September 7. Today we moved from the Botel in Amsterdam to the medieval walled city of Naarden. The taxi ride was a trip, no pun intended! There were two Dutch ladies sharing the taxi with us, on their way to one's sister's house for a visit. The taxi driver got lost. I was having a fun chat, using my strange Dutch, and talking about what we had seen already, and would be doing in coming days, and all the while, the driver was getting more and more lost. The ladies couldn't remember exactly where the street was, but knew the address of course. The driver called on the radio for directions from the dispatcher, but it was to no avail. I noticed that there was a road map of Naarden and Bussum next to me in the car, so I looked up the address, and told the driver, again in my American-tainted Dutch, where to go.
He did not want to listen to me, and made more three-point turns, until he finally managed to find the street, just where the map and I said it was. Oh well, that still gave me more chance to talk to the two ladies, who were heel aardig.
Staying at Hotel De Beurs in Naarden, the building is 500 years old. But no time to muse over its history now.
We quickly dumped our stuff in the room, and headed over to the stadhuis, or city hall, to meet Stephanie
and Thijs, who then took us to the Zuiderzee Open Air Museum. Following a nice ride by car over numerous
dikes and polders, we arrived in the town of Enkhuizen. A whole village of authentic old Dutch houses,
formerly from different fishing communities along the Netherlands coast, have been relocated here in the
museum.
Modern Day Windmills near Enkhuizen. These high tech mills produce electricity
Enkhuizen was truly a beautiful place, and we spent the afternoon wandering through "the way it was." There was one spot in the village where men were smoking paling, a sort of fish, and we tried some. It was quite tasty, or smakkelijk!
Our friends and tourguides, Stephanie and Thijs. Lots more about them coming up!
