Tuinpark Sloterdijkermeer

This was such a beautiful walk in a park that I have to save it here for posterity. A friend has introduced me to a place that is now at the edge of town but originally it was actually out of town (in 1936) and organised as a free park area for Amsterdamers who wanted some peace and quiet that would be easily reachable with bicycle. So there is a whole beautiful Westerpark that eventually continues into another zone, perfectly organised and neat little New York of garden parcels where everybody has a little cottage, garden and some quiet corner. It is very unassuming and simple, very very basic and everybody invests just as much energy and time as they can or as they need - there is nothing fancy here and this is no competition, in fact once you enter the "park" area it is not possible to drive the cars here, the roads are permitted only for the bicycle. If I understand correctly, there are actually two sections: Tuinpark Sloterdijkermeer and Tuinpark Nut & Groeten that kind of merge one into another, but to a visitor like me they look very much alike. 

Miraculously, as the city grew, this "garden area" survived protected, probably because citizens of Amsterdam refused to give up on the idea of having a little quiet zone still relatively close to them. Where in other countries (like my homeland, for example) weekend houses are usually some distance from city and demand car transportation, this garden zone can be easily reached by public transport or simply a bike - come weekend, you can just ride here and spend the day (or weekend) taking care of your little plot and return home in the evening. I had a beautiful, peaceful walk trough a park and everybody was behaving very nice, there was absolutely no noise (forbidden!), people were sunbathing in their gardens, I saw several solar panels and it was just magic. And this was still a relatively cold, early Spring day so surely it looks even more magic later in the Summer! Can't wait to visit it again!