Thursday 29 May 2014

Shops and Sailing Ships

When at home I think the less time spent in supermarkets the better, but I have to admit that when travelling through Europe supermarkets have a strange fascination. Trying to decipher the contents of jar and tins, looking at the wondrous creatures displayed on the fish counter and spotting the rare boxes of PG tips are amongst the most enjoyable activities that can be undertaken in foreign supermarkets. Having said that they seem to be very well hidden in Holland – we drove for two days without knowingly passing one. Yesterday, however, we eventually spotted a Lidl and managed to catch the slip road and park Dickie without any problems – and would you believe it…..next door was another supermarket!
Graham
We have arrived in Harlingen on the North West coast of Holland which we reached by driving over, what looked like on the map, a particularly terrifying bridge over an extremely wide stretch of water.


 It turned out to be less scary than it looked and was rather fun. It’s still pouring and Graham has insisted I wear an entire plastic jumpsuit arrangement as we walk into town…to protect the jeans and over-frock from excessive dampness. I now look like a giant pink and black Michelin Man and will not be popping into any frock shops as I may be arrested for crimes against fashion.
Call the Fashion Police!

We are parked up by the harbour and every so often the bridge is raised to allow the beautiful Dutch barges and other vessels to go through.
Dickie watching Dutch Barge

Dickie in Docks

 There is a race on for rowing boats (which look a bit like gigs) on Friday so we are staying for that. Harlingen is hosting the Tall Ships race for 2014 in July so that should be an amazing event….it’s a very attractive city with a long sailing history. We even found a house with a window full of witches – not sure if that has anything to do with sailing but we’re off to the museum today so we may find out.

K
Witch Window

No comments:

Post a Comment

A Soggy Return

It wasn’t the welcome home we expected - torrential rain, flooding, and giant potholes in pretty much every road we drove on today. Ugh! The...