These were all my birthday presents along with all of the emails and well wishes and a JT CD which isn't in the photo because it was pumping through the stereo! I'm such a pop princess sometimes.
Nico took Friday off and after chatting on the phone to my parents for about an hour, we went to Nijmegen for lunch. Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands but then depending on who you ask, Maastricht is the oldest! I love both of these cities and it's true that both are really old! Nijmegen is on the Rhine and it is still a busy waterway for transporting goods. We saw a bunch of cars on a bunch of boats coming from Germany and quite a lot of traffic as we dined at the water's edge in a 'gezellig' restaurant.
After lunch we drove to the largest National Park in the Netherlands: the Hoge Veluwe. In the middle of the park there is the Kröller-Müller museum which holds the best collection of van Gogh paintings. It was donated to the state by an old, rich shipping magnate family who acquired a huge collection of art.
You can drive to the museum or you can use, for free, one of these:
Of course we took the bikes. It was a 10km ride each way and I have never seen so much wide open space in such a small country before.
The first kilometre or so was on a cycle path in the middle of a forest. We were surrounded by huge trees in all their autumn glory! This led into low lying scrub and shrubs which then turned into sand dunes and what looked like a mini desert?! After a while we hit forest again and in a clearing in this forest was the museum.
We wandered through the museum at a snail's pace. There was so much to see and so few people! There were sculptures and paintings from all over the world. There were also letters and diary entries from the family. And of course there was a cafe where we got a nice warm cuppa and an appelgebak!
In the evening we met Jane and Edwin at the Effenaar in Eindhoven for a couple of drinks.
It was a very happy birthday for me.
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