A fitting old car driving through the old town. |
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| The Fish Gate, 1392, leading to the old harbour. |
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| All of us: Henri. Karl,me, Tim, Chantelle, Tamara, Luke, Annika and Anita - at the Fish Gate |
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| Chantelle and Luke on the fortification |
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| Gathering of most of us! |
Elburg was a farming and fishing village until the end of WWII. A
railway was planned through Elburg but the land owners asked too high a
price for their land and so the railway lined bypassed Elburg. Because
of the lack of railway, Elburg, lost trade. Trade was further affected
when the Afsluitdijk was built in 1932 which closed off the salt water
meaning the fishing industry came to an end. Tourism is the main
industry today.
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| By the old harbour |
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| Typical Holland |
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| Canon investigation |
We really loved walking through the town and city gates and charging up
and down the remains of the old forts. The harbour and boats, so
typical of Holland, the old cobbled streets, the gentle sun, and the
pretty little old houses with no curtains (so their whole life is on
view!) - all these make Holland so charming! I can really understand
why some Dutch people left Holland for other countries and then returned
to Holland and then retraced their steps. There is so much here to
enjoy in this season and when there's no rain! Winter would be a
different story!
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| Typical little cobbled street with crooked houses and bikes |
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| The attic window was delightfully angled. |
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| One of the wall houses, literally built into the city walls and narrow as Karl and Anita's arm widths. |
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| The city walls an windows of the houses. |
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| Riding the city lion |
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| The river. Old toilets (into the river!) under the brick bridge! |
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| Autumn is here! |
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| Daring tree climbing |
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| Back through the sheep fields |
Our lovely hosts treated us to delicious ice creams which we ate as
we wandered back via the river and the fields. Time went very quickly
and after a quick cuppa we started our drive back. Traffic was slow but
at least the fog had lifted and we did get home eventually.
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| Dwarf hamster - aw! |
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| Tim CHOOSING to fall into the gracht! |
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| Game of "Bean Boozled" - daring tasting of jelly beans which might be delicious of disgusting like dog food or rotten eggs!! |
As we are leaving on Thursday, we are winding down our food supplies so it was an easy meal of pancakes for dinner and a relaxed time watching the delightful "Shrek 2".
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