Going where Dutch people still wear wooden clogs

Yes, there is such a place! Even I didn’t know this until my weekend in Friesland a few weeks back (which I’ve been promising to write about but have not yet).

I have always wanted to go to Friesland. I know that first of all many of you will say “where?!” Friesland. It’s a region in the the Netherlands, found in the northeast. Friesland is what one would consider the countryside of Holland, inhabited more by farm animals and crops than by people. Certainly there aren’t many non-Dutch tourists up there.

Why would I have always wanted to go there? Initially it was because of the ethno-lingua-geek in me. In what comes as a surprise to many, Dutch is not the only official language of Holland. Frisian is as well, and it survives in this little known region of the Netherlands. I find it interesting because the most closely related language to modern English is not Dutch or German or a Nordic. It is Frisian. Upon hearing the language you probably wouldn’t believe me that it’s the closest to English, but if you talk to a Friesian about the fact, they will quickly be able to point out some convincing examples, most likely by telling you the name of whatever happens to be sitting in front of them. On this trip, that happened to be tsis (pronounced “tchis“….or…can you guess it? Cheese!) The old Frisian barometer on the wall had pressure readings that indicated “stoarmy weer” and “wyn” (stormy weather and wind).*

I was also interested in Friesland as a general lover of the Netherlands. Holland is a country that never ceases to amaze me, and is in fact the place I’d most surely nominate as best place to live and raise a family (for me anyway; Scandinavia coming in second). I have seen a fair amount of the country, which is chock full of interesting and beautiful things to investigate for such a small nation. (Nope, soft drugs and prostitution aren’t even on that list!)  Now, upon invitation by my friend Ilse to visit her uncle’s dairy farm in a place called Sneek or Snitch (depending on whether it’s the Dutch or Friesian name, pronounced sneak and snitch in English) I had the perfect opportunity to see this little visited region.

The weekend started off with an early Saturday morning trip to the Keukenhof – perhaps the most famous flower garden park in the world. In fact, our whole weekend had been planned for months and it started around my determination to see the famous Dutch tulips in bloom. I had missed the sight for three years running now. (I even lived amongst the flower fields one year, but it was out of season, of course.) I was determined to catch them this year, and was prepared for a photo-taking frenzy of the millions of flowers, floral sculptures and displays. Colors, colors, colors! One is promised a huge park full of stuff like this:

Aside from the plain old endless tulip fields, of course.

But guess what? What we got precisely was a entry fee for $20 a head, plus parking, for this:

As you can imagine, I was thrilled that I had planned an entire weekend around and paid a good bit of money to see a million stems.

After, we basically took a little road trip up the west coast. We passed over and ate lunch on the coast of one of Holland’s many marine wonders – a man-made sea made by enclosing an area of the ocean. It’s not a place to sunbathe, but it is a lovely spot to sit and look out over the water. We proceeded northward and stopped of at the Eise Eisinger planetarium: the oldest working planetarium in the world, made in the living room of it’s name-bearer in a town called Franeker in the 1774-81. A small, personable museum with local flavor and a legitimate cultural/historical gem, it is well worth a visit.

After, we advanced to the farm. I found our hosts to be very kind, though I will admit they struck me as being more like Mythical Dutch people than any I have met before. While I won’t say they fit all the cliches, they came closer than any I’ve met. I was most charmed to see that they do still wear wooden clogs in the fields. (They thought I was an idiot for wanting a photo of their old farm shoes!) Otherwise, I will simply say that I think Friesians do not host as many outsiders as their regional Dutch neighbors. Some of the standard rituals of interacting with unknown hosts were more awkward than usual, which is actually quite charming in its own way. (i.e. we bought a bottle of Bailey’s for the Mrs. as we were told she quite likes it. We presented it all gift wrapped, she opened, they started at the bottle a moment, she put it on the floor next to the sofa and continued on the conversation as if nothing had happened. Urm…okay. )
The rest of the tale is not much for story-telling, though it was so nice to live it. We spent Sat. night exploring the farm, seeing the barn, petting the cows and calves, visiting some of them in the field as well. Learning how easy it is to make them stampede. I also got one of my incapacitating allergy attacks which sent me to bed early, completely wrecked.

The next morning we borrowed our hosts’ bikes and took to the paths which wind through the fields and run along the gazillion canals. I’ve always wanted to take such a proper bike ride in Holland and it was so fantastic. We rode to the shore where there was a little island reachable only by boat. We jumped on and made our way to the waterfront restaurants to have a hearty brunch. Oh I was in love with the weekend!

I told you. It doesn’t make for an exciting story, but it was so relaxing and refreshing and beautiful, only making me fall more in love with perhaps my favorite country. I will leave you with some photos so you can see for yourself! (as always, there are more on Flickr). I wouldn’t usually admit it, but perhaps I am a country girl at heart after all!

Clogs and bicycles – does it get more Dutch?

*Just a note to say if I have somehow gotten something slightly wrong, feel free to let me know. But those examples are correct to my memory. If they are a little off, then still – you get the point!

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