Beautiful Brielle

Poor Anna.

She has the flu. Fevers, headache, full on ear nose and throat congestion, and body aches. Probably caught it on the flight over here.

Yesterday wasn’t conducive to boat work, it was cold and raining so we just did a lot of sorting out and throwing away, then went to a great shopping complex in Spijkenisse, a town quite close to our boat and bought some of the essentials to make our boat home.

A beautiful spring afternoon in Brielle

The people over here could not be more friendly or helpful, they really are fantastic. 

Nearly everyone speaks at least three or four languages fluently and they all seem so confident and easy in their culture, however it did take me quite a while to log on to the hotel wifi when the concierge told me the password was “Phyllis”.  

It was actually “Village”, so there is sometimes a little lost in translation.

The village we are staying in, Brielle, is a medieval village that first gained it’s city rights in 1306.

It is very quaint, completely surrounded by canals and has narrow cobbled streets and old brick buildings. 

On the first of April they have a huge festival with an authentic re-enactment of the battle of 1572 when the inhabitants were joined by Dutch pirates to overthrow the Spanish invaders and re-claim their town.

The hotel concierge is very proud of his role in the battle, he plays a Spaniard.

Have a look on google maps at Brielle and you will see that it is a fortified town surrounded by canals.

Street scene in Brielle

We are loving it here, especially now the Tamiflu has kicked in and Anna is on the recovery.

And the welding has been done today on our boat so we have to pull finger tomorrow and start working on the bottom (of the boat)

We are enjoying the start of spring and have seen the flowers unfolding before our eyes. 

Today was a real taste of things to come and we should be starting to feel the warmth of the sun  in the next few days.

I love the architecture of these houses.

On the edge of the North Sea, Anna in the grass.