At the end of May 2023, we travelled down to Somerset, to spend a week in a lodge on the outskirts of Bath at the Bath Mill Lodge Retreat. We had been due to stay in Bristol at the same time of year in 2022, but ended up cancelling, after I somewhat foolishly broke my foot skateboarding 🤦
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After spending 24 hours in Bremen, we arrived back in Berlin, for the final leg of our trip to Germany in 2022, following a very small part of the band Pavement’s European tour. It was late afternoon when our ICE train pulled into Berlin Hauptbahnhof, as the sun was beginning to set on a sunny Saturday in November.
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As I mentioned in the first post Walking, cycling and drinking in Berlin, we’d arranged to spend an evening in Bremen as well as Berlin, so we could fit in a second Pavement gig, during Germany trip.
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When the group Pavement announced back in 2021 they would be touring again in 2022, it gave my friend (who now lives in Helsinki) and I an excuse to meet up somewhere, to go and see them.
Continue reading “Germany 22: Walking, cycling and drinking in Berlin”
The final day of our Netherlands 22 trip came around and we packed up the car, saying goodbye to our holiday home in Zaandam. As with previous trips, we weren’t due to board the ferry back to the UK until the early evening, so we looked for something to do with the day, before we headed to Rotterdam.
Continue reading “Netherlands 22: A day out in Delft”
As I mentioned in Around Zaandam, our holiday home was conveniently located on the Hanenpadsloot canal and we had access to two boats, which gave us opportunity to get out on the waterways in Zaandam during our stay. So once we were shown how to use the it, we were keen to take the boat out on the water, which we did a couple of times.
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Located on the North Sea Canal, facing Amsterdam and below Zaandam is the area of Hembrug or Hembrugterrein. The name Hembrug originates from a train bridge that used to connect Amsterdam to Zaandam across the North Sea Canal, which was eventually replaced with the Hemtunnel and removed in 1985. The bridge was located next to the ferry, which we took when we visited Amsterdam.
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With the lovely sunny weather we were lucky enough to have during our stay in The Netherlands, we were keen to get ourselves to a beach, to have a swim and cool off. Our initial thoughts were to go to Castricum aan Zee or Strand Heemskerk, where we’d been in 2014.
Continue reading “Netherlands 22: The route to Zwembad De Breek”
By far the most famous tourist attraction in and around Zaandam is Zaanse Schans. This neighbourhood of Zaandam is an open air museum featuring a collection of old Dutch building, windmills and museums. While it looks like it’s been here for centuries, the buildings were actually relocated here between 1961 and 1974, from all over the region.
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Definitely one of the reasons for choosing Zaandam for the second week of our trip was its proximity to Amsterdam. Getting to Amsterdam from our holiday home is a relatively short 12 km cycle ride, with a free ferry journey in the middle. While that may be a little too much cycling for some, Zaandam is also well connected to Amsterdam by bus and rail.
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Dom Cycling 