From: Colin Shannon-Garvey [Colin@Shannon-Garvey.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 11:06 AM
To: Travel News
Subject: Back in Holland

Hello everyone,

We have been in Holland exactly two weeks and this is our first chance to do e-mail.We had a good flight on British Airways to London and then British Midland to Amsterdam, arriving at 4:40 pm.  Our friends, Dick and Emmy, whom we met last year and who keep their boat in same marina where we left Fiesta, picked us up at the airport.  We stopped for dinner on the way and arrived at the boat about 8:00 pm.  We had some work done on Fiesta and there were a few pick up items to be done, so we did not get on our way for a few days.

We have quickly resumed our cruising lifestyle, visiting historic, picturesque towns and villages in the south of Holland.  We spent an overnight in the exquisite inner harbor of the historic village of Heusden.  Heusden was bombed by retreating Nazis and the city was restored by the Dutch government at the request of the local population in 1960.  This is the harbor in Heusden; Fiesta is the second boat to the right of the windmills.  The photo is taken form the Fish Market.

We spent two days in the national water park called the Biesbosch.  The waterways were very shallow and totally unmarked with about a two foot tidal range.  The water level was below the charted data and we saw quite a few boats go aground.  We managed to make it to our chosen mooring with just a few touches in the mud.  Leaving, however, was another matter.  We tried to navigate up a channel with a very narrow entrance through the mud banks.  With no navigational aids we gave up after almost an hour of poking our bow, and stern, into the mud and not finding any way through it, so we turned around and went the longer way down to the big river Maas.

 We are now in Dordrecht, a city of about 150,000 founded in the 11th century.  It sits at the confluence of three major waterways and was once an important trading port, especially for wine.  Every where you look is a photo opportunity.  We are moored right beside the 15th century huge cathedral, Great Church of Our Lady, which has the largest carillon in Holland.  Thank goodness it is turned off a night or we wouldn’t get any sleep.  We visited the restored 18th century home of Simon van Gijn, (aaschHin!), an art collector who willed the house be open to the public after his death in 1922.  The interior’s period rooms are richly decorated and furnished, with outstanding wall coverings, linen, painted white and stamped with a dark green Louis 14th pattern, 17th century tapestry, and gilded leather.  The gilt leather room is unique in Holland, and very rare and very beautiful.  The process is to cover the leather with silver leaf, then a yellow varnish.  A relief is then imprinted on the leather and painted various colors.  Finally the gilded leather sheets are sewn together.  These were big rooms too, with high ceilings.  Amazing.

Tomorrow we will go south to another village where we will meet up with Dick and Emmy on their boat and then continue southward through the province of Zeeland (sea-land); New Zealand, by the way, was named after Zeeland. We should cross the border into Belgium by the end of the week and will stay in Antwerp for a while.  We are told that it is a very interesting city.

Our next e-mail will be from Antwerp.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Colin and Patricia.