The legendary musician Peter Gabriel was stranded on the A27 highway in the Netherlands on Saturday when his bus broke down in flames. More »
Today we came across a strange attraction when driving from Leidschendam to Voorschoten. Vlinders aan de Vliet (Butterflies along the Vliet [river]) is an enclosed tropical garden in a large greenhouse with hundreds of beautiful butterflies. Here are some photos of our visit.
Last Sunday we visited Texel! We first took an early train (7:00) from Leiden to Den Helder, which lies in the northern-most tip of Noord Holland. On the way we saw a Spoonbill and our first Crane (Kraanvogel). When we arrived in Den Helder, we took a bus to the harbor and there stepped onto the TESO ferry to Texel, which is the largest and most populated of the Dutch Frisian Islands and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark. More »
Last Saturday we visited one of twenty national parks in the Netherlands, Veluwezoom. We used the NS Lentetoer to travel by train from Leiden to Rheden (Lentetour is a special spring train ticket that allows two persons unlimited travel around the country for €35 in first class). More »
The saga of the Rotterdam ‘parkshuttle’ continues. After nearly eight years of setbacks (including the December 2005 crash), the driverless robot buses — that are supposed to bring commuters from a metro station to an office park on a two-kilometer special road — takes another blow as the company that made the buses has filed for bankruptcy. More »
After Germany and Poland, Comedy Central will now also start in the Netherlands. The new TV channel, owned by MTV Networks, will start on 30 April and will broadcast on an existing channel only from 8pm to 5am every day. They have just launched their website at comedycentral.nl where you can see their TV schedule. This includes That 70s Show, Saturday Night Live, The Office US and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. More »
Last weekend we went to Flevoland for a day to hike and watch birds at Oostvaardersplassen. The weather was beautiful and there were many people out and about walking and bicycling. We saw Red Deer, Konik wild horses and several new birds. More »
Later this year Google will built a huge server farm in Eemshaven, near Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. The new ‘Telehouse’ will have room for 100,000 servers that Google uses for storing its search data. Google is estimated to have some 450,000 servers around the world, in places like Mountain View (California), Virginia, Atlanta, Georgia and Dublin (Ireland). The cluster of computers will require an amount of energy enough to sustain 80,000 households. More »
Kingfishers in the Netherlands are doing exceptionally well due to the recent mild winters. In the Dutch language they are called ijsvogels, which means ice birds. Despite that name, the birds do not fare well in cold winters. More »
In the past couple of days, 43 baby seals have been brought to the seal shelter Zeehondencreche in Pieterburen, a town in the north of the Netherlands. The babies lost their mothers and were washed ashore during rough seas. More »