Posts Tagged With: Flowers

Kerkplein (Or: Enjoying a summer breeze)

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Niki

Kerkplein (“church plaza”) is a plaza by the Grote Kerk and the Old City Hall, the latter being where Marco and I were married in 2013 – very cool.

The church is the wall just on the right edge of the picture. In the distance is a terrace for the Anne and Max café, which Marco and I visited a few weeks ago. Spoiler: I can recommend it!

The photo above is looking across the Kerkplein towards a building across the street. The same flowers in the foreground were used in 2013. The city frequently puts out those red flowers – they even made an appearance in Marco and I’s wedding photos!

As always, if you are in this area I can recommend the Cheesecake Company which is just off the right edge of the above photo. Tasty!

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Terraces on the way to Den Haag HS (Or: Blue skies)

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Niki

The grey skies briefly disappeared this afternoon. It gave me a great opportunity to take a picture of the terraces near the Holland Spoor (HS) train station.

In other news:

  • Amsterdam plants mini-gardens around bins in drive to cut littering from theguardian.com – in the Netherlands you generally have either trash pick up once a week or your street has underground trash containers like those pictured in the article. The main drawback to underground containers is the likelihood that people will simply leave their trash next to the container if it is already full.
  • Verzorgingshuis ‘Het Uiterjoon’ wint het vaatje Hollandse Nieuwe from omroepwest.nl – the first herring catch of the year is always a big deal in the Netherlands, especially in Scheveningen with Vlaggertjesdag (Flag Day). Originally it marked the day fishing ships left Scheveningen to catch herring, but these days it marks when that season’s herring can legally be sold. Normally the first barrel of about 45 herring is sold at auction with the proceeds going to charity and then the following day the sale of herring is allowed nationwide. To give you an example of the prices, in 2012 the first barrel was auctioned for €95,000. However, due to the corona crisis the first two barrels were instead given away – one barrel went to a German hospital for their assistance with coordinating ICU patients (article in Dutch from duitslandinstituut.nl). The other barrel went to a Dutch nursing home, which you can read about in the original article above.
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Flowers alongside a canal (Or: Maliestraat)

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Niki

Here’s a cute photo for today:

This is a canal at Maliestraat which is not far from – some of you might guess this – Malieveld. It was a bit of a grey day, just like today. A bit of rain here, a bit of rain there. Not enough to bring out your umbrella.

In other news:

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Roses and plaques (Or: Along the Zuidwal)

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Niki

Happy Tuesday everyone. At least it is not raining…

Here are a few more photos from my walk along the Zuidwal last week. There were some eye-catching roses decorating some of the houses along the canal:

There were also a high proportion of mobility scooters in this area. You can just see one in the background behind the flowers.

I also saw a plaque marking the former residence of a famous writer:

That writer was Eduard Douwes Dekker, better known by his pen name Multatuli (Wikipedia.com). He is best known as the writer of Max Havelaar, a 1860 novel which cast a negative light on the issues with colonialism in the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. I’ll admit I haven’t read it yet as it doesn’t really fit with the type of reading I normally do.

In other news:

  • Do you have issues with wearing a face mask and glasses at the same time which causes your glasses to start to fog up? If your face mask has elastic bands, try crossing them over your ears first to tighten up the face mask a bit. See also this image from i.imgur.com which I found on Reddit. I’ve also heard you should try cleaning your glasses with dish soap and then drying them with a glasses-friendly cloth. That leaves a tiny layer a soap on your glasses which can usually protect against your glasses fogging up – though not always unfortunately.
  • Opinion sharply divided about using an app to trace coronavirus cases (dutchnews.nl). Considering there was a data leak in the Dutch COVID-19 website Infectieradar last week, I can see why people are a bit nervous to download it (when it becomes available)
  • HTM blij met staatssteun: ‘Tien miljoen euro verlies in plaats van zeventig miljoen’ (omroepwest.nl) – HTM [The Hague’s public transportation company] is happy with the government’s support: 10 million euros loss instead of 70 million. Government support of Dutch public transportation companies is required due to the government asking them to run their full schedule even when passenger numbers are down. In that way the government can be sure that there is enough space for passengers who are using public transportation during this time.
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Flowers on a sunny day (Or: Blue skies and bursts of color)

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Niki

Today’s walk took me along the Tournooiveld (tourney field), which – you guessed it – was home to many tourneys back in the 14th and 15th century. Shooting tourneys for the city militia to be exact.

The city has kindly set up beautiful flowers along the road:

In the background you can see the tram tracks for tram 15 and 16, heading towards Centraal station.

And a close up:

I’ve always been a fan of the flowers you find in The Hague. Sometimes it can be a bit hit or miss when they don’t replace them quick enough (for example the flowers along the Hofvijver are looking a bit sad at the moment) but they always choose the most beautiful ones to put out.

News of the day:

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Color emerges (Or: Walking through the Palace Gardens in May)

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Niki

A few days ago I decided to walk through the Palace Gardens. You can see that it is getting busier, however logical that is. When I was there in late March there were only a few people around, including a man who sounded like he was coughing up a lung. I decided to not wander in his direction, I must admit.

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The beauty of The Hague (Or: Unseen flowers)

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Niki

As with most places in the world, beauty is blooming and yet there is no one around to see it. But this is where technology can help – be it cameras or drones. The first example is Clingendael, a Japanese garden situated in The Hague. I actually haven’t visited yet, partially because it is only open for a short time in the spring.

The second place is Keukenhof, not too far outside of The Hague. I mentioned it a few weeks ago in this blog already. It is a large tulip park, open for a few months in the year. Last year they had 1.5 million visitors. This year they weren’t even able to open before the crisis took hold.

The latest video they posted was of the violinist Rosanne Philippens playing during a sunrise:

They post videos of Keukenhof every few days – check out their YouTube channel for more.

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Flowers (Or: A bit of color, up close and from afar)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Niki

Happy King’s Day, everyone! First, a picture of a mural in the city centre:

This mural is found at the entrance of what used to be one of the Amazing Oriental franchises until a few months ago. It’s in the Markthof, a small shopping area, at the entrance across from Momiji sushi. This one shouldn’t be confused with the larger Amazing Oriental franchise that is underground on the Grote Markt street. This store still exists but without the Amazing Oriental branding.

Not the best picture I’ve taken, but I needed to adhere to social distancing rules. This picture shows about 2/3rds of the mural.

Are you interested in seeing a short time lapse of tulip fields blooming, taken from a European Space Agency satellite? Check out the view at www.esa.int.

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Protect the art (Or: Jantje statue with face mask)

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Niki

Last night Marco and I went for a walk, a bit later in the evening around 20:00. While the weather was turning cooler it was still a nice walk through a fairly peaceful city centre. Actually, when we walked through the (deserted) Binnenhof what I noticed the most was the silence – not even the birds were chirping.

One thing we noticed was a face mask on the statue of “Jantje” or “Little John”:

Jantje was a boy who died at the age of 15… in the year 1299. He’s part of a Dutch children’s song about The Hague. If you ask him where his father lives, he’ll point with his finger to the Binnenhof, as his father’s estate used to reside in the space where the Binnenhof now stands.

Marco remarked on the dislocation of the finger – most likely a lot of people touch it due to the song.

And here is a bonus picture taken by Marco:

That’s a great angle, if I say so myself.

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Flying overhead (Or: A look at The Netherlands during the coronavirus pandemic)

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Niki

Today’s blog post will focus on the use of drones to fly over various parts of The Netherlands during the coronavirus pandemic.

So without further ado, here is a look at how drones have been used to capture the oddness of this situation:

First, a recently posted drone video of the Efteling theme park:

This fantasy theme park was built in the 1950s and can be found in the east part of The Netherlands (Wikipedia).

Here is a look at a video produced by the national news service NPO:

The video above explains how The Netherlands came to a standstill due to the coronavirus and includes some statistics. Spoken Dutch with English subtitles.

Continue reading →
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