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Grevelingen Tour – Day 2: After we had seen Zierikzee, we decided to go home again. After we passed Bruinisse, the clouds finally opened up and revealed blue sky and sun. At that moment we also passed a picknick place on the Grevelingen dam and decided to stop and use the opportunity.

It gave me time to work on a new netlabel mix, which I started during the Solar Tour. An hour later it was warm enough to sit outside, so we had coffee and pie in the sun, looking over the water. A day earlier we had coffee and pie just a few kilometers further on the other side of the dam, overlooking Lake Grevelingen. We had closed the circle around Grevelingen and returned to Almere, where we arrived at 7pm.

Grevelingen Tour – Day 2: Originally we wanted to go on a boat trip on the lake Lake Grevelingen after lunch, but it was still very foggy, so it didn’t seem nice to be out on the water without being able to see anything. Instead we visited the cities of Brouwershaven and Zierikzee. While Zierikzee is just a small town with 10.439 inhabitants (2008), it has quiet a few attractions, like three medieval city gates, a smock and a grist mill and the massive church tower ‘Sint-Lievensmonstertoren’.

The construction of the tower started in 1454 and was never completely finished. The main building of the church was destroyed by fire in 1832. Nowadays the 62 meters high tower is open for visitors.

Grevelingen Tour – Day 2: Zeeland and the neighboring province of South Holland are Dutch provinces which don’t have many special camper parks, mostly because of the strong lobby and resistance of traditional campgrounds. So we stayed at Camping De Grevelingen for the night. This campground offers special motorhome places without electricity for 8 EUR per night.

After a late breakfast we went to the beach close to Port Zeelande. Here it is possible to park directly next to the beach and in the low season nobody will complain about free running dogs. We just went for a small walk along the beach and of course our dog Jill had a lot of fun. She just loves being at the sea. Since it was foggy, cold and gray, we only stayed for a little while.

Grevelingen Tour – Day 1: Since we returned from France the weather in Holland has been horrible, but finally it turned better this weekend. Temperatures even went up to 20 degrees, which is above average for this time of the year. Chris suggested going to the sea, so we decided to visit the Dutch province of Zeeland again. One weekend will just be enough for a quick tour around the Lake Grevelingen (Grevelingenmeer), a former Rhine-Meuse estuary that has become a lake due to the Delta Works. Lake Grevelingen is the largest saltwater lake in West-Europe.

On our way we had to deal with some traffic jams and detours but managed to reach the Lake Grevelingen in time for coffee and self made apple pie.

Today we started our fall tour and called it Solar Tour as we had two goals for the upcoming two weeks: visiting solar power related places and getting some sun (after a rainy summer here in Holland). Getting everything organized took longer than expected and therefore we only got on the road after dinner. The target for tonight was Bocholt in Germany, where we visited my dad and also stayed for the night. Driving on Saturday evening had the advantage that we didn’t get stuck in traffic jams.

Today we visited the exhibition ‘Organic Architecture, man and nature as a source of inspiration for building’ at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. Organic Architecture arose from different sources, such as the work of Sullivan, Wright, Gaudí, Steiner and Häring. Its development throughout the 20th century was not a continuous process, but rather kaleidoscopic, responding to changing times and local circumstances. It produced masterpieces like the Sagrada Familia, the Goetheanum, Fallingwater, and the Sydney Opera House, yet never became mainstream.