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Canal towns
Canal towns Amsterdam, the Venice of the North as it is sometimes called, isn’t the only city in Holland that can boast of its beautiful canals. Canals in historical cities like Alkmaar, Haarlem, Leiden, Delft and Utrecht definitely have got class as well. The canals in Utrecht are very special indeed, because they are different.…
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Shipwreck
Shipwreck No, no African boat people drowned in the Mediterranean. Only a harmless event of children at play in a countryside abounding in water. Wet clothes, that’s the only discomfort they’re suffering. A house on the waterfront; a boat or cycle as favourite mode of transport; more Dutch than this you can’t get it. Photos of the week:…
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Weerribben
Weerribben An old peat bog: after centuries of peat production now a nature reserve to explore leisurely by canoe or silent electric boat. Peat once was popular fuel enabling people to make it through the long, cold winters. With shovels it was dug and cut into bricks, row after row, layer after layer, creating the channels…
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Giants in the wind
Giants in the wind In the last decade the number of electricity generating windmills in Holland has increased considerably. In some regions even to the extent that one can speak of an uncontrolled proliferation, with action groups as a result that protest against the pollution of the horizon. See for example the situation in a…
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Flatland
Flatland Maybe it’s thanks to my Dutch origins that I still remember with delight the little book Flatland, in which Edwin Abbott gives full rein to his mathematical imagination in his description of a two-dimensional world. Although the Dutch landscape – especially its immense, flat polders reclaimed from the sea – does come rather close…
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Roadside entertainment
Roadside entertainment Moving images, stories told with moving images, invariably attract the attention of children, women and men. Most animals on the other hand, like the cow or bull here, can’t care less. Last week’s post spoke of the close relationship between man and cow in India, the last one almost being considered by man…
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Home again!
Home again! After a long day wandering around the village or town, looking for vegetable scraps, paper, cardboard – in short, anything edible – a cow returns home. Is the cow sacred in India? In a sense, yes – at least to a certain extent. She is one of the living, part of the family,…
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An endearing smile
An endearing smile The young lady has taken refuge against the blistering sun in the cramped space between wall and tree. Confronted with my camera, she sees the amusing side of her position and presents me – and you – with an endearing smile. Photo of the week: Ganj, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, India 2007
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Clean sweep
Clean sweep In India, especially in and around cities and towns, one often gets the impression of life being lived on one huge garbage dump. A clean sweep, that’s what India needs (also to do away with its excessive political garbage by the way). The tableau on the picture compares favourably with that image. ‘Why…
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Cheers!
Cheers! This large steaming lake probably owes its name of Champagne Pool to the bubbles caused by the escape of carbon dioxide at the surface. The water is hot, about 75° C., and contains many minerals like gold, silver, mercury, sulphur, arsenic, thallium, and antimony. Their deposits on the sides of the lake, just under…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
