Day the 4th in Holland

Today is the 66th Anniversary of D-Day and it’s quite fitting I should wake up in Holland, a bit far from the beaches in Normandy I know, but relevant nonetheless. No early morning walk, watched some of ‘Catch 22’ and descended to the kitchen to be greeted by the kids redecorating it with various types of chocolate and biscuits. I was immediately sprayed with a water pistol, an easy target. The terraza was set up and laid out for a monster family breakfast, breads, free-range eggs, ham, salami, pate, various spreads, jams and marmalades and buckets of coffee. In the meantime there was the Ireland vs. Holland hockey test where I was taken on by a three-year old, my kinda level. Mama Aafke dropped us at the beach in Bloomingdale for a planned walk but the weather closed in and we took refuge in a beach bar/chiringuito called ‘Woodstock 69’, very big and very hippy-ish. We then took refuge a little further along at the Bloomindale bar, this is where all the rich and famous go and they were getting ready for the Sunday evening dance session (as were all the bars on the beach) www.bloomingdaleaanzee.com. It was spitting down so, instead of getting soaked and miserable, not the objective of the exercise, we took a bus the four km. to Zandvoort, passing the race-track on the way where cars were whizzing around in the rain. Zandvoort is a curious mix of a town. It is a sea-side as well as a retirement town, there were people coming up from the beach, miserable, wrapped in towels and there were the elderly, all dolled-up and taking the Sunday promenade. On the way to the beach we passed a ‘Jutters Mu-zee-um’, this is a beachcombers museum where a lot of the flotsam and jetsam that gets washed up is put on display. It was an interesting mix of fish-crates, parts from WWII aircraft, fishermen’s gloves (about 4,000 pairs), shoes, bits of whales, floats, you get the idea. We had a Rookworst sausage in Hema, which is the thing you are supposed to do and then took the train back to Overveen. The station buffet here has been transformed into a neat restaurant which does a roaring trade and the whole atmosphere is very retro. www.klein-centraal.nl. We had arranged to meet Caroline in Rotterdam which is an hour away so off we set. Caroline lived in Madrid a while ago and is a very good friend of Aafke, she was also celebrating her First Wedding Anniversary to Steve as well as nursing a slight hangover from a wedding the previous day. We had a great meal beside the lake in a place called ‘De Tuin’ www.restaurantdetuin.nl. Steve joined us for dessert and we went back to their beautiful new house in what I found out was the only part of Rotterdam not to get bombed by the Germans in 1940, Kralingen. Back home for the last few minutes of ‘The Longest Day’ a fitting end to another action-packed Dutch adventure.