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Saturday, April 15, 2017
Some of the group went out for a chilly sunrise, which wasn't much to write home about.
I slept in a bit, then walked around town with my camera.
The photo on the left shows the back of our portion of the hotel (with my room's window the one that juts out on the second floor) with the steeple of Grote Kerk in the background.
The photo on the right shows an interesting roofline that I kept seeing out of one of the windows of my room.
The photo on the left shows the view along one of the small canals that threaded through town. The center photo shows a house I spotted that had an onion dome as part of its roofline. The photo on the right is the front of Grote Kerk.
By the time I finished my walk, the hotel was open for breakfast. I then finish packing and bring the stuff down to the vans.
We pulled out about 10 heading for Hoorn, a coastal town. The wind was really ripping through the harbor area, so we were all pretty bundled up.
First, we passed along the edge of a large marina. The photo on the left shows some of the boats tied up along the edge of the marina. Our path is visible at the top of the embankment. The center photo shows a sailboat motoring out of the marina. The photo on the right shows a very large boat on the other side of the very crowded marina.
As we walked along the top of the embankment with the marina on one side of us, there was a row of houses on the other side. That's where these four photos were taken. The first photo shows the front of a house with a bicycle parked in front of it. The second photo shows the top of a house with a weathervane in the shape of a boat under sail. The third photo shows a house with the block and tackle arrangement jutting out of the upper part of it. If it works, this is used to haul furniture to the upper floors so that they don't have to manhandle it up narrow stairs. The fourth photo shows the front of another house with some colorful flowers and pots.
These three photos were also taken in this same general area. The photo on the left shows a church steeple rising high above the nearby houses. (Note: the time on this steeple is wrong.) The center photo shows a stained glass window that was over the door of another house along the embankment. The photo on the right shows a sailboat motoring out of the harbor, heading for open water.
As I rounded the corner from the marina area to the main harborfront area, I saw the strangest tower. The photo on the left shows this tower. It's called De Hoofdtoren, or the head tower. If you could view this tower from above, the outline would look like a semi-circle - flat on one side and circular on the other! It's now a restaurant and bar. I couldn't find out what it used to be. The center photo looks along the harborfront. The restaurant we would eat lunch at is just off my left shoulder and the chalk sign in the foreground of the photo is for this restaurant. The photo on the right shows either a very stupid or very brave bird that was sitting on her eggs on a nest that she had build up against the prow of a boat just two feet from the busy harborfront!
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After walking the length of this touristy area by the waterfront, I headed off onto some of the side streets.
The photo on the left shows the front of a house that's leaning just like the ones in Amsterdam do.
The photo on the right shows an interesting doorway.
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After wandering the side streets and canals for a while, I came to this building. The passage under it arces! As near as I can determine, this was originally one of the original gatehouses for the city and incorporated part of the city wall, way back when. Now it's a bed and breakfast site. The photo on the left shows this gatehouse from one side and the photo on the right shows the gatehouse and it's approach bridge from the other.
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From there, I eventually circled back to the other side of the harborfront.
I spent some time shooting the various reflections in the water, but the conditions just weren't as good as they could have been and the photo on the left is one of the few that actually came out half way.
The photo on the right is another view of De Hoofdtoren from the other side.
We explored the harbor area for almost two hours before heading to a restaurant for lunch. It was a convivial lunch.
Then we went back to the vans.
As we walked to where the vans were parked, I spotted this unusual piece of playground equipment in a small park.
Then we were on to our next hotel in Ridderkerk, which is a suburb of Rotterdam. We're here for just one night.
Our main objective here is the windmill museum area at Kinderdijk. They have over 15 windmills here and the sunset can be spectacular. The clouds mostly cooperated, but the sun didn't. There was a little pink, but mostly it fizzled. However, it was nice just shooting the windmills.
These three photos show some of the variety of sights at Kinderdijk. The photo on the left shows five windmills on the opposite side of the canal from our path. The center photo shows a drawbridge through the grasses that lined the canal. The photo on the right shows a full sized windmill with a miniature windmill in its garden.
The photo on the left shows a windmill in motion. I stacked enough neutral density filters (plus a couple of other tricks) to slow the exposure to 1/4 second to get some blur in the windmill blades. The other two photos show the line of windmills that was supposed to be our sunset target.
This was about as good as the sunset got. The photo on the left was the same line of windmills along the canal as the previous set of windmills (that is, "The Spot"). The remaining two photos show the view when I turned around 180 degrees.
After the sun had set, the faster walkers started back to the parking lot and told the rest of us to just cross the bridge and they'd pick us up. Well, as has happened more than once this trip, signals got crossed, and three of us didn't wait at the bridge, but started walking along the new road to meet the vans.
Along the way, we spotted this windmill with the blue twilight light and reflections in the canal, so we set up to take it. As dusk deepened, the light faded completely and we continued on the way to meet the vans. One van finally came and picked us up and the other continued down the road. Seems there were two or three others that hadn't caught up with us.... We finally got back to the hotel.
We didn't get back to the hotel until 9:45.... I passed on dinner tonight. Not very hungry and it's really pretty late.
The weather forecast for tomorrow isn't very good. It should be pretty cloudy and there's a very good probability of rain... Hence, no sunrise shoot was scheduled. We're here for just the one night, moving on to Bruges, Belgium tomorrow.