Groningen

The Netherlands, right next door, is amazingly different from Germany.  Really, you cross the border, an imaginary line that people erect, and suddenly so many things are different - the language, the architecture, the way folks interact, the culture with a small "c,"  gas prices, the trees.

The trees! I swear, there's not a tree in the Netherlands over 50 years old.  (That's not true, but it seems true. And that's a quote from one of my fav movies.  Do you know which one??)

Klaus+Johanna, Werner+I gave a gift to Ilsemarie (and Ulli) when llsemarie retired earlier this year - a weekend in Groningen.  We've done a good many trips with these folks, all of them fun.  This one was no exception.

Werner found a hotel in the middle of the city, the best travel connections, set up a private tour, and off we went.  Our hotel.

And the weather! You'd think we had ordered it - sunny and warm.  It couldn't have been better.

We arrived and checked in at the hotel and then met our guide, a student at the University who was of course not only bi-lingual but also bi-national.  She was great!

We got a good overview of the city. This is the city symbol, the tower of the Martinikirche.

At one point during the day, activists had hung a banner from the tower protesting climate change.  The police removed it rather quickly!

The young people were there for the Fridays for the Future protest.  Our guide said the protest here was much smaller than one would expect for a college town. It was small, but it was loud!

The average age of a Groningen resident is 35 - LOTS of students here.  We went through the university area and happened on a ritual of granting a doctorate.  

And we visited the Prinzengarten and Prinzenpalast - the gardens and palace of the prince who had a seat there.  The gardens are maintained by volunteers.  

And there's a magnificent sundial on the wall.

With all the tradition, there's also the new that is controversial.  A still unfinsihed building in the middle of the old town is just that.  I like it, but I understand folks that think it doesn't belong.  The guide said there is not a single plane of the building that is straight (There was a crooked man, and he had a crooked house....)

Afterwards, it was find a place to eat.  That's not always easy with six folks but this wasn't so hard.  It was of course, too much, but that's restaurant eating for you.  We all tried the Mustard soup, a Groningen specialty.  It was OK - Werner liked it better than I did; Klaus the soup expert, declared it delicious.  I'm pretty sure it's not going into our soup rotation. But Klaus had it again the next day.

Saturday!  Our hotel offered breakfast of course but it was a bit expensive, like ridiculous, so we opted for something in the town. We found PIGALLE, named after the famous French quarter. There were more choices that we could mange, and more food than we could eat!  But it was good and filling and we were off to the market.

It's incredible and huge and so full of so many sorts of things, but can I say - it's changed since I first visited 20+ years ago?? It's more commercial, less individualized. I seem to remember there were a number of small stands, even without canopies or covers. But there are still many fishmongers, folks selling amazing veggies and fruits, and the truck selling fries - not French fries but Belgian fries - and they are great. I ate the fries, Werner had a pickeled herring.

Afterwards, we met up at the Groningen Museum.  There were a couple of exhibits of interest.  The main one is a combination of black light installations and opportunities for the viewers to interact. You could make shadow pictures on the planes or walls, "watch" music,  push oversized marbles to clink with each other, play with small Styrofoam pebbles in a "sea" of color which resembled snow drifting across the street in winter. The most amazing image was the dress of a little girl (who was playing with this "snow" on the floor) glow in a bright orange when the hidden light came on. It looked as if there was a source of light inside her. Observing and participating was a lot of fun.

The other exhibit highlighted the 100th anniversary of Women's Suffrage, the struggle of women to have a vote and the women who made it happen.  Go women!! And would you believe the first women who got it were in New Zealand?

Groningen is surrounded by a canal which provided protection in earlier times, so of course there are boat tours and of course we took one.  But we got slowed down a couple of times because there was a swimming event - swimmers in the canals, balloons, boats following, kayakers monitoring, people cheering.  It was the perfect day for swimming.

We'd had a huge breakfast but only snacks in the afternoon, so we decided to have a light dinner at the hotel, planning to walk about later, but the rain changed that!  We'd expected rain in the night, but it arrived earlier. So we stayed in and had a few more drinks and went up to our rooms one after the other. Fun, fun day.

Sunday we got up to chaos on the streets, or rather the result of party time. The young(er) folks had played late into the night, bikes were all helter-skelter, trash all over the place!  We wandered back to the breakfast place from the day before.  We were about the first ones there, but before we checked out, the place was bustling, even the outdoor tables were occupied where it was way too cool for us older folks.

A walk through the Sunday flea market...but we resisted buying.

Then it was off to the train station to get our bus to Leer and then the train to Bremen.  We spent a bit of time in the wonderful Art Deco station before heading back.

Ah.  Another little treasure of a trip.  Thanks, you guys. Till next time.