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Dyke
A river next to another dyke we drove along. This one also had cyclists - Marion was pleased. Sunday 4th May
Henriette had returned after dinner yesterday, so all 3 of our hosts were there to farewell us when we left late in the morning.
All three of us would like to thank Hinke, Hans and Henriette for their openness, friendliness and for taking time to entertain us and for showing us some of the sights around Holland. We also thank them for allowing us to board with them for a number of days. (Owen says it's the best hotel we've stayed in EXCEPT for the stairs! {Owen was in the "attic" second floor.})
Marion wanted to visit the Museum de Heksenwaag (witches museum) in Oudewater. The museum has all sorts of information about witches and was purportedly a witch-weighing station in the middle ages.
The first part of the journey was pretty standard for Europe - narrow roads by Australian standards, but ones were two cars could easily pass. But about 15kms out from Oudewater, suddenly we were driving along a dyke wall that was narrower than yesterdays Apple Dyke; nor was it as pretty. The road was about 1 ½ cars wide, had trees and a creek (canal) on one side and houses
Bridge
A bridge along the dyke we drove on to Ouberwater. A very pretty area. on the other. And it had bikes, lots and lots of bikes! (Thus was after all a long weekend for the Dutch as tomorrow, Monday, was Liberation day.)
Passing a car coming in the other direction required one car to pull into (or stop beside) a passing bay which were provided every 200m or so. But the main trouble, as it was yesterday, was the push-bikes and the rider's perception that it was their road and the cars were trespassers. They certainly didn't think that road courtesy was a two way thing.
As was the case yesterday, we had to crawl along behind some bikes that were two or three abreast and had no inclination to let us pass. I won't go into all the details but it was like a re-run of yesterday, Saturday, only worse.
The only amusing thing that happened was we trailed along behind a chap in a motorised bike/wheel chair contraption and his lady escort for quite a while. Eventually at the third or fourth passing bay they pulled to one side and motioned us through; we waved back cheerily.
It was only a minute or so later when NavMan had
Ouberwater
A house on the outskirts of Ouberwater - next to one of Holland's many canals. one of its brain fever attacks and told us to turn right over the next bridge (into another road equally as narrow!). After a little while NavMan got its bearing and had us continue down the new road and across the next bridge, back to our original road. We continued along and there, in front of us, were the chap in his motorised carriage and his companion once more. (They had got back in front of us while we were stationary on the other side of the canal sorting out our Navman problems.) The look on their faces was priceless when they finally pulled aside and we went past them, waving cherrily, for a second time.
Eventually we arrived at Oudewater, in spite of the bikes.
The Museum de Heksenwaag was easy to spot as it a typical "witches broomstick" leaning against the wall alongside the front entrance. Upstairs we watched a DVD(in English) about the history of witches. The DVD proved once again that the Monty Python team are not just randomly silly. In medieval times people believed that witches weighed less than normal people and would float on water (The Python team just took it one
Ouberwater
A little square in Ouberwater. We didn't expect such a small town to be as busy as it was. step further and equated floating as weighing the same as a duck). There were a few "exhibits" upstairs (mainly written info) and another (very childish) video.
Downstairs was dominated by two massive platforms (large enough for a person to stand on) that were part of a beam balance. The lady in charge instructed Marion to stand on one of these and put weights on the other platform until the weights were roughly equal (again a la Python). Owen's weight and my weight were also checked and allthree of us were declared non-witches.
Marion now has a "legal" document that states that she is not a witch, which she intends to take back to work when she returns, to prove that what the girls say about her is not true!
To leave Oudewater we had to negotiate the same "bike road" that we had entered by. In addition to the bikes we met a pig of a driver on the way out. Instead of pulling over beside a convenient layby her roared on until the two cars were confronting each other. He obstinately refused to back up (possibly due to having to prove dominance due to the inadequate
Vapour Trails
We saw lots of vapour trails during our time in Germany. Too many planes! size of his sexual organ, or possibly because he thought he was important and was in a "hurry") and motioned furiously for us to back up about 150m. Marion decided that there was little we could do about his puny sexual equipment but if he was in a hurry we could certainly fix that. Marion very "nervously" backed very slowly back down the road taking as much time as possible.
Again, I apologise to our Dutch friends, but the Dutch drivers (and riders) are incredibly arrogant and rude compared to the general courtesy of the German drivers.
Eventually Marion was able to exit the road of bikes and we were really on our way to Amsterdam.
Amsterdam again turned out to be a city with many one-way streets (as had all the others we had visited) with the additional hazards of a number of very busy uncontrolled intersections and a plague of bikes (Amsterdam is supposed to have a population of 600 000 people and 1 000 000 bicycles).
By the time we had unpacked and had dinner all we had time left for was a candlelight cruise. One difference between Amsterdam and Venice was immediately
Witch!
Marion IS a witch! The hat and broom give it away!!! apparent, the canals in Amsterdam were awash with rubbish; plastic bottles, paper, pieces of plastic wrapping, bits of cardboard and things too revolting to name, all bobbed up and down in the water (and that's only what floated). During our early morning photography tour in Venice we had seen a couple of chaps in a tinny choofing along the canals and removing any floating refuse they came across. To clean up Amsterdam's canals half the population would have to take part.
The cruise was very good. We were able to sail through a large part of the canal system with the boat just squeezing around a few of the tighter turns. We saw many of the important buildings, got a brief background history lesson into why there were locks which are now no longer needed (except to flush clean water through the canal system every couple of days) and even sailed through the red light district (although curtains were quickly drawn when the cruise boat was spotted by the women in the windows).
The wine and nibbles were appreciated and the commentary was excellent and extremely funny.
A few of the guides best follow:
- Amsterdam's
Dad too?
Dad went on the witch-weigh scales as well. Not much hope for me then! canals are 3 metres deep, there's a metre of mud, a metre of water and, in between, a metre of bicycles.
- One of the large buildings had a big Heineken sign that was blue instead of the usual red. Apparently this was because it allowed Mr Heineken to display the sign without paying for advertising since he was just naming his building after himself and not his product.
- Supposedly Amstel hotel (which is the toffiest hotel in Amsterdam (and has guested people such as Bill Clinton and Madonna) have baths that fill in 1 minute and they have to routinely warn guests about this hazard to avoid overflowing baths.
- There is a floating Chinese restaurant in one of the wider parts of the canals that is an exact copy of a restaurant in Hong Kong. On opening, night with a full house, and all the country's dignitaries present, including their beloved queen, the restaurant began to sink. The Dutch had forgotten two important facts, the restaurant in Hong Kong is on salt water (and therefore is more buoyant), and secondly the average Dutchman is heavier than the average Chinaman. The restaurant has since been
Uh oh!
Looks like I am a witch as well. I wonder how being burned at the stake feels... modified.
We retired relatively early to get an early start for Keukenhof tomorrow.
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