Fortress City
While in Patagonia we meet a young man from the Dutch city of Naarden. He was quite funny and we kept running into him everywhere we went until the joke became that we were stalking him. On one occasion he showed us his city on Google Earth and we were blown away, he lives in a walled, moated fortress! Naarden at least the old part is built inside a walled area surrounded by two moats. Gidion's parents live in a house right in this part of Naarden.
When we found out we were coming to Holland we decided to go to Naarden and try to find young Gidion. We emailed him several days before we arrived in Amsterdam, but he never replied. So I did an internet white pages search for his last name and found an address I thought was his parents. As we were wandering around Naarden we kept an eye out for his street. We finally found it except there were three of his house number: a, b and c!
Across the street a women was going into her house, we called to her and asked if she knew Gidion Bijl.
She asked us in an excited voice, "You mean the famous hockey player?"
Confused we replied, "No we don't think so, we think he lives in one of the three houses."
"Oh you must mean the young boy."
We didn't really think that a 18 or 19 year old qualified as a young boy, but this was closer to the mark than a famous hockey player, "Yeah that's who we are looking for."
"Yes he lives in that one, A."
So we knocked on the door. Tragedy, no one was home. We took a few pictures of us in front of his house and left him a hand written note in the mail box. The next day he emailed me, "I am still in Costa Rica and my parent asked me something about a note in our mail box, was that you?"
Aside from this hilarious episode Naarden was very cute and very quiet. Dominated by a massive church that seems to take up about half the area in the fortress it is a cluster of small houses and a few shops and cafes. We got the feeling that the main action in Naarden lies outside the walls where the city sprawled into the surrounding countryside. Once the main gateway to Amsterdam this tiny medieval city is now a quiet spot that a few tourists visit.