A Ship crossing the motorway

The Netherlands is a country of waterways, boats and bicycles. And a lot more but this is our impression so far. We have seen huge parking areas for the cycles, some are on wracks two high.

J decided we could go to Hilversum.* His reason was based on the Van Morrison track where he names radio stations 'In the day before Rock 'N Roll' album Enlightenment. We have just found the track, it is soooo very good. That's all I have to say on H.

All roads out appeared to be motorways and we were heading south on a fairly busy road when a couple of cars in front slowed and stopped due to the lowering of a barrier across the motorway. In fact two barriers 'on each side' of the N and S bound carriageways.

And then the road was raised - exciting, a reminder of some road chase film from years ago. The road was crossing a canal and a few boats needed to pass through. Several small boats travelled through in one direction, the same again from the opposite side followed by this ship with its masts showing across the top. The road was lowered, barriers raised and off we all go.

*The town is often called "media city" since it is the principal centre for radio and television broadcasting in the Netherlands. Radio Netherlands, heard worldwide via shortwave radio since the 1920s, is also based here. Hilversum is home to an extensive complex of audio and television studios belonging to the national broadcast production company NOS, as well as to the studios and offices of all the Dutch public broadcasting organizations and many commercial TV production companies. As a result many old radio sets in Britain had a "Hilversum" dial position marked on their tuning scales (along with Athlone, Kalundborg and others).