Month: October 2024

Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Reno, Nevada, USA

Our trip home last Monday was uneventful. We left Amsterdam about 10am and flew to Copenhagen. After a brief layover we flew to San Francisco.

In Copenhagen changing planes
On the flight to San Francisco

We took BART from the airport to my daughter’s house and spent the night. The next morning after walking to school with the grandkids we drove home to Reno. Now we are busy catching up with things at home, editing and publishing YouTube videos of the trip, and getting over jet lag. If you’d like to see the videos as they get published here is a link to our channel.

https://youtube.com/@boomerswithoutborders

We have 833 subscribers now so we are getting closer to our goal of 1000 subscribers. Please subscribe if you haven’t already.

Thanks for following along on our trip. It makes the trip more fun.

With the grandkids

Zaltbommel to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Hoofddorp

This morning we drove to the Moxy Hotel near the airport in Amsterdam. We checked in and left our bags, then turned in the rental car, and walked back to our hotel.

Walking to our hotel
The taxi-way goes right over the road
Having welcome drinks at the hotel and toasting the end of a great trip.

Tomorrow we fly home.

Zaltbommel day 2

Today we explored the area around Rossum where the immigrant Vermazen family came from. We met up with Duke’s distant cousin Ben and his wife Lin and they showed us around.

Duke and his cousin Ben
The house where Ben’s Grandfather was born
Looking at the house with Ben and Lin
We stopped for lunch at a fish truck
Duke eating his fish

Saturday is market day in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. We had fun exploring the town.

‘s-Hertogenbosch is known as the dragon town
The Town Hall
Exploring ‘s-Hertogenbosch
We stopped for coffee
Rossum is where Duke’s great grandfather Vermazen was born
The Maas River is where the Vermazen family name comes from. Vermazen means over the Mass River
We had dinner and a great Chinese buffet restaurant, De Nieuwe Pauw
Sushi buffet
The group at dinner

Rossum to Zaltbommel

Today we visited Paleis Het Loo. Up until recently it was the Country Palace of Dutch Royalty. The palace was beautiful and they have an excellent app with a very interesting audio tour. Het Loo has been used as a palace since the 1600’s. I was especially interested in Willem (William) and Mary who, according to the tour, successfully invaded England and were invited to become the King and Queen of Great Britain .

The entrance to Paleis Het Loo
Inside the palace
The gardens were especially impressive
In the garden with the palace behind us

For dinner we went into the Zaltbommel and ate at Restaurant De Eetgelegenheid Zaltbom. We had our second truly wonderful dinner in two nights.

We decided to have the 3 course Chef Surprise menu
Our starter was salmon, crab and mackerel
The main course included filet mignon, beet, truffle, fennel and asparagus
Desert was kind of like a lemon lime pie with mango sorbet

Reitsum to Rossum

This morning after breakfast we drove into the town of Dokkum. Along the way we stopped by the side of the road so I could get a picture of a farm. Almost every barn we have seen has been big with a steeply sloped roof. A lot of the barns have thatched roofs. A typical farm that we have seen in Friesland has a beautiful house attached to the front of the big barn. One of the great things about Friesland has been how unique the landscape and buildings are.

Farm buildings near where we stayed

In Dokkum we parked and went to the museum. Then we walked along the canal surrounding the town. Several villages in Friesland are laid out so that they are surrounded by canals. You can see one of the layouts on this map of Dokkum.

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Current map of Dokkum showing the defensive canals.
Dokkum Canal
Dokkum windmill

From Dokkum we left Friesland and drove south and east almost to the German border to the town of Rossum where we are tonight

After a bit of a rest we went for a three mile walk around the 17th century stately mansion of Singraven. It’s only a few miles from where we are staying.

Singraven
On our walk
Near the beginning of our walk

For dinner we drove into the nearby town of Oldenzaal. We ate at Grand Cafe de Dominee. On this trip we have had a lot of good meals. But we have had surprisingly few great meals. Tonight was a great meal. Duke had a ribeye steak and I had cod. We shared a trifle for desert.

Sharing our trifle for desert