Lazy Zandvoort

It's our last full day here on the North Sea coast. This morning after breakfast on the balcony, we got bikes again from our apartment host, Medhi. He was in fine spirits because of the unseasonably good weather on this, his birthday. So we pedaled through the dunes to the far end of the beach and walked farther along the strand and came home when we got hungry for brunch (every meal here is a brunch of sorts). Since then we've been lazing about. We had planned to bike again the 3/4 hour to Haarlem, but instead will laze about some more and hit the beach in a bit. Photos to follow...








[update...] It occurred to me a didn't write much about our choice digs on the Holland North Sea coast. I think i wrote before how Zandvoort essentially functions as both the Canon Beach for Amsterdam, but also the sunny weeklong holiday destination for Germans. This place is all about tourists.

From home, i was able to find this studio apartment you see on the street corner with the Dutch flag. We have the second floor, front facing flat with the big balcony.












Our hosts were quite delightful empty nesters. We didn't have much time to prat, as we were all entertaining (or being entertained) throughout the week. Mehdi, a native of Morroco, was quite generous to put up with our beginning Dutch (he's also fluent in German, English, French and Arabic - and i'm sure more). Virginie grew up, i believe, with her sister Karin in Morocco. Karin, who has been an artist in California since 1980 happened to be visiting this week as well. It turned out that it was Mehdi's birthday. We were able to present him with an OSU Beaver T-shirt, a leftover from Hans's Koninginnedag collection.








Our apartment's balcony was huge and could easily and comfortably accommodate a half dozen. It was great for entertaining, and we spent much of the week there, observing the action down below.