Roadside Snack Stand at Lauwersmeer National Park in the freezing cold wind
After our second night at Monnickendam we headed north and drove along a huge dyke at Waddenzee, then started tiki-touring to to find somewhere for lunch (it was Sunday and everything was closed) and finally stopped at a little roadside stand at Lauwersmeer National Park at the start of another dyke. We climbed up the dyke and had a look along, it was quite high and the wind was absolutely freezing! So we warmed up with frites and hot chocolate from the snack stand before carrying on to Groningen where we were staying the night. Reece ordered a “Big Frik” which made me think of Scrubs and was basically a long sausage with sauces, and not as good as the picture looked either.
When we arrived at Groningen it was pouring with rain so Reece and I left the others at the hostel and went out to find somewhere to eat dinner. We seemed to find every other cuisine except Dutch, but in the end found a nice little place although we had to get a waiter who spoke English because we couldn’t figure out everything on the menu, and the menu guide in my phrasebook was next to useless! Reece and I both opted for the Groningen mustard soup which was one of their specialties and was really delicious, then mashed potato with pickled cabbage, gravy and sausage or meatball which is apparently a traditional meal and was also really nice but it was just too much and neither of us could finish it.
The plan the next morning was to head for a cheese shop just down the road but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays, seems to be usual over there for shops to be closed the whole day or at least just the morning (who wants to work Monday morning anyway – sounds like a good idea to me!). So we left and detoured through a couple of small towns on the way to Hamburg, trying to find a supermarket with a good selection of cheeses because Jill wanted to get some for Reece’s brother and sister back in London. Eventually found some and then we carried on driving to Hamburg where we were joining more of Reece’s family to celebrate his nephew’s 21st.
I liked Holland, and it was easy for us because most people spoke at least a little English. I liked how easy it looked to cycle everywhere, although I’m sure it would be hard cycling along the top of a dyke into a head wind! There WERE windmills everywhere, but mostly the new kind that are tall and streamlined with thin blades. We saw quite a few of the old traditional type but a lot of them weren’t working. New Zealanders seem to complain a lot about how wind turbines for generating power are noisy and a blot on the landscape but I thought they were ok. There was often one right in someone’s backyard in the country so they can’t be that noisy, or maybe they’re using better quality turbines! We saw them all around Belgium, Holland and Germany. I was disappointed about not being able to visit the Anne Frank House – we tried to book in advance online but they were already booked out for the days we were in Amsterdam – and about missing out on a factory tour at De Porceleyne Fles, but I still got to see other cool stuff. I’ll just have to save those for next time!
Interestingly Germany has the best system of user produced power in the world. There are incentives to generate it, so that’s probably why you saw so many turbines. I would imagine the German engineers have been able to make them pretty quiet, efficient and cheap too.