TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

We had a rain check on our Friesland trip and since I was not in the mood to go all the way to Hattem for the Dikke Tine festival, I consulted my Dutch travel booklets; 2 of which I personally bought, 1 given to me by the Dutch sister. It’s been a while since we walked in the forest or in the plain fields, so I searched for a nice place nearby where a good combination of tea, a nature park and walking routes are abundant. So half an hour later we arrived in Eemnes, a very pleasant village with horses grazing on the wide open fields and traditional horse carriages galloping the narrow cobbled streets lined with trees. We searched for the Tea House that was recommended on my travel booklet but helaas we couldn’t find it. I vaguely remember now but it did say that the place is not easy to find with a GPS as it is adequately hidden from the road, and with a grumbling Dutchman beside me, this surely is not a great combination. OK, as time was running out and we so desperately want our bums ...

Blondine and I were planning on having High Tea somewhere in Utrecht but it was 24C on the weather forecast so we grabbed the chance to hit the beach. Scheveningen is probably the most popular beach in the Netherlands, and the runners up would be Zandvoort and Bloemendaal. A lot of tourists come over here as well, mostly from the neighbouring countries such as Germany and Belgium. When its beautiful weather such as today Sunday, the paved boulevard (approximately 1 kilometer long) and the white sandy beach (3 kilometers long) are full of people playing sports, strolling around, lounging and relaxing in the beach clubs, swimming and what else, tanning under the sun. Trivia: During World War II, when the Germans were spying on the Dutch (they speak fluent Dutch), the Dutch use the word Scheveningen as a lock because the SCH is pronounced the same as the gurgling saliva spitting G. The Germans could never pronounce it, lol. This is the kilometer long paved boulevard in ...

I have mentioned in my earlier entry that my Cebu and Bantayan vacation fotos were gone. We copied all the fotos to a USB stick but something went totally wrong when I accessed the files. Anyway, I have an appointment with my mother this Friday (she’s a very busy business woman!) and I will try to remotely access her laptop and see if I can copy and transfer the fotos, if not I will have to ask her to copy them to another USB stick and send by post mail. This is really an example of Murphy’s Law =( So while waiting for my Cebu and Bantayan vacation fotos, I’m posting the only 6 fotos I have of Tagaytay, taken almost 9 years ago. Wow that’s how long ago these memories were. I think I shot more fotos but this was pre-digital camera days and I had to scan each picture and store them in my computer. Miraculously a few of them survived. I actually have very few pre-digital age fotos scanned. Taal Volcano, an active volcano within a caldera in the middle of Lake Taal in Batangas. Travel excu...