Gallery

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on June 23^rd 2023.

Many of the Dutch people we have met over the last few weeks have told us that the Vecht river is the most beautiful waterway in the Netherlands. It’s not a particularly long river, running for just 40 kilometres between Utrecht and Muiden, not far from Amsterdam, at which point it flows into the IJmeer.

We’ve been cruising along it for the past few days and enjoyed it very much. I’ve put together a gallery of photos and short videos and hope that they give you an impression of what we have seen.

This river is well-known for the grand houses and country estates that were built by wealthy Amsterdammers in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Over the years more and more homes have been built along this river, of all shapes and sizes, crammed in together, many with beautiful gardens.

My own definition of a beautiful river leans towards a view that is not dominated by houses and thankfully there are still long stretches of this waterway where nature predominates. Trees line the banks, with the reeds and water lilies providing the perfect environment for a host of water-loving birds.

We have been blessed with sunny warm weather for the last month, but apparently it isn’t usually this good. Over the last few days the heat has been building to an oppressive level. We needed a good thunderstorm to clear the air and we certainly got one.

I’ll leave you with a short video of one of the houseboats that line the waterways here. Many of them are opulent, built on two floors and with their own moorings and small gardens. Sadly the one in the video isn’t very exciting but that isn’t the reason I took the video. It had a large glass window and it caught the reflection of a rather fine boat as she glided past. Not biased at all…..

Hope the weather is behaving itself wherever you are.

MJ