12-02-2012

The city awoke this morning to the sight of a light dusting of snow and a recognisable rise in the temperature ( the chance to go out without the necessity of wearing a hat/cap!)

The temperature in this part of Europe is expected the rise over the coming week, this makes it all the more important that the Dutch nation made the most of the chill, as could be seen by the prolific use of video footage from skaters on Saturday. The first video is from Amsterdam (posted by Kanaal van ditissander1):

Below is a skater on the Spaarne in Haarlem (posted by : Kanaal van visserjerome)

 

.. and not to be outdone here in Den Haag where skaters were to be seen in front of the Parliament (posted by Kanaal van RalfGTI):

11-02-2012 (Updated)

The Dutch nation appears to have been waiting all week to get to the first weekend for 15 years where many local ponds, waterways and canals are iced over to a thickness where skating becomes possible ( 15cm - 6 inches).....today was the day.

 Locally on the ponds alongside Sportlaan, in Den Haag the families where out early.......

.... it was mainly young families here, with many children under 10 on the ice....

in the centre of The Hague on The Hofvijver lake,  alongside the Dutch Parliament older groups were skating.

Later in the afternoon in Haarlem, near Amsterdam the River Spaarne was frozen over and the skaters were out in their droves again.

...as temperatures are expected to rise above freezing next week (-7C this evening) today and tomorrow are likely to be the only chance that the Dutch will have to recreate their past as create by Peter Brueghel

Mr O'Regan and myself were in Haarlem on Saturday to visit the Golden Age Exhibition at the Frans Hals Museum the promotional video for the exhibition can be seen below:

04-02-2012

As the temperature continues to stay well below freezing during the day, dropping further as you see above, we have though not had any further snow since Friday.
Today was such a clear beautiful day that I decided to head off on the 30 minute train journey to Gouda. There was quite a bit of disruption to the railway lines in The Netherlands,  where today at least half of the trains has been cancelled due to the freezing conditions.
Gouda was a joy, from it's medieval central square, where there is a weekly Saturday 'Cheese Market'.

To the impressive  Sint Janskerk ( St John's Church) which is the longest church in the country and also contains the treasure of  The Gouda Windows.

I would recommend extremely highly the GoudaMuseum which remarkably has on show the cartooons used in the making of the windows from the C16 but also an enchanting view of Gouda through the ages - the museum was visited by The Queen in November 2011.

I was also able to have my Breugel moment as I watched the locals taking to the canals for some skating.

Even the local bicycles had become frozen....