Family Fun in Friesland

It was great having my Mom and Dad and my sister, Kathy come to visit us last week.
The first weekend we drove to Friesland, a northwestern region in the Netherlands.   

Notice the cute Friesian flag!  This picture was taken in Workum, the town we stayed in.

On our way to Friesland, we stopped at a little town called Giethoorn.
It's known as being the Venice of the Netherlands.
We were able to catch a boat ride to view the town from the lovely canals.

Don't let that innocent face fool you!  My sister, Kathy, tried tipping the boat over and tempted Jack to jump in!

 Many of the houses had thatched roofs.

When we got to Friesland, we had fun exploring the little towns, especially Bolsward.
That was the town where my Grandpa DeVries grew up before he immigrated to the US when he was about 12 years old.
  

The Town Hall in Bolsward.

 We found DeVries and Visser names all over Friesland.  Here is a DeVries residence.

My Mom brought along post cards that my Grandpa DeVries kept from the early 1900's.
We were able to find the exact places that were on the post cards.

 Can you tell the postcard above is the same as the picture below?

Behind us (in the picture below), there is a womens' clothing store called "Visser Mode"

The postcard below is a picture of a planetarium that was invented by a man named Else Eisinga who lived in a nearby town called Franeker.  He created the planetarium by hand in his living room.
We were fascinated by the fact that the planetarium is still in working condition since 1871.

Postcard picture in Franeker.

We took a ride to the lakeshore in Hindeloopen. 

The other side of the hill is the lake shore.

There were sheep grazing by the shore.

It was a beautiful day to fly a kite!

All the towns were similar, but different in their own way.
Harlingen was a port town located on other side of the locks by the sea.
Because of salt water and access to the sea, there were many large fishing boats.




These were the locks going from the inlet lake to the sea.

I think I can speak for all of us that we really loved our visit to Friesland.
We had fun driving from town to town exploring our dutch heritage and enjoying the view of the quaint dutch landscapes, farm animals, and counting old and new windmills.

The Friesian cows were friendly and cute!

 

But the funniest part about driving in Friesland was to see sailboats in the middle of a field!
They were sailing in canals, but it looked like they were in the middle of the field.  Look closely at the picture below.  Can you see the white sail?