Tuesday 3 January 2012

Holland Part 1-from Ebbsfleet to Den Haag

In chronological order, photos from our journey. Ebbsfleet International.

A silver chandelier decorates the door to the first class lounge, which I thought was just a wall until it opened! We live about half an hour away from here by car so it is very convenient. We had a slight problem finding our car park as we were in D and there only seemed to be an A and a B. Eventually we found it-by chance as it was badly signposted-and ten minutes walk from the terminal! Ah well, I need the exercise after the holiday. A town in Belgium-not sure which one-I should have made notes!

I liked the misty church tower silhouette in the distance.
Lots of graffiti in Belgium and Holland. Far more than here I would say. I like graffiti mostly so am happy to see so many examples. I always marvel at the daring of the people who do it and how good some of it is. I missed snapping a lot of it as by the time I saw it we had gone past!
I think this is Rotterdam station. I was interested in the running people logo and wondered what message is being conveyed by the sight of two people who seem to be running away.
There are lots of solar panels on the houses in Belgium, and often the houses have gardens that look like small holdings with pigs, goats or maybe chickens, and rows of neat vegetables. Very ecologically sound.

I love the bright red and orange against the subdued colours of the day.
Lots of mud and water lying on the ground. I saw at least three completely muddy fields with a poor little pony standing forlornly at its edge.
Lots of sheep. Often really huge and fluffy ones with brown and white coats.

As we went further north we passed field after field surrounded by dykes. The pieces of land in between the water are called Polders-I found that out tonight when looking up dykes. I saw lots of herons on the way, standing along the banks of the water channels, and on the way back a large white bird with black tail feathers-I have not looked it up yet but think it may have been a stork or an egret. It was big which is what most impressed me!

There were multiple posters of the woman, all altered in some way with detailed doodling.

The only windmill I saw-in Delft. It was the prettiest thing we saw on the way through Delft, which at the moment seems to be one big building sight.
Den Haag HS station. We stood outside waiting for our friends to come and find us, listening to the beginnings of the firework fest to come later.
Thank you for all your comments on the last post-lovely to hear from all of you and I look forward to catching up soon. We got back yesterday, work today and all the Christmas tidying to be done. The house is more or less back to normal now- its normal cluttered state anyway! This year I must sort this out!

7 comments:

Kat Mortensen said...

I loved going on the train journey with you! Great colour and very interesting things that caught your eye, if only in a fleeting way.

Glad you're back safely. I made a start on cleaning today, but not nearly as much as I need to.

Leenie said...

What an adventure from beginning to end. The western United States is wide and spread out so traveling can be a little boring a times. It would be nice to go by passenger train--another thing no longer available around here.

We don't have the architecture or history of Europe either so everything you posted is amazing to me. Some day I'll get across the Atlantic to see such things. Thanks for showing us your travels.

Carole Reid said...

Thanks for the train ride. It's fun to see another country through someone else's camera.

Thank you also for the "give away" package! It arrived today in the mail. I made myself a cup of tea and slowly opened it, enjoying the envelope, the paper, the card, and the book! I'll be posting some pics on my blog this week.

Anonymous said...

We have noticed the graffitti on the Continent - much more than there is here. Looking forward to reading more about your trip. If you have time, do pop over to the blog - I have just started to organise a little fun swap to celebrate my 3rd blogiversary!

Lynne said...

Great to see your trip in pictures. Look forward to the rest. There's lots of solar panels here too.

Queenie Believe said...

Looks like you had a lovely holiday.
Have a great day.
Always, Queenie

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great start to a fun vacation!