We have just returned from a wonderful week's holiday in Friesland. Together with friends we rented a house on a Frisian lake in the town of Kaudum. We had a blast. Now with the pandemic you look at holidays differently than normal, we didn't really feel like going abroad and so we looked closer to home. Strange actually, the Netherlands has such beautiful places that we have certainly not all seen.
Friesland is known for its many waters and of course the Elfstedentocht. The Elfstedentocht is a skating marathon that is ridden on natural ice and goes past eleven cities. The Elfstedentocht (Eleven cities tour) is a tradition in the Netherlands, the first tour of which was held in 1909. Unfortunately, the last one was held in 1997, because it no longer freezes so severely, the ice quality has been so bad in recent years that the tour cannot be held.
Too bad, I remember the last trip in 1997 well. The first riders start very early in the morning and skate on the natural ice through beautiful environments, it is a performance tour.
1963 was the toughest edition of the tour, she called it "the hell of 1963". It was called hell because few people made it to the finish line. There were snow storms that almost made skating impossible. Some participants had their limbs frozen, bizarre indeed. This trip was later filmed in the Netherlands by a Dutch producer and was a great success.
In 1986 there was also an Elfstedentocht with a special participant. It was our current King Willem Alexander. He participated under the pseudonym "W.A. van neighbors", later it turned out that the royal house uses this surname more often if one wanted to travel incognito. He made the trip and finished, respect. His parents, the then king of the Netherlands and her husband, were waiting for him at the finish. It was big news in the Netherlands and far beyond.
During our holiday we visited a number of villages that are part of the Elfsteden tour. But in a boat. We had rented a boat for the whole week so that we could get a breath of fresh air on the water. The weather was unfortunately not great the first days, but we still enjoyed ourselves.
The great thing about sailing in Friesland is that you can actually reach all villages via small canals or large open water. It is almost always pleasantly busy on the water.
Every day we packed a few bags with a snack, drink and a speaker for the necessary music on board. My kids loved it. The youngest was our captains and took us everywhere.
When we arrived in a village we went looking for a nice terrace to have a drink. You can then just moor the boat there and step onto the terrace, you don't get much better :)
My birthday is often when I'm on vacation. also this year, when we arrived at the boat in the morning they had decorated the boat, I had to laugh about this and it looked very cozy ... right?
We really enjoyed the weather, the boat and Friesland. We will definitely go here again in the future, we haven't seen everything yet....
Have a great day,
Peter