Slowing Things Down

With Peter III (the resident bunny) as my companion in the garden, I'll start a new post. We've been on the German border in the north of the Netherlands for 4 days and are starting to settle into the quiet pace of life here. It would be simple to spend entire days right here in the garden because it's so peaceful - like this view from my bedroom- 

But the streets are also quiet here and criss-crossed with a maze of bike trails, so we've been peddling near and far. 

 

Notice I said "we" there? Ben has refused to bike in the cities of Delft and The Hague, but since we were able to rent a helmet and the biking here is so easy-going, now we've even managed to get Ben in the saddle.

So we've hit the North Sea trail and visited the Wattenmeer National Park in Germany which is on the incredibly vast mudflats of the Ems-Dollard estuary http://www.waddensea-worldheritage.org/wadden-sea-world-heritage/ems-dollard
The view of the flats requires a walk to the top of a massive dike

And we've cruised over to the even smaller village of Oudeschans - a gorgeous ride through "nature" - meaning preserved land that is not village or farmland - but marsh and forest. 

In Oudeschans, we leaned the bikes against a tree to wander among the relics of the star-shaped, medieval fortress there, which is amazingly intact.

The drawbridge here, over the outermost moat,

And the terraced dikes where the city wall stood for many hundreds of years. Can you see the points of the star in the landscape?

And the outer-most moat.

But thanks to our hosts here in Bad Nieuweschans, we've also been seeing the artistic side of the region. We visited Jonathan and Miranda's friend Johan who is an internationally renowned glassblower 
http://oldambtglas.nl/en/workshops/water-en-vuur/
And he gave us a private demonstration- as amazing as his work is beautiful. We were also treated to coffee in his sculpture garden.

Then our hosts, along with their daughter Mirile, showed us around at a nearby arts festival where we could perfect our sandcastle building skills,

Visit the Netherlands caravan museum where mobile homes are transformed into pieces of art, inside and out

Here's the caravan of mirrors 

And the Day-of-the-Dead caravan 

And let's not forget "Boat Hendge"

But now it's evening and time for a little R &R on the garden trampoline before dinner.