Yellow Bunny and Fairy Doors

There are no protests here in Koog aan de Zaan. We are on the outskirts of Amsterdam in a quiet residential community. No plans to go to Rotterdam or The Hague. 

Grocery shopping in the Netherlands is an experience. Everything is in packages. Some even provide all you need to make dinner in one plastic container.

Squash soup. Shelves and shelves of plastic containers.

We bought items to make spaghetti dinner tonight at Albert Heijn. 

Now it is time to get outside and play while the sun is shining. First a train ride and then off to walk in the forest 

We are ready. 

We headed to Castricum to walk the forest loop. 

Although the sun disappeared the walk was great. Lots to see .

All along the way we found fairy doors. 

Yellow Bunny was right at home. They were just her size. 

Not sure how the structures came to be but they were so creative!

Along the way we found an interesting bunker in the forest. It was a secret place created to store the art treasures of the Netherlands during the Second World War. Even Rembrandt’s The Night Watch ended up here.

As the rain began to fall we headed back. To make it a complete forest adventure we saw some Highland cattle. Got my attention! 

Plus a horse rider going by. 

Odessa was ready for some milk and we needed to warm up. What better than hot chocolate under a circus like tent, still in the forest. It was a perfect place to get out of the rain and a place for young children to play with numerous riding toys. 

Odessa was happy…..

Norm too…..

That is Swarte Piet! Or Black Peter in English, Sinterklaas’ sidekick in the Dutch Christmas story but you don’t find many swarthy Piets these days with colonial oppression of the not-so-old days making such a character an insensitive and politically incorrect reminder of what those times actually involved. The modern Piet might have just smudgy cheeks, or there’s “rainbow Piet” with LGBTQ associations. Regardless, Sinterklaas is still a big deal in modern Holland.

Times are a changing…..