Let me take you to Texel - part eight of eight

From January 15 to January 29 I vacationed on the island of Texel which is the island west of my own (Vlieland). This series is a travel report / slide show of that vacation so all my blogsy people can travel with me a little. Hope you enjoy! 

Well, it took me a while, but we're finally at the last installment of my travel report. I hope you are still with me, and that it's not too tedious. I just need to get these posts out of my system, so I can move back to the actual artsy stuff again.

Day 14 - Thursday January 28 2016

This was the last full day on Texel. After almost two weeks I was actually quite sated with impressions and content with how the vacation had gone so far. So I didn't really feel the need to explore new places. I did want to go an a walk though, no doubt about that!

The weather was absolutely perfect, it was spring all of a sudden with lots of sun and very pleasant temperatures.

I decided to combine parts of earlier walks into one new one and visit spots I had seen before but only in foggy or rainy weather. I walked the Alloo naturepath for instance and De Seeting.
It was a good decision as you will see:

When I was almost back at De Koog again I decided to take a little detour to the beach to visit the beach pavilion I had been before. I sat there quite blissfully for several hours contemplating my vacation, playing in my journal and eating the biggest piece of apple pie I had every had (it looks so normal on the picture, but it was really huge!). 

 After that it was time for a last stroll along the beach. Sigh....

What was left of that day I spent enjoying the peace and quiet of my lovely apartment. In a way the last day is a bit like saying goodbye to the place you enjoyed so much, and I sure did enjoy it!

Day 15 - Friday January 29 2016

This day the vacation was officially over. I got up really early to give the apartment a bit of a vacuuming, to pack and to get ready for the trip back home. I had taken a picture of this sign the day before:

There were a couple placed in De Koog on strategic sites. It says 'Until we see you again', a bit like the French 'au revoir'. I passed it regularly, but not until today was it applicable. ;-)

The journey home was long but without problems. Although I was sad to leave I was also happy to come home again. After all I myself live on a glorious island too! And I do like my own house as well.

I celebrated my homecoming (after unpacking and a load of laundry) by lighting all the candles and having a wonderful cup of tea on my couch. Yes, I used the mug I bought on Texel. ;-)

And thus ends a two week vacation. I hope you enjoyed traveling with me and I hope you liked the scenery. We're not fully done yet, because I still have the travel journal to show you, but that's for the next couple of posts. Boy, vacations are hard work on the blog! ;-)

Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

Let me take you to Texel - part seven of eight

From January 15 to January 29 I vacationed on the island of Texel which is the island west of my own (Vlieland). This series is a travel report / slide show of that vacation so all my blogsy people can travel with me a little. Hope you enjoy!

Day 12 - Tuesday January 26 2016 

On this day I finally got to do the walk I had wanted to do a few days earlier, but couldn't because of the rain. A walk from the east side of the island straight across to the town where I was staying in (De Koog) on the west side. 

The weather was quite cold, but also dry and even sunny from time to time.

The landscape consisted mostly of flat farmland and offered countless endless horizons. A very different landscape from the dunes in the national park, but with its own beauty for sure.

About half way the walk I came through an old little town called De Waal. It's small and pretty and has a very unusually shaped church. 

 After that is was back to the endless fields again.

Of all the walks I took during my vacation this one was the hardest on my feet. Not so much because of the distance, but because it was entirely done on asphalt. The other walks often at least partly consisted of grass or dirt roads (and yes, some mud too, haha), but this one was entirely paved and that apparently both makes walking easier but also harder in the long run. Interesting.

I was home quite on time that day, because I walked straight back to my rental and did not have to order a bus to drive me home. So I got both a long hike and a restful late afternoon out of that day. Nice!

Day 13 - Wednesday January 27 2016

This was the most rainy day of the entire vacation. I had already seen the forecasts and had not planned anything spectacular, but decided to use a day of lesser weather to go on a bit of a shopping spree in the biggest town of Texel: Den Burg. I waited for a small dry spell in the early afternoon before I left home (leaving me with a morning of sleeping late and a lot of reading) to take the bus.

A few hours of roaming the streets of Den Burg was wonderful. They have a lot of quaint cute shops, a very good bookstore and an amazing craft store for fiber arts. It was a little piece of heaven.

Here are some impressions of that afternoon:

Den Burg may be the biggest town, but that doesn't mean it's big. I was done in a few hours and then went back home with some wonderful treasures. Some of them may have been notebooks, some of them may have been books, because you know I need both like I need a hole in the head.

I just left the bus to walk the last bit 'home' when it started to rain again. Perfect timing! Here's the view of the rainy square from my rentals kitchen window:

Another two very nice days! All in all I don't think there was a really bad day among the entire vacation. Even if it was rainy sometimes or foggy or cold or whatever I still managed to have a great time.

And so we slowly approach the final part of my report. Just one more post to go. See you then!

Have a wonderful and artsy day. 

Let me take you to Texel - part six of eight

From January 15 to January 29 I vacationed on the island of Texel which is the island west of my own (Vlieland). This series is a travel report / slide show of that vacation so all my blogsy people can travel with me a little. Hope you enjoy!

Day 10 - Sunday January 24 2016 

I had big plans for this Sunday, a long walk straight across the island. But unfortunately the weather did not approve of this. It rained and rained all morning. So I cancelled my plans and hoped there would be dry spell later in the day so I could at least go out for a little while.

Well, I was lucky and it did get dryer. It also got foggier and foggier, but that didn't stop me from going on a walk, no way! I decided to walk closer to home and it became quite a wonderful day after all.

I started in the wooded area south of De Koog:

While I was walking there I came across 'Naturepath Alloo'. It's basically a special walking path that is available to everybody but also accessible to people in wheelchairs and blind people. The signs are actually in braille too and at the start of the path there is a map that you can feel with your hands. It's pretty cool. I decided to follow this path and see where it would take me. 

These cuties came running up to me the moment I passed them. I couldn't resist them.

Well now, that was a good choice! I very much enjoyed this walk. The end of it was near the beach so I decided to follow the beach back home. Again it was very foggy. I love fog on the beach, it makes everything very mysterious. 

So despite my original plans being cancelled this turned out to be quite a good day!

Day 11 - Monday January 25 2016

On this day it was dry again and although it started rather cloudy, it was promising to be sunny later and it kept its promise. ;-)

I combined several walks on this day into one long walk around area's somewhat southwest on the island. Just about the entire west side of the island is a national park with lots of dunes and waters and beautiful nature.

The areas I walked were called Pieter Rozenvlak, Bollekamer and Westerduinen. They offered me quite a lot of lovely scenery. 

After the first part of the walk the clouds were slowly starting to break apart, which you can see by the more and more blue reflections in the water.

While waiting for the bus I still had a little time to cross the dunes and visit the beach. 

Another beautiful day with another beautiful walk. I think Texel was trying its best to impress me during my vacation. Or maybe...maybe it doesn't need to try, maybe it's just that awesome. :-)

Two more installments to go, we're getting there people! See you next time and have a wonderful and artsy day.