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Today was another iffy weather day but, we had important things scheduled: a reflexology session for each of us. The shop is located across town which means we walk over across the cornfield, pass the restored windmill and end up in Soest Zuid (South).
Next to the cornfield is another field that looks like cannabis.
We looked up the leaf shape on the web and it looks like it to us. Anyone want to tell us we're crazy? Holland is very liberal, so its not hard to believe we have marijuana growing in our backyard. Hmm, I wonder. Its never been there before.
We both had excellent sessions and booked another session just before we leave for England. Linda is going to barter with Marjoleine.
We take the bus back to the house. On our way we pass this sign at the railway crossing.
We find out from Kees that it is warning people not to walk along the tracks and gives statistics about incidents each year and the problems they cause.
We eat tacos and wine and a salad for lunch. Afterwards, its nice enough to sit out in the rear garden for an hour and read.
How do we pass our inside time? Linda paints:
We watch Netflix and I am reading a novel called Amsterdam by Ian McEwen to Linda. We get our news on Brexit and other stories from the BBC. Nice way to spend an evening.
Joke had previously sent us some ideas of places to visit. They were centered around Assen: some megaliths and a fort of William of Orange from around 1742. We were not exactly sure where these places were but we decided to head for Assen and then go from there.
We started by driving through Baarn, the next town over from Soest, and drove past a school. Sometimes the Dutch put out large pencils to make you notice you're passing a school. Clever and cute.
Driving down the road, you see things like this to break-up the monotony.
We also saw many fields with white blooms and many with purple blooms and we didn't know what they were. We don't think it was clover but would accept anyone's ideas.
After about 2 1/2 hours, we park in the middle of Assen just after noticing the visitor's center sign and walk over. The people there are not quite as helpful as we had hoped, but they directed us over to Rolde where there is a megalith behind the church. If she had not told us that it was behind the cemetery behind the church we would have never found it.
Its a pretty little church in what looks like a very affluent village. As we walked to the back of the church, we saw a group of firemen and several trucks and bystanders standing around a hole. We asked two women standing beside us what was going on. When asked if they spoke English, the women said, "a little". That's what we hear a lot. The truth is they spoke a great deal of English and told us what was going on. The story was that a pony had fallen into an open grave and they were trying to get him out. As we watched two men climbed the ladder out of the hole and were sprayed down. The smell was horrible - almost like they were working on a broken sewer line.
The cemetery had a large number of tombstones that looked like these. They had a version of the "Tree of Life" on the top of each. Then the facts of the deceased, below.
They were still working on this project when we left so we don't know the end of the story. It must have been very muddy in that hole and tough to get the sling around the horse. Prays for the horse.
Linda found the rocks, we think it was a gravesite, and was very proud of herself.
Why aren't any excavations going on?
While she was hanging around looking at it a bee came by to visit.
After this we headed for another site but as we got near it, the gravel road was too muddy to continue. Scratch off anymore megaliths and we head for Bourtange where the fort is.
This is the design of the fort:
Okay - here comes the history lesson, so if that's not your thing, skip to the next paragraph and the picture of Linda. The Eighty Years' War marks the beginning of the fortress' history. In 1580 prince "Willem van Oranje" ordered the building of an entrenchment with five bastions on a sandy ridge in the swamps near the Dutch-German border. The road that connected the city of Groningen with the cities of Lingen and Westphalen used to run over this sandy ridge, or "tange" in Dutch. The Spanish, the adversaries of the Dutch during the war, used this road to bring supplies to the city of Groningen, which was in Spanish hands. Prince William hoped to isolate the city by building the entrenchment. It was completed in 1593 under the command of count Willem Lodewijk van Nassau. Throughout the centuries Bourtange was further reinforced until the onset of "modern warfare". Eventually, Bourtange lost its military status, the fortress was dismantled in 1851. Bourtange grew into a thriving agricultural village where craftsmen, traders and farmers found a place.
This is a well-preserved fort in the shape of a 5 point star. With this shape you can set your canons on each rampart and crossfire against your opponents.
Notice the cutouts in the walls to allow the canons to shoot and still be somewhat protected.
We're not sure of all of the history of this place. We were told there was a film with English subtitles but it didn't have them. Most of the plaques were in Dutch. We did buy a pamphlet that had some English in it and that's what is included above.
As we've seen in other places such as the living quarters in a windmill, beds were built into walls and were very small. These people were certainly not the size of present day Dutch.
Check out the bed in the background.
There were four small museums that showed what rooms looked like and what tools and equipment have been excavated over the years to give you some idea of what it was like to live in this fort in 1742. There are 70 people who live inside the fort, three restaurants, and three shops.
As we walked around, we came upon this odd item.
This guy gives you an impression of their statue.
We ate a late lunch at one of the restaurants with me eating a schnitzel and Linda having a very large hamburger. Each entree came with either french fries or roasted potatoes and two potato cakes and a salad. Plenty of food. Linda was seriously considering some pork livers but the frown on our waiter's face dissuaded her.
On our way back to Soest, we encounter what is very normal in Holland: flowers.
Its obvious that the Dutch feel flowers are important and they go to great pains to make sure they are around.
We wake up to beautiful roses outside our bedroom window.
And the lovely garden downstairs. Apparently, there has been a lot of rain.
Most stores are closed on Sunday. The grocery stores open at 12:00 and we need to stock the kitchen. First, I want to make sure the battery is ok in the car. We take a little drive to charge the battery. Linda is in the mood for a hamburger. That means we drive about 10 minutes down the road to a log cabin in the woods near La Vuursche (sp?). Its cold, wet, and the inside is full. Back in the car, we come back to Soest and eat lunch at the Proef, one of our favorite places on the main street. We know Sean, the head chef, but he's not working today. Our waitress, Beau, is cute, personable, and speaks English. We talk about traveling and Italy where she spends two weeks a year.
We still have Italian in our heads and when we ask for espresso we use Italian words, but Beau grins and understands.
With full bellies, we do our grocery shopping and drive "home".
Its too wet to cut the grass or for Linda to work in the garden. Later Noor from next door shows up. Her English has greatly improved just from May. She tells us her piano recital will be on Friday. Then she and Linda play on the iPad and Noor creates some artwork.
Mom, Liesbeth, comes over after awhile and we catch up on what their family is doing, our Italian trip, and both of our schedules for the rest of the summer. They will be driving to southern France about the time we leave for England and maybe visit Disney.
A drink and a salad is dinner. Linda is very clever in making different dishes using what is available. The salad is cooked greens, mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes with a little olive oil and vinegar.
Since we are in Holland, there are some English language TV stations available and we were able to watch CNN snd BBC News to catch up on world events and especially the fall-out from Brexit.
On Netflix, we watched Ali Wong perform a standup comedy routine. My sister had told us about her. Ali also writes for the Just off the Boat TV series. She's 7 months pregnant and uses that fact in her jokes.
The calendar says that summer has arrived and this part of Italy has noticed. We are having cloudless skies and the temperatures are rising to the mid-70's. The shorts are back out.
We thought we might be able to get a British breakfast at the downstairs restaurant (we had seen a sign earlier). But we were too late.
There is a cute house on a hill above the town that Linda wanted to take a picture. She convinced me we could find it by walking through town. Of course, most of the way was uphill, but we set out for about an hour. As we discovered later in the car, we got close but no cigar.
Good views of the town below us.
Garages built into the sides of the hills and houses with grass on their roofs.
On our way back to the resort we knew we were in trouble. It was after 12:00 and most of the shops and restaurants were closed. We found a snack shop and I ordered what I thought was a vegetable sandwich to share. Not even close. It was a ham sandwich, containing a couple of pieces of ham - that's it. But, it was good enough to energize us.
In the car we found the house along our main road (SS42) and then decided to explore some more. We left the town on a different road and headed up towards Pezzo and then to what turned out to be a national park and a place at the end called Case di Viso. Along the way we found some cows who wanted their pictures taken.
And another with her baby.
It turned out to be an old village that may be available as rentals.
Some of the houses were being restored. In the States, we may have referred to something like this as colonial.
We walked down one road and back up the next. That was it.
A small bar/cafe just in case you needed a ham sandwich and a beer.
And, of course, a chapel and some odd things like two beavers making out and Bill trying to horn in.
And a tribute memorial to all from the area who had died fighting. We don't know when or where. It looks like the eagle is flying just above but its really attached to the stones.
On our way down, we wandered through a couple of towns with some very narrow streets. This is when you pull in your side mirrors so you don't lose them.
Later in the early evening we drive out to a cutesy looking restaurant that we had passed earlier. It looked nice but the owner told us we were too early for dinner. It was 5:30 and dinner would not be served until 7:00. I love Italy, but this eating on-schedule is annoying. Many, not all, shops and restaurants close during the middle of the day. Even grocery stores. As an American, this is very different for us who expect everything to be open all the time and to cater to us. I guess its called spoiled.
So, we ended up in town at a snack bar and ordered a hamburger each with an order of fries and beer and wine. The meat looked like mystery meat. We wondered if it was horse. But, the sandwich had lettuce, tomato, onion, and ketchup on it so you couldn't really tell what the taste was.
This was obviously a bar for the locals. As we ate, we watched workers come in for a snack and a beer. No tourists.
After finishing that, we drove over a few streets and for some silly reason we stopped at a Gelateria and each ordered a crepe with Nutella. Linda added caramel to hers.
As you can see, one is enormous. I had one the same size. We knew we were in trouble, but we both finished our pieces. Afterwards, we felt horrible. Just too much food. Stuffed, stuffed, stuffed. Sugar, sugar, sugar. Linda was up until 1:00 with stomach aches. Why do we do these things?
We looked up the leaf shape on the web and it looks like it to us. Anyone want to tell us we're crazy? Holland is very liberal, so its not hard to believe we have marijuana growing in our backyard. Hmm, I wonder. Its never been there before.
