Walk Sint Geertruid

The weather is perfect for walks here lately, so I used another railway day card ticket to go to Sint Geertruid in the province of Limburg, last Sunday. A two hour ride by train plus 20 minutes busride.
This time of the year nature is at it's  most beautiful. While I saw many spring flowers  in my last walk, in this one the (fruit)trees were in full bloom.

I will follow the 15 km ...

I love to walk these narrow country paths meandering through the fields..

fruit orchard

Pear blossoms

How can I get rid of these flies?

Typical farm for this area.

Let's see....which route shall I follow....

St. Geertrudis Curch of Sint Geertruid

More pictures of this walk can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/geke57/WalkAroundSintGeertruid#

More about Sint Geertruid: http://www.margraten.nl/margraten?waxtrapp=ixjDsHkoOloOnHAiFjEN

Walk in Anna Paulowna

Last Sunday I took the train and did the Narcissentocht (Daffodils walk). It was a beautiful spring day. The first part of the route wasn't much of interest. It went zigzagging through residential areas for about two km before we headed to the outskirt of  town. Here the route lead us to the Poldertuin (Polder garden) also called little Keukenhof. It's free accessible.

Tulipo Concerto

Fritillaria Meleagris

Scarlet Baby tulip

The next part of the walk were some long stretches of polder roads through the flower bulb fields.  

Would you like to have a windmill in your backyard?

Anemone Blanda 

Via Breezand we walked back to Anna Paulowna.

Batik Technique

Made some backgrounds using the batik technique. Batik is a method of dyeing fabric with wax but this technique can also be used on mulberry paper.
Instead of using wax, embossing powder and pigment ink are used.

You need:
White mulberry paper
Dye re-inkers
Rubber stamps
White (or clear) pigment ink
White (or clear) embossing powder
Plastic sheet protector (cut open)
Iron (without steam)
Heat tool
Spritzer bottle with water
Copy paper

Instructions:
Stamp  images with white pigment ink on  mulberry paper and emboss with white embossing powder.
Open the sheet protector and put some drops of ink on the inside of the sheet. I used three different colors.
Spritz water on the ink and also wet the Washi paper with the embossed images.
Put the Washi paper on the ink/water and close the sheet.
Blend the colors with your fingers.
Open the sheet and carefully take the paper off the ink and put it between two sheets of copy paper.
Set the iron on medium to hot setting and press about one minute. Carefully lift off the copy paper. If it sticks put the copy paper down and reheat that part again.
Your background is ready.

Schoonhoven Walk

First I had plans to go to Lisse and do the Keukenhof walk but since I done this walk already twice, I decided to stay closer to home and take the bus to Schoonhoven. It's a small town situated right on the Lek river.  It's also called "Silver City" (Zilverstad) because of it's silver industry in the past. Today it is still the home of many silver smiths and gallery's. Also Schoonhoven is the home of the Vocational School for Silversmiths.
The 15 km walk lead us via the outskirt of Schoonhoven, back through the center of Schoonhoven to the ferry, which took us to the other side of the river Lek.

View over the Lek:

We walked along the dike with a nice view of the Lek........

 .....to another pittoresque town called Nieuwpoort. With about 1400 inhabitants it should be called a village but because it was given city rights in 1283 it is called a city. It is one of the smallest Dutch fortress towns. This is the old cityhall:

After a rest stop I walked back to the Lek dike and continued the route.

Here some houses/farms below the dike:

After a while we left the dike and walked to a country road which lead us back to Nieuwpoort, walking parallel to the dike but at a further distance:

If you look good you see the dike behind the church (see car):

Coot nest:

We are nearing Nieuwpoort again. Here you can see the fortress wall:

 Nieuwpoort city sign:

Entering Nieuwpoort:

We were back at the same rest stop. Ate my apple and went on:

Another way to use wooden shoes:

A typical Dutch front door.

The rest stop was at this church at the right, near the old city hall:

Leaving Nieuwpoort through the wall:

The church suddenly looks so biiiig, like a giant towering above the houses!!!:

A view of the other side of the town wall:

And back at the ferry to take us across:

On the right you see the Veerpoort (Ferry Gate), which was build in 1601. There were five gates in the town walls but this is the only one left:

After we left the ferry we walked over this traditional drawbridge..........

.........back to the starting point.

It was a great day to walk!