Each visit of my in-laws in The Netherlands is linked with a visit of a historical town called Heusden. If I remember correctly this is the first town that I visited many years ago when I met with my husband's family for the first time.
Heusden is a charming place which attracts thousands of tourists each year. Its fortified old town is compact, so it's enough when you visit it for a weekend. There is still a lot to see and do, but on a smaller scale. There are also many boutiques and specialty stores, so if you enjoy shopping this is a great place to be. Each time we come here we buy a few bottles of locally distilled coffee liquor which we bring as a gift to our friends and family as they love it!
There are a few old windmills scattered around the fortification and you can spend some time walking around and admiring each one of them.
The town looks like from a fairy-tale, but there are still people who live here up until now. Who wouldn't want to live in a house like this?
You can walk up the stairs to the fortification and walk around the town walls as they were completely restored.
Heusden is surrounded by water and there are plenty of yachts docking here. Looks like we must have met a few very wealthy people that day 🙂
There were many families enjoying sailing on Sunday. It was a hot day and we went there around lunchtime, so I wonder if they didn't get a sunburn. I protected myself with my 'sombrero' and couldn't imagine being on water at that time.
You can walk either along the water or on top of the fortification. There are many mosquitos along the water, so we usually walk up on the wall. I'm not saying that there are no mosquitos over there, but there are not as many.
There are still dandelions, so we could see that the summer is coming there a bit later. They must have had some cold days, but it was almost 30 degrees Celsius when we visited.
We walked around the town garden with many interesting plants, herbs, vegetables and fruits.
There are houses right next to the fortification. I am a private person and cannot imagine live like this. The Dutch like large windows directly into the streets and don't mind when people can see into their houses. It would scare me!
After a while we finally found some much needed shade and enjoyed sitting on a bench, and choosing a yacht that we would like to own one day 🙂 Frankly, this is more of a wishful thinking of my husband as I'm getting sea sick and would never dream of getting a yacht.
Late spring/early summer are usually my favourite as it's neither cold nor too warm and everything comes back to life. The colours are beautiful!
This is a very typical view of a Dutch village/town/city - all houses are attached to each other and they are all so different. It creates a patchwork panorama...
We have found some pretty flowers in the garden, so let's have a look!
I must admit that I don't know their names, but who cares..
I dread that I get these bugs in my garden as I've heard that they are detrimental to vegetables, so I hope that this is the first and the last time that I saw them this year...
I fell in love with the colour and the scent of some plant. They are so beautiful! If I had more place in my garden I would probably plant them all.
As usually, our visit of Heusden only took a few hours including delicious lunch, but we still managed to enjoy our favourite places and walk around the town walls like we always do 🙂
See you next time!