Holiday impressions from Rome and the Netherlands

We're back in Sydney, after a wonderful holiday in Europe. As promised, here are some photo impressions.
We started with a 4-day city trip to Rome, where we stayed in an apartment very close to the Vatican. It was my third visit to Rome, but the boys' first, so we did all the things you have to do in Rome, like Saint Peter's Basilica (above) and the Colosseum (which they loved of course):



I remembered to look down every now and then and saw some great sewer lids - I wished I'd brought my Shiva paintsticks and some fabric!





I'd looked up places where we could find some street art, but they were far from the city centre and sadly there was no time to go there. However, I did spot a few pieces of street art:





Of course we threw some coins in the Trevi Fountain to make sure we will return to Rome. I'm looking forward to my next visit, when I will just skip all the touristy things and discover other parts of Rome!



More pics from Rome on my photo blog here, here and here!



Back in the Netherlands we stayed for a week in a holiday home near the National Park the Hoge Veluwe, where we visited the Hunting Lodge St Hubert, designed and built by the famous Dutch architect H.P. Berlage in 1914-1920. He intended it to be a gesamtkunstwerk and also designed the interior, the gardens and even the furniture - it was all part of the whole work of art.





I thought it was very impressive! More pics, also of the interior, here.



Living in Australia makes us want to see some really old buildings when we are in Europe, so we visited a few castles - the one above is Castle Doorwerth near Arnhem. Its oldest parts date from the 13th century (more pics here). And the one below is Castle Hackfort (oldest part from the 14th century):



My mother-in-law works as a volunteer in the castle gardens and took us for a walk through the gardens and the surrounding woods (more pics here):







When my husband had gone back to Sydney for work after two weeks, I took the boys to the island of Schiermonnikoog. I have often been there when I was young and really wanted to show them this beautiful part of the Netherlands:



Schiermonnikoog is a small island with only one village, where you can find beautiful old houses:



You can't bring your car to the island, but you can hire bicycles to get around!



We stayed for four days and had a great time - I wish we could have stayed for two weeks!
More pics of Schiermonnikoog here.



When we got back to the mainland I took the boys for a short visit to Appingedam, the small town where I grew up. (More pics of Appingedam here...)



Then we drove on to Groningen!



My favourite city in the whole wide world! We stayed with my BFF Hylkia and her family for a few days. It was so good to be back there!



I discovered an interesting work of street art:







We went shopping and found a yarn shop:



Hylkia took this photo of me there ;-)



And of course we had to go to the market...



We had a wonderful time in Rome and in the Netherlands, and I hope you have enjoyed these photo impressions.
Now back in Sydney I am working hard on my new crochet skills. I'll show you the results soon!