A Cruise of Waterways
And Cities and Villages Along the Way
In The Netherlands and Belgium

April 2004
Aboard the Vantage River Boat Explorer
All photographs (c) 2004 by Ralph Berglund
This site includes 75 pictures in five categories. It will take you a while to enjoy it; about eight minutes if you have cable, longer with a telephone connection. Bookmark it and come back and visit again from time to time.

Click where indicated in each category description to start the related slide show. Once the slide show has been loaded the slides will change every six seconds. To see an earlier slide you can click on its thumbnail in the window on the left, or step back to it with your backspace key. To restart the slide show click on the first thumbnail. To return to the choices on the home page, click at the top or bottom of the left thumbnails where it says "Return to Holland home page."


You can return to Bergie's Home Page by clicking here
From Amsterdam to Antwerp, Delft, Bruges, Friesland, bulb farms, Aalsmeer, Keukenhof, the Rijksmuseum, the floating flower markets, and a final Amsterdam canal boat trip. Click here for 40 slides of the overall trip.
Here are five scenes from the World Monument Kinderdjyk area...some of Holland's last remaining (and working) windmills which both grind grain and operate pumps to transfer water into the drainage canals. Along with wooden shoes and dikes, this is classic, quintessential, fantasy Holland.
The day's clouds added to the drama of these brooding, giant machines, starkly alone on the land they protect. Click here to see them.
This is the flower auction at Aalsmeer. Seventy-five percent of the world's flowers flow through here every day. Click here to see a few pictures.
But, speaking of flowers, nothing can compare with the Kukenhof Garden. It is 74 acres of rolling green landscape, small lakes and ponds, trees and shrubs, and an incredible array of tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils. It is truly the Grand Canyon of the floral world. Click here to see 16 pictures.
The Zuiderzee outdoor museum at Enkhuizen is a pristine portrayal of a small fishing village on the shore of the Zuiderzee in times past. The Zuiderzee has been gone since the 1932 closing of the sea dyke, after which the Zuiderzee gradually became the fresh water IJsselmeer. Click here to see eight pictures.
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