Cubes and 14 pointed stars

Well the last few days have been reasonably quiet.  Saturday was shopping in the morning, this takes quite some time when you have to spend so long figuring out what everything is.  Lots of quirky differences as well, such as having to weigh and price your own vegetables before you get to the checkout.  There was also free coffee and lots of other food samples, no worries about toothpicks or other food handling you just help yourself from the unattended plate.

Alcohol seems very cheap in the Netherlands, 1 litre bottle of house brand wine for €4 ($6) and they also had a house brand beer for €4.50 for a crate of 24!  The wine tasted OK but I don't know about the beer.

Saturday afternoon we rode around the town centre here in Bussum, the shops closed at 5pm so the girls didn't get long to browse.

Sunday we were back in the car for a tour of the south east - Rotterdam, Delft and The Hague.  We thought as it would be quieter on Sunday we could have a drive around the cities as they're not quite as touristy as Amsterdam and other places.

Rotterdam's two main attractions are its Avante Garde architecture, most of the city was destroyed by bombing during WW2.  This was due to its second attraction, being located at the end of the Rhine river where it finally reaches the North Sea after travelling from the Swiss Alps.  Although it's not so much the Rhine but the Rhines, it's actually the Rhine Delta as it branches out into multiple branches as it reaches the ocean.

The architecture was very funky, the most amazing high rise building designs.  A key building we wanted to see though was the cube houses, there are some photos in the gallery.   They come with their own specially built furniture, we could see someone at the window of one and from the outside it seemed like they should be pressed up hard against it.

After a brief encounter with the parking police and an automated toilet we headed for Delft, the home of Dutch blue and white pottery.  We were fortunate to find one of the main pottery factories open and giving tours.  It was interesting to see the process and of course for Tan to add to her china collection.

Our next destination was The Hague, home of the Netherlands parliament and the international law courts (and some pretty wild architecture of its own).   Unfortunately security must have been increased since our GPS map was updated as we couldn't get anywhere near the buildings in a car. Not wanting to park and find our way on foot we passed for now and headed north to the coast.  Scheveningen is a seaside resort near The Hague but it was jam packed on a Sunday.  It seems to be home to the major theatre and casinos of the Netherlands.  It's also home to the biggest and ugliest concrete pier to ever blight a beach I have seen before.  It was a hideous monstrosity that should be destroyed and removed, but I'm sure won't be as the whole area was so commercialised.  It really wasn't what any Australian would expect from a beach at all, even Surfer's Paradise is an improvement.

Today we set off on the bikes again for another local destination.  This time it was Naarden Vesting a fortified town next to Bussum.  It is apparently the only European town with all fortifications remaining intact.  It's an amazing design, a six pointed star with inner and outer moats:

The town itself is very quaint, with many 17th and 18th century buildings, it seems to be quite an exclusive place to live as well but they seem to get lots of tourists on bikes.  It was good to explore the bastions (pointy bits) but the museum was closed as it was Monday, so we'll have to go back another day.

We then continued on a little way to park on the shores of the nearby lake/river, it's hard to tell here as there is just so much water everywhere.  It was definitely wider than a canal.   This was a nice spot, again seemed exclusive as there was a very large and well manicured golf course and marina, but the parks were quite open and easily accessible by bike.

The weather has also improved, our first full day of sunshine and some sunburn.  We had an alarming but very funny incident while we were riding to the park.  We had been following a bike track shared with pedestrians for some way, it then became two paths heading in slightly different directions.  Sam and I started to take the new path while Emily headed along the old one.  Just as Sam got onto the path the loudest siren you have ever heard in your life started to go off.  It started to make all sorts of noises and could be heard for miles, we had no idea what was going on and thought commandoes were going to start jumping out of the bushes because we had ridden on a pedestrian path or were entering a secure area.

The siren continued and we noticed there seemed to be more than one.  We slowly continued, unsure whether we should be seeking cover, higher ground or turning back.  It must have gone on for about five minutes, as we came across other people they seemed oblivious to the noise so we decided to ignore it as well.  I did some Googling later on when we got home and discovered that there is a civil defence system of 4500 of these sirens across the Netherlands and on the first Monday of the month they are tested at 12pm.  We were relieved that Sam hadn't triggered anything!

Netherlands Day 8-9