Holland Bike Ride
The weather has been so good here that Jammie and I decided to take a bike ride around the area. Christine showed a few of her favorite routes, one takes you out to the dunes and the beach another heads north and then loops around through the green spaces so common in this country. No matter how densely populated the cities are the land use planing in The Netherlands has been focused on preservation of green spaces. Little farms and common areas dominate the country side.
After lounging in the sun for an hour or two in the morning we decided to check out the inland route. This route would take us past the statue of the little boy who put his finger in the dike. This necessitated a flurry of picture taking and posing by the relatively unassuming statue.
Next we got to stop and tour a working windmill. The windmills of the Netherlands have been used for centuries to pull water from lowlands and reclaim land from the sea. This windmill has been around since the 1500's, but in the late 1990s it burned down and has since been rebuilt to the original specifications. The gentleman who hosts the tours also lives in the windmill and is very proud of this fact.