Finally back to Holland (well Belgium actually)!

If I don't get round to writing up the last part of my trip to Holland in my blog/online diary, I'll probably forget a lot of it, since so much has been happening lately. So on the last day we were set to travel by boat over to spend the night in Antwerp (Belgium). Things didn't exactly go to plan as there was a problem at one of the huge locks which ended up costing us over four hours!!! Then when it was ready to go, obviously the container shipping had to take priority over us. I wasn't really that bothered actually as we were still onboard the boat and got to see some amazing engineering in action. And if we didn't want to watch, we always had our cabins to retreat to!

I think they were able to fit six boats/barges
into the locks at the same time!
Fascinating stuff!

The only downside, of course, was our late arrival in Antwerp, which meant tearing into the old town on foot and not really having much time to appreciate just what a pretty city it is. Still, you can't have everything in life can you!

The catherdral was very impressive!

This is a google image as I couldn't get it all in.
Guild houses on the Grote Markt.
I had to google what guild houses were too.
Originally they were used for collecting taxes.
So now you know (they must have collected
a lot of taxes though, judging by the
size of the place)!

In the evening we had our final dinner on the boat, followed by dancing for those that wanted it. I have a video of one much older lady "dancing" (murdering more like) the macarena. She had everyone in stitches and couldn't have cared less about it! As she was alone I got up and waltzed (badly) with her a couple of times and then a man danced with her quite a few times because they were having such a blast! She told me that she had no partner so I figured she was a widow, as she was wearing a wedding ring. But no, her husband was so embarrassed by her he sat out the dancing bit, but even he must have appreciated what good fun she was. I would have put her in her 80s, truth be told, but it turned out she was just 71, so I guess you wouldn't want to urgently need me as an eye witness, would you!

The younger woman is trying to keep her
facing the right direction - with not much luck -
but she really was the highlight of the evening!

So next day it was up early and back on the road for what turned out to be a 15 hour journey, although not all of that was travelling as the driver needed to rest every so many hours. I enjoyed my time and found the architecture beautiful and the engineering amazing, but honestly, it was just too flat for me. As one man said as he was getting off the bus "isn't it great to be back in the mountains" and I thoroughly agreed!

A goole picture of one of the amazing
dikes in the Netherlands!