Archive III.

When I was looking for some photos from Netherlands , I realized, that there aren’t any and therefore this article once again comes from my archive.

This should have been a relaxed trip to the Netherlands and mainly Amsterdam in the early summer of 2009. The first part of driving through Germany was quite alright, but the Holland one was less so.

The German part was a short visit to Berlin and then to the quaint and historical town of Jüteborg, about fifty-six kilometers to the south. Nowadays, a Cistercian abbey Zinna is a part of the town and it was there where I have spent more time than in the rest of Jüteborg and Berlin altogether. The abbey has an incredible atmosphere and there’s really plenty to see, or, in my case, to photograph.

After the weekend in Jüteborg, we set off further west to Holland, but as we crossed the border, things started to be rough. The car’s steering wheel was constantly jerking, the engine kept overheating and the radiator was losing water rapidly. When we had to pour water in the radiator for the second time, we admitted that we really have a problem. We managed to get to our accomodation, Recreatiepark het Esmeer , but it was clear, that the car won’t get to Amsterdam, let alone Prague.

We called our home service station for advice and were told, that the problem was probably broken engine gasket, which meant about half a day’s work with the right equipment and parts, but we had neither, and the local service station would charge about half the price of the car itself. The scrapyard refused to deal with us, because although the car was registered in the EU, it wasn’t in the Netherlands, and so the cheapest option was to drag the car back to Czech Republic on a trailer and repair it there. I was trying to arrange this while I wandered in the area and during the week I have walked around one hundred kilometers and made a lot of photos.

In the end, we were taken home by a friend’s father and the car followed about two weeks after us. In that time, someone attempted to rob it and destroyed the doorlock, but what the hell.

Anyway, end was well, all was well, everyone returned safely and I brought some pictures from Germany and the Netherlands. Although the ones from Netherlands were quite different than I had expected, I can’t say that I regret it. On what other occasion would I end up stuck in a camp among villages and channels?