Kia hora te manno
Kia whakapapa paumamu te moana
Kia tere te Karohirohi

May the calm be widespread
May the sea glisten like the greenstone
And may the glimmer of summer dance across your pathways

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Our Netherlands trip ~ part two

After spending the first day of our trip to the Netherlands in Amsterdam, we traveled by car with a new friend, to Winterswijk, which is about a two hour drive from Amsterdam.
On Saturdays, in Winterswijk, there is a market in the town square, and I was sure they would be selling flowers and plants, so off I went to investigate.


A corner of the town square.
Every where you look in the towns and cities of the Netherlands you will see people getting around on bicycles, and it was no exception here in Winterswijk. The lady you see wheeling her bicycle from the market, had her purchases in the basket of the bicycle.

The market located in this quaint square, was a crush of people, buying everything you can imagine. There was fish, meat, fruits & vegetables, clothing, shoes, even underwear, garden art, and so much more.

The variety of flowers was endless.

Look at these beauties.

Buckets and buckets of flowers.

More buckets of flowers.

There were also vendors selling many fabulous, healthy looking plants for the gardens of the town and surrounding countryside. All this beauty left me wondering how my garden back home was doing without my TLC.



I just has to throw in a few pictures of the food stalls.





The bread and pastries left me drooling,
as did the cheese and snacks on the snack stall.













Before I left the market to walk back to the hotel, I did buy a delicious light and crispy battered apple ring.





On my walk to and from the market, I took particular notice of the homes and gardens lining my route. They were, for the most part, very well maintained, and reminded me of the gardens back in New Zealand, where I grew up.

This street, with the houses quite close together, was as neat as a pin. There were low brick walls surrounding the tiny little front gardens, and each garden showed the personality of the gardener who lived in the house.

I liked the look of this low maintenance garden with all the different shades of green and variety of leaf shapes.

For more on my trip to the Netherlands, you can check it out on Keewee's Corner

4 comments:

Aunt Debbi/kurts mom said...

what a fun trip. Thanks for sharing

Unknown said...

What an awesome trip you've had! I love the shots of buckets and oceans of flowers for sale...wonderful. Some day I hope to visit the Netherlands to.

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

To the market on the bicycle - sounds good for me! And that apple ring....yum!

Kathleen said...

What a fantastic trip KeeWee. Everything I've seen of it looks so wonderful (I'm still drooling over the floating flower market from the previous post) I think I want to visit the Netherlands someday now!! The idea of bicycling to market is so appealing especially when you can look at all the gardens along the way (as you pass them). I can't believe how clean and tidy everything looks. Such a nice change from a lot of places in our country.