A Change of Scenery

I don’t need steaming volcanoes and grand river canyons, but two and a half weeks away from the Netherlands has made me realise how much I miss ‘scenery’. The Dutch landscape is very flat. It’s very samey. It's fields of grazing cattle and sheep. It’s bulb fields – a blazing glory for six or seven weeks of the year and then bare earth until the spring.  In this part of the Netherlands, sand-dunes are strapping peaks.  Dutch bikes don’t have gears – there’s no need.

The first thing I noticed when we emerged from the Channel Tunnel and drove through the rolling Kent countryside back in the UK was the rich variety of colours in the fields,  like a patchwork quilt,  arable crops, the wheat ready for the harvest,  the hedgerows and trees. There are no mountains in Kent, but there are hills and slopes. Hampshire is the same. The M3 cuts through cliffs of chalk, the village where we have our UK home is set in a river valley – a valley – you have to walk down to reach the water, and then you have to walk back up. It’s all very good for those defunct calf muscles which get no exercise at all no matter how far I walk in the Netherlands.

And then we flew to Croatia. Croatia has scenery – masses of it. Mountains, dramatic cliffs, rocky coves, inaccessible islands, crystal clear water. Dubrovnik is not a city for the elderly, or the infirm, or anyone in a wheelchair or with a pushchair, (athough since it has been rebuilt following the Yugoslav wars in the 1990’s it has apparently been made a lot more accessible than it used to be). Flights of stone steps lead to tiny narrow alleyways where you have to weave your way through restaurant and café tables, gift shops and craft shops, and shops selling Games of Thrones memorabilia. I’ve never watched Games of Thrones, but I am going to have to now, even if it is just to keep getting a drip-feed of the wonderful Croatian scenery.

I loved Dubrovnik. I didn’t care about the zillions of cruise passengers on their guided walking tours of the city in their plastic pac-a-macs and flip-flips who would abruptly stop in front of you to take a picture with their selfie-sticks.  Yes it is a tourist trap, but a very beautiful tourist trap and I don’t blame the locals for milking it for all it is worth.

Haarlem too has its fair share of tourists. It too is a beautiful old city, but I’ve realised now it just lacks a bit of drama. Maybe somebody needs to come and film something here, something raunchy, just to spice it up a bit. 

We did notice, however, as we walked along the street to the pub for the quiz on Monday evening that a few changes had taken place since we left.  What had been a second-hand clothes shop is now a fancy cake shop, a new shoe shop appeared to have sprung up – although it only appeared to be selling a very limited (and presumably very exclusive) line of shoes.  The chip shop was closed, the craft beer bar open (unusual for a Monday), another cafe had changed hands.   As I’m sure I’ve said before, small businesses here appear to be run more as hobbies, than going financial concerns. Or maybe that’s just the way the Dutch like to do things - low-key.  Just like the scenery.