Vacation Time

 

We were already on vacation this year, our winter escape were Canary Islands - but I said to myself why not taking another one - after all, there is no law saying it must be only one a year. After some careful considerations and several changes of plan, eventually we decided not to travel anywhere too far, airports and transportation draining all the energy and fun from vacation. So we decided simply to explore local places that we never visited before, like for example Zeeland which is part of southern Netherlands, almost at the border with Belgium. And I must say it worked out perfectly because nothing was really exhausting, in fact the train ride was very pleasant and we were there in no time.

Our first choice was little coastal town Vlissingen that might be popular in the summer time but in September it was almost completely deserted - a bit strange but fine by us, as we wanted peace and quiet. We walked trough quaint streets and enjoyed local museums, specially beautiful was a long promenade with spectacular view towards the sea, I even caught myself daydreaming how nice it might be to live here. Probably boring as Hell, but sometimes boring is nice. I mean, considering loonies we have to deal on the streets of Amsterdam, Vlissingen sounds like a safe place. 

We also visited a nearby town of Middleburg which is much bigger and I expected that I will like it more - on contrary, it was just bigger and nothing more. It lacked the beautiful seaside of Vlissingen and even though the buildings were very pretty in a frou frou way, I still prefer Vlissingen anytime. There was a interesting museum and a very eye catching city hall but I don't see myself going back.

Than I had visitors and we rented a car to make our explorations easier - it was totally a game changer because suddenly we were not dependant on the public transport anymore but could easily travel wherever we wanted. So first i wanted to show them a pretty little fisherman's town of Volendam which is very pictoresque but was that particular day still reeling from previous night festivites and everything smelled suspiciously on urine and beer LOL. Much nicer was a trip to famous Giethoorn that is celebrated as Venice of North - Giethoorn started as a religious refugee but is now a big business, sort of artificial Disneyland with boats full of tourists who expect a magical village without roads. The place where everybody rows a boat. Not exactly, you can still walk on the roads but boats are there and I must admit it is quite lovely.

Our next stop was Scheveningen beach near The Hague and it was really beautiful place, full of relaxed people just roaming around and enjoying the sea air & zillion restaurants offering fresh fish. A work colleague suggested a visit to nearby Madurodam which was the best - in fact, it might even be the highlight of the whole vacation for me: Madurodam (named after WW2 hero George Maduro) is a miniature park with replicas of famous Dutch landmarks. It was just the prettiest little thing and we were blessed with the most beautiful weather so everything worked in our favour, I enjoyed the whole day and the place is definitely on my visit-again list. 

Just as my visitors left, the perpetual rain started again and that was the end of our travels - initially we did had some more trips in mind but everything changed once we faced weather outside. There was simply no point of travelling anywhere if its just raining all the time, we might as well sit at home instead of being locked up in the hotel room. But it was nice while it lasted and I feel refreshed and good now.