In the heat of late July we set our sights on Holland again, this time taking Eleanor with us to give her a taste of, and hopefully for, life on the continent. And show her some of places we so enjoyed last year Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 1 – Harwich & Rotterdam and Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 3 – Den Haag, Scheveningen & Leiden.

The daytime ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland is a gentle, stress-free way to start a holiday. Eight or so hours to unwind, and for most of that time something to see outside, whether the ports, shipping, wind turbines or Gannets.

Our first night was at the Holiday Inn Express in Rotterdam, an easy stroll from the metro and Centraal Station. And this time we came upon the rustic, but tasty, Biergarten tucked away behind the hotel, for our first chips and mayonnaise. They would not be the last!

We have always loved Rotterdam for its weird and wonderful postwar architecture. It feels like the planners simply said ‘just do different’. So a morning revisiting our favourites was in order…the Cube Houses and Markthal, and the harbour areas generally.

The concentration of glass and steel and concrete is simply breathtaking but nestled within is Laurenskerk which at last we found open. A rebuild following wartime devastation, it has a great feeling of space, and some apocalyptic stained glass evoking the bombings of Rotterdam, Dresden and Coventry in a spirit of Peace & Reconciliation, the name of the main window, in pleasing contrast with the pastel light drifting through the other gently tinted windows.

 

The impressive architecture attracted our cameras (see Eleanor’s photo blog for her take on it)…

… along with art, both intentional and otherwise!

There is a wild side to the city centre, with wetland and wall plants mingling on the canal and harbour sides (Mexican Fleabane, Gypsywort and Maidenhair Spleenwort), while Shaggy Soldier and Four-leaved Allseed crept into the pavement cracks, just as at home, along with Hairy Finger-grass..

And in the canals, multiple mating pairs of Small Red-eye damselflies flittered around the water plants, while Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls clamoured noisily everywhere.

The street trees provided welcome shade for us and insects such as Red Admiral, and the Turkey Oaks displayed the galls of the mite Aceria cerrea, a species that is only just starting to invade the UK.

Heading off by metro, we were entertained by the antics of a Plane Seed-bug nymph, a species that became established in the UK only as recently as 2007.

And so to The Hague and again an excellent Holiday Inn Express, this for a couple of nights. The city is high-rise around the station, but elsewhere lovely and historic with an Art Nouveau feel.

Canals and lakes helped make it feel cooler than it actually was and provided lots more opportunities for loafing and scavenging gulls…

… while the Koekamp deerpark gave shade to Red and Fallow Deers, grazing Egyptian Geese, a nesting Great Crested Grebe and a basking terrapin, while outside the fence and safe from munching, Small Balsam bloomed profusely.

The restaurants around Het Plein were buzzing in the evenings, Leopold’s especially providing us with great food and ‘drinks with a sting’, when a Hornet decided to take a bath in Jude’s lager. It was deftly removed to safety with a pair of chopsticks, and the loss of only a fraction of her beer!

On the hottest day of all, we headed by train to Leiden, a lovely town with links to the Pilgrim Fathers, birthplace of Rembrandt, and canals and windmills giving a very Dutch feel to the place.

It is also home to one of the most prestigious universities in the Netherlands and one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world. Heading first into the hothouses, before the heat was supposed to peak, the plants were just spectacular….

… and the equally delightful animal inhabitants included Long-tailed Mealybugs, a species of door snail and lots of charming, noisy Poison Arrow Frogs.

Leaving the enclosed heat into the open air, it just got hotter, although the ponds and the trees provided localised respite.

Sumptuous foliage and splendid flowers kept us going…

..along with wildlife such as the Southern Bracket fungus and huge Great Pond Snails Lymnaea stagnalis, along with just a few insects in the unforgiving inferno: a rather unpatterned picture-winged fly (aka Dark-Tipped Flutterfly) Palloptera ustulata, a Colletes plasterer-bee, Ornate-tailed Digger-wasp Cerceris rybyensis and our favourite Firebugs, yet another link to home.

Any opportunity to get there is great, though the fearsome heat rather curtailed things. Ice cream and lager were called for urgently!

On our final day, it was out by tram to Scheveningen for the full seaside experience of pier, sand, gift shops and mussels in the beach café.

And of course nature. There was a Brown-tail moth stranded on the pier, presumably from the nearby dunes where its caterpillars were probably eating Sea Buckthorn.  And on the upper beach and low dunes, Sea Holly (attracting lots of Greenbottles), Perennial Wall-rocket and Sea Rocket.

But most interesting to me, Hyssop-leaved Tickseed Corispermum pallasii, something I thought had never seen before. But I did many years ago find a close relative Corispermum leptopterum in Bathside Bay, Harwich, one of only four sites in the UK: the two names now seem to be synonyms. Not native to western Europe, it is believed that it moves itself around by sea, hiding in the holds of sand-dredging vessels, another direct link to home.

All too soon, home beckoned. It was on the metro back to the Hook, this time for an equally restful night sailing on again calm seas, lulling us to sleep after a lovely holiday. We will return!