Category: Various

All things related to running your own businesses in the creative sector. The fascinating life of a freelancer. From apple pie to business card. Promotion and acquisition on old and new media. Maintaining a bilingual website and blog. Visits to completed projects. Exhibitions and more.

Een glas Westvleteren Trappist 8 op het terras van OC In De Vreede bij de Sint-Sixtusabdij

Westvleteren, hiking and tasting

The Trappist of Westvleteren holds an almost mythical reputation among beer enthusiasts. This is undoubtedly due, in a large part, to the taste of the beer. However, the relative rarity also plays a significant role. It makes the Westhoek region of Flanders an excellent destination for the fifth hike from the hopefully forthcoming book “The Best Beer Hikes of the Benelux.” Scarcity The monks of Saint Sixtus Abbey unintentionally provide a valuable lesson in economic principles. They want to prevent their beer from becoming a commercial product, which is why the bottles have traditionally only been available for personal pickup… Read More

Grafisch voorstel voor een betere verdeling over het jaar van de nationale feestdagen in Nederland

The Great National Holiday Shift

The national holidays in the Netherlands tend to cluster somewhat together. And some of those holidays have little meaning for most of the population. But any proposal for change leads to emotional discussions. It seems like an unsolvable dilemma. Or is there a creative answer to the question? Yes, I think there is…. Holidays In the Netherlands, we have the following national holidays, in order of appearance: New Year’s Day, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, King’s Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost Sunday and Pentecost Monday and two days of Christmas. Additionally, Liberation Day is a day off for some people. Cluster… Read More

Walking path along the Noorder Canal in Rotterdam with the highway and the old Hofplein viaduct

The Rotterdam Ringroad Hiking Trail

Where other cities have a ringroad, Rotterdam has the Ruit, which literally means the Diamond. The A20, A16, A15 and A4 together form a diamond-shaped road network that has led car traffic around the city since the 1960s. But would it also be a nice route to walk? No, not over the hard shoulder of course, but over hiking trails in the immediate vicinity of the highways? Dream Believe it or not, the idea for the Rotterdam Ringroad Hike came to me in a dream. I dreamed that there was a long-distance hiking trail that followed the Ruit. It seemed… Read More

Reddish brown highlands with patches of snow and a hut for hikers near Hraftinusker in Iceland

Laugavegur, Iceland’s best hiking trail

In July 2023 it will be fifteen years ago that travel companion A. and I hiked the Laugavegur trail, according to many the most beautiful long-distance hiking route in Iceland. That’s a good reason to write a blogpost about that epic journey. Illustrated with photos taken with the simple IXUS850 camera that I had back then. It actually made quite nice pictures, but in the alien landscape between Landmannalaugar and Þórsmörk that is not too difficult. July 28, 2008: Landmannalaugar – Hraftinusker (10.3 kilometers) In the days before our hiking adventure there is a heat wave in Reykjavik. In Iceland… Read More

The church in the village of Slenaken, province of Limburg, The Netherlands, seen through the trees in a hilly landscape

The Gulpener Beerhike

This third walk from the yet to be published booklet The Best Beer Walks in the Benelux is set in Southern Limburg, that beautiful and very unDutch-looking part of the Netherlands. It is as if our country has tried to dig deep into Central Europe in order to get its fair share of hills and half-timbered houses. As a side result, also a few interesting beers were dragged within the national borders. The map can, as always be zoomed and panned; click here for a larger version. History The history of Limburg is fascinating. In fact, the province could just… Read More

The Werkspoor "Cathedral" in Utrecht, The Netherlands with in fornt of it the cafe and terrace of brewery De Leckere and the former Werkspoor harbour

A Beer Hike to De Leckere café

This is the second pre-publication of the hiking guide, The Best Beer Hikes in the Benelux, which will hopefully be published one day. The first blog post in that series was about our hike to Koningshoeven Abbey near Tilburg. That’s the place where the Netherlands’ most famous Trappist beer La Trappe is brewed. On this second walk we went to the café of a much younger brewery: De Leckere in the city of Utrecht. The aim of this series is to combine a visit to a brewery or tasting room with a hike of around 20 kilometers. We therefore walk… Read More

Artist impression of the sculpture by Hendrik van den Eijnde from the facade of architect W.M.Dudok's Bijenkorf department store, back on its original location on Coolsingel in Rotterdam

The return of the sculpture on Dudok’s Bijenkorf to the Coolsingel

For almost twenty years now, Rotterdam art lovers have been trying to bring the sculpture by Hendrik van den Eijnde, the only remnant of the old Bijenkorf department store by architect W.M Dudok, back to the place where it belongs: the Coolsingel. The omens are favourable: it may happen soon. Woerden As early as 2005, Aad Koster, board member of the Roterodamum Historical Society, raised the alarm: the Bijenkorf sculpture had been wasting away for decades on a business park in Woerden. There, at the Bijenkorf’s distribution center, the artwork was placed in 1973. Plaque The sculpture is often referred… Read More

Detail of the Koningshoeven abbey near Tilburg, The Netherlands, with statue and proverbs

Hiking to La Trappe brewery

I once had the idea to publish a booklet: The Best Beer Hikes in the Benelux. With hikes in the 20 kilometer range, and one or more craft beer breweries included in the route. When the printed version of that booklet will be published remains an open question. But untill that day I’m going to publish the hikes one by one as a blog post. And there is no better destination imaginable for the first episode than Koningshoeven Abbey. It’s the place where the most famous Dutch Trappist beer is brewed: La Trappe. So on a beautiful Saturday in October… Read More

Digitally generated satellite image of the Earth, with Europe, and more specifically the Netherlands, in the center

Is There Really No Planet B?

It’s a popular theme in science fiction: the quest for a new Earth, because the old one is becoming uninhabitable, usually due to human interventions. The search, in other words, for planet B, a place to escape the self-inflicted crisis. Sometimes the idea is elaborated in a somewhat ironic manner, like in the unsurpassed Dutch series Missie Aarde (Mission Earth), in which the Netherlands take the lead because it’s the only country not under water thanks to its dykes. Sometimes it’s dead serious, as in the movie Interstellar, in which drought, dust storms and crop failures make the need for… Read More

Pavement tile on Dutch railway platform asking to keep 1,5 metre, or vijf tiles, distance, because of covid-19

Eighteen Corona Hikes in the South Wing

Before the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic, traveling companion A. and I were quite regularly hiking all over the Netherlands. But then, in March 2020, public transport was suddenly declared “for strictly necessary journeys only”. For a while we dutifully adhered to that rule. But at a certain point it started to feel uncomfortable. Car owners merrily drove all over the place, but consciously carless people like us, suddenly saw our environment limited to a radius of a few kilometers around our own homes. And since A. lives in Leiden and I live in Rotterdam, joint walks were prohibited according… Read More