Ijlst and Sneek

18/5/14 Ijlst and Sneek

The next morning Jan was shocked to discover five empty wine bottles in the saloon. Just where did they come from? (John: hold on, I wasn’t shocked, it seemed ok to me! In truth several were half empty when we started, but that spoils the story!).

drinkies!!

 

We went into Iljst for a bit of a wander. Being Sunday everything was closed and the town looked pretty dead. The place was very pretty though. The houses lining the central small canal were separated from their front gardens by the poplar lined road. Each small garden was delineated by a low hedge and maintained by the individual home owners in the own choice. Some had flower beds, others were grassed or paved with table and chairs.

gardens at Ijlst

Barb and John

The three sister

Jan and Nick at Ijlst

 

 The church bells began peeling and out poured the population, we suspect all of it as there were so many, of Iljst from within.  And even if it wasn’t the entire population it must at least have been the entire elderly cohort, there were seemingly hundreds! They dispersed by bicycle or foot and temporarily this sleepy town came to life.

Just two kilometres further down the main canal we came upon the town of Sneek. Jan and Nick had visited here previously and knew there was a water filling point and a place to tie up near the shower block. Thus we tied up temporarily at the water station which was just in front of a wonderful twin towered bridge, then moved further down to the quay. John and I wandered for a couple of hours around town, sampling some food and coffee as we went. John proclaims the coffee here to be very acceptable. Much better than Italy quoth John (John: too right).

Filling the tanks at Sneek

The boats raft up

 

 It was lovely to sit on the back deck and watch the procession of boats coming past on the canal. Boats of every size and shape filled with people of every size and shape. Last time they were in Sneek one of the large passenger canal cruisers (some 150 foot) tied up in front of them and discharged its one hundred passengers on one hundred bikes for a tour of the town.

Bike riders in the Netherlands never seem to wear helmets and the bikes are quite different from ours, requiring a very stately, very dignified, upright posture when riding. I guess they don’t have to go up hills either. Everyone is on bikes. Babies are on their parents bikes in seats fore and aft. Quite young toddlers are on their own small bikes guided by the scruff off their collars by the accompanying parent. We even saw an old lady being taken for a ride by a side by side tandem bike. She was just sitting while her daughter pedalled.

Every train station has enormous areas given over to bike parking, sometimes multi-level, but very few car parking spaces.

It was too busy to stay in town, so we moved again further out of town and tied up near a field to enjoy our nightly sundowner drinks on the back deck.

 

sundowners on the deck of Kuah

Sundowners on Shanty