The Zoo and the Dolmens of Balloo & Loon

9th of August,

 Dierenpark Emmen

In the butterfly garden an almost transparent butterfly landed on my son his finger.

Another butterfly landed on my forehead and my husband an son where wise enough

 not to take a picture!

WHAT?!

Meerkat, got to love them...

Ready, set, Action!

Jack!

11th of August 2013

Burial mounds in the Tumulibos, Balloo

Dolmen D 16, Balloo

Dolmen D15, Loon

Bird watching

3th & 8th August

My son loves all creatures great and small. Much to his delight we went bird watching twice. After the first time we deciced he needed a better pair of binoculairs.Which we found a few days later at a local fleamarket.

A bird's nest in the bird watching hut!

Better binoculairs!

Drents Museum in Assen

7th of August 2013, Assen, Drenthe, The Netherlands

We had been here before for the Viking Exhibition earlier this year, but we didn't see the Archeology department back then.

Reconstruction of the Emmer-Erfscheidenveen bog find.

dating to 1200 BCE

Replica of the dress of the lady who was found at Zweeloo,

 often called a princess because of the large and expensive finds buried with her. 

New interpretation of the finds suggest that she was indeed a woman of great importance,

 like a priestess

Dating to 500 CE.

Coin hoard dating to ca. 890 CE.

It has 144 silver coins and one golden coin, held by a wooden container

 with a sliding lid in a leather pouch.

Netted texile fragment, I presume a hairnet.

A spindle and stone for a weaving loom.

Glasses, a key, necklace with semi precious stones.

Reproduction of another bog find, dating to the late middle ages, 1435-1625 CE

Found at Wijster.

And for those wondering if we did any normal vacation things with our son. I can put your mind at rest, ofcourse we did! We went swimming,  visited the Zoo and relaxed at home a lot. 

Dolmens of Rolde

4th of August, Rolde, Drenthe, The Netherlands

D17

The old (ancient?) and split oak tree next to D17

D18

D18

The medieval church of Rolde is next to the Dolmen.

And the poppies in the garden

Dolmens of Drouwen

My intention was to share our vacation pictures in one blog post but after looking all the pictures that I want to share with you. I decided to break it up in pieces as it would become a really long post otherwise.

Like most people we go to see the sites while on holiday in another country but never (really) bother to see the beautiful and cultural sight of there own country. This year, while staying in one of the most beautiful places of the Netherlands, namely the county of Drenthe. We decided to enjoy the sights of our own country.

1th of August, Drouwen, Drenthe, The Netherlands.

Dolmen D19 & D20.

D19

 Beautiful Oak Tree

D19 with D20 in the background

View from the Dolmen.

D20

D20 with D19 in the background

Random nature 

Want to know more? 

Go to Hunebedden in Nederland or Dolmens in the Netherlands.

Trip Denmark 2012; Ribe - Home

Before saying our final goodbye to Ribe. We went to the Ribe VikingeCenter for some more shopping....

I had been thinking about buying the book Viking by Nille Glaesel the whole vacation. And  finally decided to buy it. Eventhough it was way out of my budget. Ofcourse both men left with something from the museumshop as well. A  little less expensive things though!

We to a long break in Schleswig, Germany to visit  the viking market. It was raining and the market was very crowed so we didn't take any pictures.

And after a lot of more hours in the car, it was home sweet home.

Trip Denmark 2012; Stovorde - Ribe

Today we travelled back from Stovorde to Ribe. Where we will be staying a night before travelling back home to the Netherlands.

Our original plan was to visit the Moesgard Vikingmarket but when we arrived it was raining heavily. As we spend enough tiem at vikingmarkets in the rain. We went to the museum instead.

One of the things on display was this really interesting silver Valkyrie. Unfortanetly I forgot to write down the information about it.

Not all things where historical on this trip. Here my son and I are playing Smurf Village. In the mincabin we rented for the night at Ribecamping.

I had forgotten to bring a nalebinding needle and some wool. The shop at the Lindholm Hoje visitors center sold packages with the book Nalebinding step by step, a cow horn needle (I collect nalebinding needles) and wool. So ofcourse I had to buy one.

Trying the new stitch in front of our cabin in Ribe.