Red and white

During our hike yesterday we spotted some of these fly amanitas ('vliegenzwam' in Dutch). They are quite common in the Netherlands, but their numbers depend on the weather conditions. Some years they can be spotted everywhere and other years there only seem to be a few.
Aren´t they special?

I'm linking to All Seasons.

Sunday hike

Lots of mountain-bikers today on this forest trail near Borger. It was a perfect day to enjoy the Autumn colours on foot too, as we did :)
Our marked hiking trail was partly also a mountain-bike trail so we had to watch out for them!

Zooming in

Playing with the camera I zoomed in on this kind of crane fly (I think?), or 'langpootmug' in Dutch, sitting on the other side of our living room window. A creature I don't normally pay attention to, but looking at it closely I suddenly noticed its mazed and folded symmetrical wings, the missing leg, the leg joints, the fork-shaped antennae, the ..

Chrysanthemum

This is THE time for chrysanthemums to bloom and give colour to the garden. How about this beautiful reddish one.
Thanks Jan and Petra and look how well it's doing :)

I'm linking to Floral Friday Fotos and Today's Flowers.

The Hague Arcade

This is The Hague's Arcade (De Passage in Dutch). Built between 1882 and 1885 it is the oldest shopping arcade in The Netherlands, and an official UNESCO monument. Inside are passageways, glass atria, pedestrian bridges, and of course a number of boutique stores.

Trick of vision

 To the people of the orchid & birdbush 'Eureka Texel - Orchideeën & Vogelbush' , an orchid and birdbush on the island of Texel: thanks for giving us the fright of our lives ;)

Train travel and reading

 "Lekker lezen doe je in de trein" ("Comfortably reading in the train") is a campaign of the Dutch Railways (NS) with which they hope to encourage and inspire travelers to read in the train. Train travel and reading just go hand-in-hand, they say, and I think that's very true! They are also known to support a number of important and well-known Dutch reading and literacy campaigns.
This was the train that took us from The Hague to Zwolle, Saturday a few weeks ago.

 Near the doors of the train part of a page of several books were displayed, like here from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.
I´m not sure though if this would be the book I´d choose to read in the train, a thriller or detective is more my thing..  How about you?

Self-portrait

One of the current smaller temporary exhibitions in the Drents Museum in Assen is ´Self-portraits'.
About 95% of the portraits were painted, this piece of Dutch artist Flip Drukker (1949) stood out because of its originality.

Sunday hike

 As we're getting deeper into October the weather changes; Autumn is settling now.

Both photos are from the Schapenpark Nature Area near the village of Odoorn, and taken earlier today.

Shrimpcutter TM26

This photo was taken from the ferry that took us from Schiermonnikoog back to Lauwersoog at the mainland, last Sunday. Just before arriving at the Lauwersoog harbour this boat went by, giving us a pretty view in the late afternoon sun.

Wondering what ´TM26´ meant I googled and found out that the letters TM stand for Termunterzijl, a small village in the north of the Netherlands. The number 26 seems sequential.
It´s originally a shrimpcutter named MEEUW ('SEAGULL'), built in 1911 in the Groninger village of Oude Pekela. It was motorized in 1928, claimed by the Germans during WW2, and from 1971 used for sport fishing and other recreational purposes. In 1988 the cutter was completely renovated.

I'm linking to Weekend Reflections.

Sea-buckthorn

Very common on the Dutch islands, so also on Schiermonnikoog, is this plant with its small and bright orange berries called sea-buckthorn ('duindoorn' in Dutch). It's native to fixed dunes and sea cliffs in Europe and Asia.

The berries are a favourite 'dish' for many migrating birds, that pass the island at the same time that the berries are ripe.
I also read that especially in France sea-buckthorn is commonly sold as fruit juice or as an ingredient in non-alcoholic and alcoholic mixed beverages. Other uses include the berries to be processed as fruit wine or into liquor as well as jam. They have a very high vitamin C content, on average exceeding that of lemons and oranges. (info from Wikipedia HERE). Isn't that interesting, I don't recall though having seen jam or fruit juice made from sea-buckthorn..  have you?

I'm linking to Floral Friday Fotos.

The fisherman's bicycle

The main function of bicycles is to take you from A to B of course. They can also carry a lot of stuff, like your (sea)fishing gear to the beach.
I didn't manage to catch the fisherman on camera..

Curved edge

Most people who are on the beach walk near the sea line, where the sand is hard and it's easier to walk. We do too, though I'm glad that this time we chose this route, because otherwise we would have missed this beautifully shaped edge! Apparently there has been a water stream here that caused the difference in height and made these half-round curves.

An island path

Although Schiermonnikoog is relatively small (about 200 km²), the island has many different landscapes: beach, dunes, woods, salt marshes and tidal flats. The thought is that this nature belongs to us all, and therefor much of it is open and accessible to the public. Only during the breeding season some paths are closed so birds are not disturbed.
Here we are on our way to the wide beach that I showed you yesterday.

Wide, wider, widest

 The beaches of Schiermonnikoog are among the widest in Europe. Even though it was nearly high tide yesterday when we arrived at the most western point of the island, the beach was so wide that we couldn´t even spot the sea. Isn´t that amazing?

I´m linking to All Seasons.

Sailing on the beach

With a sunny day ahead we took the ferry to the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog this morning at 9:30 am to make a day hike. And what a nice day we had!

A big part of our hike was on the North Sea beach. We watched this group for a while 'sailing' on the sand. The small vehicles reached quite some speed!

Inside Den Haag Centraal railway station

Isn´t this view, standing inside the new The Hague railway station, magnificent? The glass roof construction contains 220 diamant-shaped windows sized 12x8 metres (39.4x26.2 ft) each, and from what I found on the internet in The Hague they are commonly referred to as "wybertjes".

Outside Den Haag Centraal railway station

Arriving at "Den Haag Centraal". The brand-new main railway station of The Hague opened in February of this year after almost 5 years of renovation works. The original train station dates from 1870, it was called 'Den Haag Rhijnspoor'. Many things have changed since then!

Lots of glass on all sides, which makes it possible to look right through to the sky and see the sun reflect. Tomorrow I'll show you a photo taken inside.

I'm linking to Skywatch Friday and Weekend Reflections.

Royal?

Photo taken through the same window of the Mauritshuis as the first photo from yesterdays post, only a little to the left. These chimneys on the buildings of the Binnenhof have a kind of royal touch, don´t you think?

The Dutch Prime Minister's office

From inside the Mauritshuis in The Hague you have a direct view to the working office of our Prime Minister Mark Rutte (or minister president as we say in Dutch). He has been the Prime Minister since October 2010, and he is the leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). This office is known as "Het Torentje" (literally: "The Little Tower"), the small octagonal building is located at at the edge of the Binnenhof, a complex of parliament buildings.
From this side it looks as if some windows have been removed, maybe for some privacy?

The Little Tower dates from the first half of the 14th century and looks out at a pond called the Hofvijver.
For more info and a few photos from inside Het Torentje click HERE.

Rembrandt self-portrait

Dutch painter and etcher Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) is considered one of the greatest painters in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth that historians call the Dutch Golden Age.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his reputation as an artist remained high, and for 20 years he taught many important Dutch painters. (from Wikipedia, read more HERE)

He painted this self-portrait in the same year he died, in 1669. The painting is part of the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1947.

Mauritshuis

 On my to-do list for a long time was a visit to the Mauritshuis in The Hague. This art museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, which are mostly works from the Dutch Golden Age, from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen, and others. The Mauritshuis was built between 1636 and 1641, and was designed by Dutch architects Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post. The two-storey building is strictly symmetrical.

Originally, the building was the residence of count John Maurice of Nassau. It is now the property of the government of the Netherlands and is listed in the top 100 Dutch heritage sites.
In 1822 the Mauritshuis was opened to the public, so it has been a museum for almost 2 centuries now!

City architecture

Modern architecture in The Hague, near the main train station. From our visit yesterday!

The apple as art

This rack with wooden apples by Kees Franse is part of the new exhibition "The Apple, Between Guilt and Innocence" in De Buitenplaats Museum in Eelde. The collection shows how the apple appeared in painted and sculpured art, both traditional and contemporary. But it also deals with the cycle of life and the seasons, mythology and symbolism of apples.

The wooden apples by Kees Franse date from 1971. Franse (1924-1982) was a Dutch painter and sculptor, he is known for his abstract and figurative works.

Signs of Autumn

I visit the Buitenplaats Museum in Eelde several times a year and love to wander around in the museum garden. Watching the change of seasons never bores..

Here Autumn seems to be nibbling on the leaves!

Afsluitdijk monument café

Next to the Afsluitdijk monument -see also my previous 2 posts- is a tiny café/restaurant annex souvenir shop. Inside are basic wooden tables and chairs, and wherever you look there are (black and white) photographs, newspaper clippings, old postcards etc. They all tell and inform about the history of the Afsluitdijk.
Open every day of the year, it's a popular place to stop and it is often crowded inside. It's a café with character though and I hope they will keep it just as it is.

Inside the Afsluitdijk monument

Following up on yesterday´s post these are 2 more photos from the Afsluitdijk monument, taken when we went down the stairs again.

The viewing tower was built in 1933 and was designed by Dutch modernist architect Willem Dudok (1884-1974).

At the Afsluitdijk monument

 On our way to Den Helder, from where the ferry departs to the island of Texel, we stopped for coffee at the Afsluitdijk. The Afsluitdijk (lit: 'Closure Dike') is a major causeway running between the Dutch provinces of North Holland and Friesland, with a length of 32 km (20 mi). The dike protects the mainland from the North Sea and is a fundamental part of the Zuiderzee Works.
On the spot where the dike was closed in 1932 is a monument in the form of a view tower. Next to it is a small restaurant.

This is the view from the tower, with the IJssel Lake on the left and the Wadden Sea on the right. A footbridge connects the parking spots on both sides of the dike. It was a Friday morning and as you can see there was not much traffic at that moment!

Friends

Photo taken in the Eureka Texel tropical bird garden.

Abandoned

I´m no member of the City Daily Photoblog community, but when I noticed on several blogs that today´s theme is 'abandoned' this photo immediately came into mind. We found this tiny plastic pink mould left on the Texel beach a couple of weeks ago.
Who knows how many foot-shaped sand cakes have been baked with it this Summer..