History, Royalty and other such sights

This last weekend, Dennis and I did a little sight seeing. On Saturday, We went to the South-West area of the Netherlands and saw the towns of Middelburg and Vlissingen. We went to several museums, one of which was the flood museum. In 1953, a hurricane hit and killed almost 2,000 people and destroyed the homes and properties of 30,000 people. Water control and dykes have always been important to the Dutch people. The land they are able to settle and use and the ability to protect that property from continual flooding is a high priority here and has brought about many amazing technics for building sea walls, and water management.

These are from the top of the dyke, just to give you an idea how tall these are.



In Middelburg, we climbed to the top of the church tower - only 280ish stairs. The view was great.



The pipe organ in the church Lange Jan is so beautiful. We happened to be there during a choir practice so we got to hear the beautiful sound from the organ.
The inner garden in the Abbey was beautiful and very peaceful.

Dennis enjoyed "snuffling" in front of the town hall.
We went to the beach and enjoyed watching the wind surfers.
It was a great little day trip. Dennis then left for the Utah and I took some outings with some friends. Here's a little something about the first one:

On Tuesday, I met some of my sewing friends and we took a train trip into Dan Haag for Prinsjesdag. The American Womens Club in the Haag reserve a whole top floor of a resturaunt along the parade route. So not only did we get to have a great view of the parade but we got to meet a lot of other American women and eat a yummy rijsttafel buffet.

On Prinsjesdag, the Queen rides in a golden coach from Noordeinde Palace to the Binnenhog to address the joint sessions of the Senate and House of Representatives. She gives her speech and then the whole parade returns to the palace. Before the queen comes, there are many branches of the military that parade by, first the marchers and then the horses. There is a military band and all the pomp and ceremony that occurs for royal ceremonies.


Many of the Dutch citizens wear hats - everything from paper to very elaborate and beautiful ones. I had heard that only the ladies who actually attend the speech wore hats but as you can see, many people get in on the activity.
It was also fun to see the ladies in their traditional Dutch clothing.