Rotterdam (or Anywhere) – Page 12 – Adventures in the Netherlands & around the world

Torino – Lingotto

18/05/2017 Hanneke

On our road trip through Italy, we spent one night in Torino (Turin), in the amazing NH Torino Lingotto Tech Hotel. It’s housed in the former Fiat factory which was refurbished by Renzo Piano. I loved the design of the hotel, with very high ceilings and great views. A funny story is that the FC Barcelona team was staying at the hotel the same night as us – this meant constant crowds of fans in front of the hotel 😀

We didn’t venture far from the hotel, as there was plenty to do nearby. The hotel is next door to Eataly, which is like a delicatessen supermarket slash restaurant with amazing food!

But even more fun was getting to visit the Fiat test track on the roof! If you ask at the hotel reception, they’ll give you a key and instructions which seem to come straight out of movie treasure hunt 😀 – follow the wall until you find a door just like this one, follow the signs for sport city, when you get there, use this key on the elevator which will take you to the roof. So cool!!

But first, we admired the spiral ramp to the roof, which is now inside a shopping centre…

When we got to the roof, we admired the beautiful views of the surprisingly green city and the Alps on the horizon…

It was hard to take good photos of the test track, as it’s HUGE. At both end, it has some pretty steep turns.

This glass bubble (with a helicopter landing pad on the other side!) was added later (by Renzo Piano), and houses a meeting room.

While we were there, some people were shooting a car advert, which was very cool to watch! These days the test track is mainly used for that kind of car photo shoots. It was also used in the movie “The Italian Job”. If you’re curious to see what it used to look like, check out this photo on wikipedia, which also gives you a good idea of just how HUGE the whole building complex is.

Such a cool visit! I feel like they could make better use of the test track, by for example having an outside restaurant there – but on the other hand, the whole treasure hunt and having the roof practically to yourself really adds to the experience!

Strasbourg

25/04/2017 Hanneke

Over Easter Michiel and I went on a two week road trip, driving from Rotterdam to Northern Italy, and back. As it’s a long drive, we broke the trip in two and spent two night in Strasbourg in the French Alsace. We spent a really nice sunny Sunday walking around the city…

View of Barrage Vaudan, a dam in the river Ill.

Lots of pretty streets to explore…

We watched the tourists boat go through the lock…

And stopped for a nice lunch outside, this banana milkshake made me very happy!

As did the beautiful pink flowers of this tree…

The typical half-timbered houses that Strasbourg is famous for:

We went back to the pretty Petite France area at sunset…

Very impressive half-timbered houses.

Looking even prettier at sunset!

There was a relaxed mood that evening, with lots of people enjoying the nice evening – sitting, talking, playing petanque and having bbq’s.

Magical little house all covered in purple wisteria flowers, so beautiful!

Beautiful view from Barrage Vaudan towards the ponts couverts bridges and its towers.

Nice terraces by the water…

Sunset panorama of Petite France

Michiel in front of the lock in Petite France

And a evening view of one of the canals of Strasbourg

A perfect stop on our way to Italy!

Hornborgasjön

02/04/2017 Hanneke

Last week Michiel was here, and on Friday afternoon we drove to Fjällbacka and spent the night there. On Saturday we went for a short walk. I didn’t take that many photos, as I had taken so many the week before, but here are some photos from my mobile phone of our walk through Kungsklyftan (the gorge)…

Michiel looking small beneath the hanging rocks…

Descending the stairs back to the town…

And a view of Fjällbacka from the (mostly deserted) marina. It was a lot warmer than the week before, and we even enjoyed a coffee outside by the water, without wearing coats. Lovely! 🙂

After our walk, we drove 2 hours towards Skara. We were staying in this beautiful B&B:

The reason we came here was to see the spring migration of thousands of common cranes (they counted over 16.000 of them while we were there!) on the shore of Lake Hornborga (or Hornborgasjön in Swedish). Marie had told me about it, and I’m so glad we went. The viewpoint for the cranes was about 7 km from our B&B, so after we checked in we went there. So impressive to see (& hear!!) so many cranes.

I bought a new zoomlens just before this trip, so this was a nice opportunity to try it out…

Greylag geese in for landing…

And the oh so elegant cranes, I love these birds! I saw them for the first time in Fairbanks, Alaska, where they also gathered in large numbers – such a magical sight.

SO many of them…

Lovely view from the viewpoint. Here three cranes are crossing the creek.

Afterwards we drove a bit further around the lake to go for a walk to a watch tower. We started the walk amongst those yellow fields near the lakeshore…

A boat in the reeds…

And a lone tree in beautiful yellow evening light.

Nearing the end of our walk. While there were many people at the cranes viewpoint, we didn’t meet anybody all evening while on this walk.

At the end of the trail there was this cute little cottage next to the watch tower.

View back to the cottage, from the watch tower.

And over the lake…

Here we didn’t see that many cranes, but we saw lots of swans and other birds.

A group of swans at sunset…

The sunset was really beautiful, especially reflected in the calm lake.

With some spectacular pink colors!

We were walking away from the sunset, but kept looking back…

The next morning it was nice and sunny again. The garden of the B&B was full of these lovely snowdrops…

Our first stop that morning was Naturum, the information centre of Hornborga Lake. What a fantastic building! They had really nice bird art made of driftwood inside, and lots of information about birds.

And upstairs you had this great view over the boardwalks and bird hides (on the left).

Loved the yellow colours everywhere…

A black-headed gull seen from one of the hides.

And a northern lapwing – they remind me of home (the Netherlands).

Enjoying the beautiful sunshine, although the wind that day made it feel a bit chilly. I did get a bit sunburnt!

We went for another nature walk, this time on the shore of the lake between these beautiful old oak trees.

Loved this trail! It was close to the cranes, so we could hear them chatter in the distance at all times.

A blue tit chatting away in a nearby tree… against a very blue sky!

We had a quick lunch in Skara, and then we drove to Fredrikstad. Marie and Pål had invited us for dinner, a perfect stop on the long drive back to Oslo. We arrived a bit early and decided to walk around Fredrikstad at sunset.

I found crocuses!

A last photo of Fredrikstad at sunset…

It was a lovely trip, and a first taste of spring weather, which made me very happy!