Apeldoorn

Yesterday Frank and I took off to Apeldoorn.  A great city located about an hour by train from us.  Located in the Gelderland province, Apeldoorn has a population of roughly 137,000.    The first time I was there was in 1995 with the 48th Highlanders of Canada, for the 50th Liberation Celebrations.  The next time I went was 2006, my first vacation in long time.  A friend basically gave me a tour of Gelderland while I was there.  He and his wife later came to Canada but I was only able to take them for dinner.   But either way I’ve never been toPaleis Het Loo (pronounced “low” not LOOO like a British toilet) But either way… in 1995 I know we went there but we didn’t get to really see anything and in 2006 I got up to the gates and shot a few pictures but never made inside.  So Frank had this planned but he just had to make sure the kids were going to go somewhere for the day and well.. they did.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to take pictures inside, I wanted to sneak a few but Frank wouldn’t let me.  So I had to settle with just taking pictures of the gardens.  The cost was 10 euros a piece and the walk through took us about an hour and a bit depending on how much of the reading you wanted to do.  You could also rent the headphones for 2 euros but I decided against that, I would just read the place cards.   It was really interesting going through and seeing all the old furniture and learning about who was who in the royal family,  unlike the British Royals, the Dutch Royals aren’t very well known and neither is the history behind them.  

After going through the house we headed to the gardens in the back.  They remind me of the gardens in Versailles.  Intricate patterns made by the hedges and flowers planted in between with gravel path ways and fountains.   I was able to get a few pictures in before my batteries died…yes I know.. BAD TOURIST!!  Trust me I wasn’t impressed, especially since the gift shop didn’t tell batteries.   

After walking around the gardens and the museum, it was time to head in to the centre for some lunch.   We walked  over to the bus stop and as we were waiting we noticed that there were police EVERYWHERE!!  All stationed on this one intersection.  Frank thought maybe Royalty was coming…. I had no idea.  But it was just strange having 2 cops standing there with cameras, and one van packed to the roof with 5 cops.   But after waiting for approximately 20 minutes we had our answer, sort of… a huge motorcycle convoy came rumbling through.  There was at least 100 bikes that came rumbling by.  Now I was really pissed my camera had died on me!

After having a longish lunch in the city centre we wandered around the stores to “browse”.  While Frank was in the computer store I went in to a home decorating store.  At first it really didn’t look like there was much that would catch my eye and I was about to leave, but then I turned around and something caught my eye.  I couldn’t say no, especially since the price was 50% off!!  So I snatched it!  

For those who personally know me, you will understand why I was so geeked to get this statue.  Especially since I’m not a dust collector type of person (we can thank mom for that 🙂 ).

I love my new statue though, and it looks great on my new coffee table. 

All in all we had a great time and I was able to get a few pictures of the gardens before the batteries died.  To see the remainder of the pics you can just go on my flickr site and check them out there!

Ok… signing off now, hopefully I can be a little more vigilant when it comes to writing in the blog.  I’ve been bad lately *hangs head* sorry! 🙂