Even more almost like home - Holland

So this is Holland, what a stark contrast from Paris just a few hundred km away.   Everything made from brick rather than stone blocks, built to human scale rather than Paris with its  'over the top pomposity' 

My family has been helping to make up for my Newfy 'screeching in' by introducing Lori to that which is distinctively dutch.  First and foremost is the bicycle.  

This was a 50km ride on the dikes with

 my 78 yr old

 aunt who had no trouble setting a pace that we could barely keep up with!

Next of course on the list is the cuisine which of course you all know the dutch are so famous for!  This is smoked herring smothered in onions (raw).  So long as there was sufficient onion Lori seemed able to get it down!

This is the 'Kinderdijk', an area of 19 preserved windmills built in the 1700s to cope with the settling of the land and the rising of the water levels.  It was a beautiful and windy day with most of the mills in

 operation.  These things are BIG and when those sails are whirling past it scares the &*^&*^% out of you.  They are just whipping at an unbelievable speed.

We also visited the Canadian war memorial near my aunt's home in Nijmegen

 and learned a lot about Operation Market Garden where Holland was liberated from the Germans.  My aunt and her friend regaled us with stories of living under the German occupation when they were young, about the jewish friends who were taken and never returned, and about the dutch women who had consorted with the Germans during the occupation and who had their heads shaved in the streets after the liberation.  These 'live' remembrances will

 soon be gone here from living memory.

All in all, this has been a nice time, being with family,  for Lori to meet them, and to relax before we head off to the more uncharted waters of the orient.