Travels: De Veluwe, The Netherlands

We just came back from our vacation. We didn't go far, because after a couple of years with around 40 degrees Celsius in countries around the Mediterranean, we learned our lesson. With temperatures that high the only thing I can do is sit in a chair, drink cold drinks and walk to and from a swimming pool. Of course everybody has its own favorite holiday highlights, and that's totally okay, but mine isn't sitting in a chair. I want to see and do things.

So in spring we travel to the Mediterranean and in summer we stay in our own country nowadays. And because The Netherlands isn't that big (about 300 x 200 kilometers) we only had one hour to drive to reach our destination. We were staying in a holiday home in an area called De Veluwe, the most woody region of the Netherlands.

The weather wasn't great, most of the days we had gray clouds the whole day through, but the temperature was fine and as long as it wasn't raining we could do whatever we wanted to do. Except going to the outdoor swimming pool. And going to the swimming pool was what my daughters wanted to do so desperately.

Fortunately there's a lot of other things to see and do around de Veluwe. So here's the first part of a whole lot of pictures I made. 

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On a very rainy day we went to the Royal Palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn. In the Netherlands we have a monarchy, which started in 1815 with Willem I, a descendant from Willem the Zwijger, who made The Netherlands an independent country.  The Netherlands was much smaller then and was called Holland.

Willem van Oranje (also known as: Prince of Orange, Willem the Silent)

The enormous courtyard

One of the most beautiful pieces in the fleet of vehicles of the royal family is this mourning-coach. 

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On a sunnier day we did a field trip through one of many sand drifts on De Veluwe. 

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The best days were when we could take our bikes and cycled some kilometers. In our busy city it's a bit dangerous to cycle with two kids, so especially my youngest wanted to do everything by bike. On this trip we cycled to an old farm, a replica of the farms people inhabited in the iron age. Of course people grew their own food then, so the farm was surrounded by vegetable gardens, beehives and small acres.

Beehive 

Sunflowers

Yes, that's a bee butt you see sticking out one of the flowers

You can't see it in this picture, but the hood of this mushroom had a diameter of 25 centimeters. There were a lot of mushrooms everywhere, another proof of how humid it was because of the rain.