Rainy Monday

We awoke to rain this morning. It was cold and gray looking outside and very tempting to stay at the apartment with the warm stove and a cup of coffee, but I used the last of the coffee this morning so we had to go out one way or another.

The other challenge for today is that lots of things are closed on Mondays, and especially on Easter Monday. We figured out that De Haar Castle was open so we headed near Utrecht to check it out. We had attempted to visit this a few years ago, but it was late in the day so we couldn't make it. Although the castle is very old, what you see is actually a building project from the 1800s when a baron decided to construct the castle out of the ruins of a family estate. The result is very interesting, but a mix of old concepts and modern (for the time) amenities such as electric lighting and indoor plumbing.

There are no photos allowed during the tour of the castle, so here's some shots from around the grounds.

That's a Citroen 2CV out in the middle of the moat. We ran into a guy who said it's a joke that any Dutch person would get. Apparently these cars have the nickname of "ducks" and there's a well-known Dutch children's song about all the ducks being in the water - so in this case, the "duck" is in the water!

The window in the men's room is pretty cool.

The floor in the entryway is cool too.

On the way home we stopped by a farm that sells their produce directly. We learned that they had run out of strawberries the day before so they went out and picked some fresh ones this morning. You can't get much fresher than that! They also had cranberry wine from the Frisian islands - yum!

In the parking area at the castle, we ran across this Citroen 2CV wagon with the surfboard on top. I love the bumper sticker on the back - the small print says "Now read it again".