The West visiting the North

We are back from our weekend with the Camper and had a wonderful time.
We will post our journal as soon as possible.

Once back home we had to make the house and the guesthouse ready for our visitors.
Friends from the West of Holland were coming to stay with us for a few days.
They are very good friends so extra efforts were made to make them feel welcome.

We fitted a new heater in the guesthouse; the weather was not what you call sunny and warm! Clean sheets (of course), towels, fresh fruit, wine, home backed cake. Dusting and vacuum cleaning. And on Friday morning the house was ready.

We first chatted a way with a cup of coffee and tea.
We than took them out to the old Hippolytuskerk in Olterterp, a small village in Friesland.
Apart from being a lovely church, my ancestors are buried there in the 16^th and 17^th century. You can view my personal album

After a cup of coffee / tea in the nearby restaurant “Het Witte Huis” we collected the key. A very large and heavy key!
Our guests were impressed by the church and its history.
Olterterp is in the Friesche Wouden (Friesian Forest) which differs a lot from where we live: de Klei (the Clay, good for growing potatoes!).

At home we enjoyed a lovely dinner from our cook Tjep and all tired by the wind and being outside, we called it an early night.

On Saturday we first visited Moddergat, I little fishing village with a tragic history.

In 1883 during a storm 83 fishermen aged 13 – 64, died in a storm.
A huge tragedy for all the women, old men and baby’s who lost so many fathers, sons and brothers. It was already a poor village. The women had to find work and started a shrimp factory. You can read more about this in “Museum ‘t Fiskershúske”
Moddergat is one of our favourite places to be and I took many pictures of it and it’s surroundings over the past 10 years.

From there we went to “Land en Zeezicht” in Holwerd for a solid lunch: pancakes, yummy!!
After lunch we visited another church nearby in a tiny little village called Hegebeintum. Built on Friesland highest “Terp” (an artifical dwelling hill) and with a wonderful history. Many excavations took place with interesting results, exposed in Hegebeintums visitor’s centre

Hone again we agreed we were ever so lucky, The weather forecast was rain, rain and even more rain but the few drops we saw, were not worth to be called “rain”

On Sunday our friends left for home. For us it was a wonderful weekend!