Earlier this year Bill and I escorted a group of 18 stitchers to join a cruise ship in Amsterdam for a week’s holiday with Arena Travel. Whilst on the move we sat and stitched a project designed for just this occasion.
It was quite some itinerary – in addition to our day at Floriade (more of which another time), we visited a beautiful orchid and butterfly house, The Museum Van Loon, The Medemblik Bakery and spent the rest of the time cruising up canals, across inland seas and through some quite scary locks. The crew of the ship were so kind and helpful and in additional to my husband Bill as ‘our experienced tour guide’, we had two other members of the Arena team to help with arrangements, my lack of Dutch and much more.
Much of the area that we explored was newly reclaimed land, something the Dutch are famous for. The area of Almere was only 10 years old and that is a strange concept to grasp. I admired all the avenues of identical size trees and wondered but, of course, they were all planted at the same time as the new land was developed.
I thought that Holland, or should I say the Netherlands, was simply lovely – so calm, clean and quite magical. I would add though that there is one factor visitors must keep in mind. The country is owned by cyclists and woe betide anyone who does not look both ways when leaving a vehicle or crossing cycle paths!
