Just as we were leaving Groningen, we saw the canal bridge open and a beautiful modern version of a traditional flat bottom Dutch sailing boat passed through. It appease to be a “Lemsteraak (Visserman)” design with the distinctive low profile living quarters tucked below the flat foredeck. If any of you are tempted, I found a link to a company that can design a racing version of one of these beautiful vessels: hoekdesign.com. Happy sailing and don’t forget to invite me on the inaugural sail ;).
Our next stop was just east of Groningen in Westerbroek. The most striking thing about this area was the amount of ship building going on. Just down the road from our hotel we could see a huge transporter ship being built. Again with Google help it turns out that we were on a historically significant European maritime hub. The Winschoterdiep Canal stretches from Groningen, through Westerbroek to Hoogezand. It was initially built to transport peat in the 16th century. Interestingly the ship yards in the area are working together under the umbrella of The Green Maritime Coalition to pioneer zero-emission commercial shipping. It would take me too long right now to dive into the realities of this, but once again I am struck by the profound innovative spirit of Netherlanders. We missed it this year, but hopefully we will give ourselves a little more time for this area next year and visit the living museum “Historische Scheepswerf Wolthuis” in Sappemeer. Volunteers apparently demonstrate forging and woodworking associated with the traditional Dutch iron hulls.
Our hotel for the next two nights was the elegant Vand der Valk…with air conditioning! The weather was starting to warm up and having a cool place to chill was really appreciated.
The following day we took a short bicycle ride to Hortus Botanicus (botanical gardens in Haren). Its centerpiece is its Chinese garden, which is one of the few Ming Dynasty Chinese gardens built outside of china using Chinese materials and designed by Chinese garden designers. To my great surprise one of the others is in Montreal which we visited last year.
I spent most of the time sketching a delightfully small bridge over a Lilly pond. An enormous carp kept distracting me as it appeared to be trying to “walk” or eat its way across the Lilly pads – bizarre! Andreas managed to get some superb photos of these Lilly pads and I’m looking forward to trying to capture them in watercolor when I get back to AZ and have access to a full palate of colours and proper watercolor paper.
Towards the end of the afternoon we enjoyed a glass of fresh ginger tea looking over another pond of lilies. A pair of coots kept us entertained with their nest building antics. We assumed that the female stayed on the nest arranging the materials her partner brought her from the pond. At one time he wrestled mightily to pull up a prized leaf. In the process the stalk became rather chewed up and slimy looking. He paddled it proudly back to his mate. Initially she seemed quite pleased until the slimy stuff ended up all over her feathers. She managed to trim the slimy stalk off and discard it and then spent the next 5-10 minutes preening and cleaning up. The male disappeared… What a joy it is to be able to suspend reality and emerse ourselves in the realities of a couple of coots…. OK I’m waiting for your comebacks on that one.
The next two days we made a leisurely trip to Leer, Germany, overnighting at the border town of Bad Nieuweschans. It is on this section that we saw the full effects of the storm from a couple of days before. It looked as though a strange tornado had ripped through the area. Selective trees were downed but neighboring ones appeared untouched. Some industrious folks had been out clearing the roads and bicycle paths except for one:
As we approached Leer, I once again started feeling a little anxious about cycling on city streets looking for our accommodation. I needn’t have worried. The route was pretty straight forward. We stopped for lunch before figuring out exactly where our accommodation would be for the night. We spotted an unusual lunch place that also sold hand made shoes from Portugal, the Schuhcafé. The tasty table d’hôte featured an open faced toasted sandwich with goat cheese, chorizo walnuts and a lavender-honey dressing with oregano and balsamic vinegar. Finding gastronomic treasures like this is one of the joys of meandering. We stayed there for quite a while and I was able to sketch the upper part of the very impressive town hall building that was just infront of a very informal maritime museum.
One of the things that I learned that day was that England is not the tea capital of the world, not China or India either. It’s here in Leer. They have a tea ritual that involves rock sugar at the bottom of the cup, hot black East Frisian tea is poured over the sugar causing it to crack and then heavy cream is poured on top to create a cloudy layer. It sounds a lot like how we made Irish coffee in England! Unfortunately the museum was closed the day we arrived. Another item on the list for next year.
Making funny signs seems to be popular in this part of Europe. Leer had a couple that are worth keeping.
The last surprise was our accommodation. It was stunning and would be a fantastic place for a multi day stay. Charming, well equipped, with a view onto the Ems.
That’s all for now. We are back in our home base town of Rietberg. We’ve just moved into the apartment that will be home for a the next month.
Life on my Own Terms 