When Marlene asked what I would like to do/see on our trip, I said that I liked the following:
- military related thing
- cemeteries
- country landscapes
- OP shops
- drinking coffee
I didn't have many ideas about specific places I wanted to go to, I just wanted a chance to relax and observe. However, about 4 months ago, my friend, April, sent me an article about a small town called Geithoorn, and I immediately let Marlene know I wanted to add it to the sightseeing list. Geithoorn is a very small town that is also called the "Venice of the Netherlands" because many of the roads are not accessible by car, only by foot/bike paths next to the canals that run through the entire city. The canals were made by peat unearthing.
The town is only fully accessible by boat! Also, there are no railings or curbs, it's just water, pathway, then front yard. My biggest question was, "how do people get their groceries home?" There weren't any boats parked outside houses so it seemed very strange. Also, the ground was so squishy, like I was walking through a marsh!
The town is obviously a big tourist attraction, but we were lucky that we came early in the season so we could see the town interrupted by the summer influx. Our only interaction with locals were when a group of boys were riding their bikes in front of our car and not letting us pass. When they finally fell into one line to let us pass, the said that we were "stalking them" and spoke rudely to Marlene. After living on Saba, and also growing up in a tourist town, I know how hard it is to see outsiders come to visit your town, but rudeness, especially by kids, is still unsettling.
A funny part of our day was when we took the train to Zwolle to pick up our rental car. The office mixed up our rental and no longer had the car Marlene had reserved. The only car they had was a tiny Yaris that was COVERED in advertisements for the rental office. We needed a car so we had already decided to take it when the man offered a 50% discount to take the ad car. Also, I took a picture in the bathroom at the rental office because this is how big all the bathrooms are in Holland. It was basically a converted linen closet.
We took the car to Geithorn, then to a kringloop winkels, which translates to circle walk, or around again. It was a thrift shop but it didn't have much there (great furniture but too big for my suitcase!). I was looking through clothes for anything "dutch" but Marlene said most people donate clothes to charity whereas kringloop's are for profit shops.
After Geithoorn, we drove to Staphorst to people watch while we ate dessert and had coffee. We saw many women in traditional dress.
Next we drove to Zalk. It is situated just behind a dike so we were able to walk along the dike, visit a church and windmill, then stop at a graveyard on the way out of town. It's was so interesting to me that so much of Holland is uniformed and the same, but the graves were so different. Some wood, some rock, some glass, some granite, they were all unique. I really loved how this graveyard had gardening tools available to anyone who came to work on/clean a family members grave.
Something really interesting is that in Holland is that people only rent their graves for 10-20 years. This is due to poor soil and high water levels resulting in no space for graveyards. So when it's time for a body to be moved out, a sign is put up on the grave that basically says, "if you're here to visit and you're family, call this number so you can pay us more money to keep your relative buried or he's coming up." It was so strange but so interesting!
