Posts Tagged With: Canals

Beautiful blue canals (Or: Another view of The Hague)

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Niki

Last week I took a walk to the old Red Cross hospital in Segbroek, a neighborhood in The Hague. It was time to get another corona vaccination. It was a route I hadn’t taken before, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful view of one of the canals:

I love photographing trees dipping into the water. And the blue, slightly cloudy sky was also nice to photograph.

In other news:

Mondrian painting has been hanging upside down for 75 years from theguardian.com. If you check out the article, you could see why no one noticed…
Just Stop Oil activist tries to glue own head to Girl with a Pearl Earring, also from theguardian.com
Weather records galore are broken as NL basks in autumn sunshine from dutchnews.nl. I would describe it as “too warm for a jacket, too cold to not have a jacket”.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Art, Canals, Weather | Leave a comment

Across the water (Or: Traveling from Rotterdam to Amsterdam by boat)

Posted on August 12, 2021 by Niki

I saw a cool video posted on TheNetherlands subreddit:

Raising the many bridges on the way from Rotterdam to Amsterdam from thenetherlands

The video is about 2 and a half minutes, or there is a 10 minute 4K version on YouTube (link). If you keep an eye on the map in the lower right you can see where the boat currently is.

And how is the camera so high up? It is not a drone. The tugboat you see in the image is pulling a large structure, and the camera was placed on the structure. See also this image (thetimewriters.com).

Finally, if you watch the shorter video above (Reddit), you’ll see a retractable bridge at 1:56. Kind of cool.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Canals | Leave a comment

Bikes and canals (Or: Canal by Denneweg)

Posted on July 3, 2021 by Niki

Happy Saturday, everyone!

I took a few photos of the canal by the Dennewegbrug. “Denneweg” is the street name and “brug” is Dutch for bridge.

And in other news, there was a demonstration today at Malieveld, not far from The Hague’s Centraal station. The name is Blijf van onze kinderen af, or “Stay away from our kids”. The article is from regio15.nl in Dutch, with lots of photos. including a photo at the end of one very smart ice cream seller who knows he will do good business here.

The reason for the demonstration? The Netherlands recently decided that 12 – 17 year olds can be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine if they wanted. 16 and 17 year olds can independently choose for the vaccine, while younger kids need their parents’ permission. The first shot would be given now and the second shot would follow during the first month of school. Appointments for anyone born in 2004 could be made since yesterday, with 2005, 2006 and so forth following next week.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Bikes, Canals, Flowers | 4 Comments

Anyone want some shredded cheese? (Or: Cheese hack deliveries)

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Niki

On Monday I wrote about a cheese hack that was disrupting deliveries of cheese to the Albert Heijn grocery stores. The hack was resolved and deliveries could resume again. Most of the cheeses had been replaced, although there are still some gaps here and there. But I had to laugh when I saw this pile of shredded cheese:

Note: this was actually the overflow area for the extra shredded cheese they had in stock. They put it in the “weekly sale area”. The normal place for shredded cheese was also overflowing with bags and bags… and bags. It looks like two or three deliveries worth.

In other news… did you hear about the world’s first fish doorbell in Utrecht? It has been pressed 32,000 times so far in the first two weeks (nltimes.nl in English). Utrecht had a problem. At this time of year there is less boat traffic in the canals so fish would frequently find themselves stuck at a locked gate without any way to get to the other side. To solve this, viewers can watch a special webcam at visdeurbel.nl to see if they see fish in view. If you do spot one, you press the red doorbell on the right. If enough people press the doorbell, a human will manually check and if needed open the gate. Note that when you first access the page you might need to refresh it see the webcam properly.

The camera also takes a screenshot and shares the photo with you. Since there are limited moments when you might see fish (the best time of day is in the early evening or evening), the website also has a page with the best photos taken by viewers. Note that the webcam is temporary as it is only needed during the fish migration season.

Categories: Everyday purchases | Tags: Albert Heijn, Canals | Leave a comment

Christmas time? (Or: The first trees are already sold)

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Niki

Christmas in October anyone? Our public broadcaster (NOS) is reporting that Christmas trees are beginning to sell: Kerstverkopen dit jaar niet pas ná Sinterklaas, eerste mensen halen al bomen (Christmas purchases this year not waiting until after Sinterklaas [December 5], first people already purchasing trees).

This is to be expected; people are working from home more often and most people won’t be going on holiday this year. I read somewhere that some people are purchasing multiple Christmas trees so that they have one for each room. The only rule I have is that we need to wait until November before we bring out the Christmas decorations. November 1st, that is…

Princess Amalia, and 100,000 other Dutch girls, get their call up papers from dutchnews.nl. Active military service was abolished in 1997, however the letters are still sent to 17 year olds to inform them about a possible career in the military. Letters were also sent to 17 year old girls (the law was changed back in 2018 to send to all, not just boys).

Amsterdam to use flowers to stop cyclists chaining bikes to bridges from theguardian.com. Like it or not, bikes do get in the way often. And one of the places you will always, always see bikes is chained to a canal bridge. The worst part? It doesn’t just spoil the view, it also leaves less room for pedestrians which means they are more likely to walk in the road.

Personally I don’t remember having this issue in Amsterdam but I did experience it in Utrecht. I felt like I was walking in the street at least half of the time, which definitely wasn’t fun.

Categories: Holidays | Tags: Bikes, Canals, Christmas | Leave a comment

Sliding away… (Or: Collapsing canal wall in Amsterdam)

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Niki

Here’s a strange news story from today:

20 metres of Amsterdam canal wall collapses in university district https://t.co/IhHL8s12md
— DutchNews.NL (@DutchNewsNL) September 1, 2020

The good news is that no one was hurt. And for those of us who like to see the destruction in action, there’s a 21 second video over at this nos.nl news article: Kademuur in centrum Amsterdam deels ingestort.

It’s Tuesday, so the Dutch public health institute has released the weekly Covid-19 numbers (from rivm.nl, in English). It’s actually good news, to a degree: we’re either stable in comparison to last week (number of infections) or doing slightly better (number of hospitalizations and deaths). Because there are more people getting tested, the number of positive tests has gone down as well. The only less than thrilling news is that The Hague has more infections than last week – 331 this week versus 278 last week.

There was also a press conference tonight, about six months after the first coronavirus patient was reported in the Netherlands. I can’t believe it’s been six months! The biggest update was that nightclubs and discotheques are not yet allowed to reopen, with no reopening date set at this time. The prime minister talked about how we are getting frustrated with the situation but we need to stay alert, especially as schools are reopening and people are coming back from vacation.

The Dutch corona app CoronaMelder (Corona reporter) will be delayed until about half September so that testing locations can be expanded first. It should have been in use nationally from today. It is currently in testing, and anyone who receives a notification from the test app can get tested without symptoms. However, at the moment the general country is being asked to only get tested if they have symptoms. These two policies obviously don’t match, hence the slight delay.

There’s more on the press conference over at nltimes.nl: Nightclubs to remain closed, frustration with Covid rules is understandable.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Canals, Coronavirus, COVID-19 | Leave a comment

Canals and bikes (Or: Outside the gardens)

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Niki

You know what you find a lot of in The Hague? Canals. (Okay, less than you used to.)

And what else? Bikes. (THAT one is probably growing exponentially!)

The rule in The Netherlands is: if it fits, I sits. (Oh wait, that rule is for cats.) But if it fits, bikes will be placed!

For a lighter news article, let’s try Child-interrupted TV broadcasts ‘show reality for working parents’ from theguardian.com. I think it’s cute, and glad that people see it happen. It is definitely a reality a lot of workers face these days!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Bikes, Canals | Leave a comment

Exploring Leiden (Or: Windmills and canals)

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Niki

On Saturday Marco and I went to Leiden. It is a university city not far from The Hague (10-15 minutes by train). We first made a stop at the VVV office (tourist office) for a free city guide. Unfortunately it was pretty commercial in nature and it wasn’t quite as informative as the Dordrecht guide was (we paid €5 for that). However the Leiden guide did have three recommended walks in the back so we used that. You just need to keep in mind some of the streets it takes you down are store heavy…

My first picture was easily my favorite:

See more pictures by clicking Read more.
Continue reading →

Categories: Leiden | Tags: Canals | 4 Comments

Dordrecht (Or: A walking tour of the city)

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Niki

Marco and I took the day off on Friday and we decided to visit Dordrecht, a small town outside of Rotterdam (the credit goes to Marco for the idea of what to do).

Dordrecht, just under the red “Zuid Holland”

It is about 35 to 40 minutes by train traveling from The Hague. We did a walking tour of the city (Rondje Dordt – page in Dutch) which was about 3km long and showed the sights of the city.

Here are some of the photographs that we took along the way:

Photograph of Holland Spoor, one of the two train stations in The Hague

Continue reading →

Categories: Dordrecht | Tags: Canals | Leave a comment

Canals and flowers (Or: Visiting Utrecht)

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Niki

A few weeks ago Marco and I visited Utrecht. For various reasons it ended up not being quite what I expected but that can be chalked up to two things: the weather wasn’t that great and we went on a Monday, when a lot of things ended up being closed. We mostly stayed in the center of the city and looked at stores (board game stores, comic book stores and similar) rather than doing too many cultural things. I do wish we could have stayed until it got dark, though, as I would have been able to see the Trajectum Lumen. At night certain areas of the city are artistically lit, with guided tours provided on Saturdays.

I did get some good pictures, though. Here are a couple:

Utrecht canal, typical Dutch bike in the photo frame

stares down to the canal level on Oudegracht (a main street in the central area). A lot of restaurants are at canal level, so you take the stairs down to reach them.

close up of some flowers in Utrecht

Items at “It’s a Present” gift store

“It’s a present” was actually a pretty cool gift shop even though we didn’t buy anything. It had some really random items for sale, including what you see above. The only negative was that the shop was small, so they had to expand vertically – there’s technically three small floors, but sometimes the stairs can be a bit tricky to navigate.

Categories: Utrecht | Tags: Canals, Flowers | 7 Comments