A two-wheeled tour of the Netherlands

• Go Fly a Kite
  On the beach at Castricum aan Zee
• A Journey to the Land of Green Cheese
  A timeless gastronomic treasure
• Walking across the Wadden Sea
  An ancient Frisian sport
• Adventures in Flevoland
  The Netherlands’ youngest province
• Biking through the Rijksmuseum
  Is Art the highest value?
• Music of the Spheres
  Concerts in Amsterdam & Haarlem
• The Most Important Site in Haarlem
  A time-machine trip to a walled garden
• South to a new Zeeland
  Floods, and the response to floods, continue to shape a province
• Turning Seas into Lakes
  A look at two of the world’s great flood-control projects

I will update this page as I compose new entries, which may not be in chronological order.

Why Lions? You don’t see many lions in the wild in the Netherlands – but churches and historical buildings are full of them.

The reason is that early map-makers saw a resemblance between the shape of the Netherlands and a lion – and that also fit an image of the Nederlanders as fierce opponents of Spanish rule. The lion became the most common symbol in heraldry, and sculptures of the wild cat adorn the tops of church organs, guard the steps of important buildings, and watch over the doorways great and small.