Schiermonnikoog

Last week we returned from our holidays on Schiermonnikoog. It's a small island in the North of the Netherlands between the Northsea and the Waddensea. Since June 2009 the Waddensea is placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. UNESCO uses several different criteria to assess whether an area merits World Heritage Site status. It deemed the Waddensea to be globally unique in at least three of those criteria.

Of the islands in the Waddensea, Schiermonnikoog holds a very special position. The entire island is a National Park, a special natural region that must be well protected.
Half of the wild plants registered in the Netherlands can be found on this small island.
I love to visit Schiermonnikoog every year. It's peaceful and there's so much nature. And although it's small, it never gets boring. I always take my watercolours with me. This year I wanted to paint some smaller plants on the island.
The first one I painted was the tiny and delicate Seaside Pansy (Viola curtisii).

The next day I spotted another small plant, becoming more rare very rapidly in my country. It's the Red Bartsia (Odontites vernus subsp. serotinus).

Another plant I painted was much more common but very pretty. It's the Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris).

Finally I painted a plant which I wanted to paint for years now. It's a protected plant and very scarce in the Netherlands. Its the Parnassia palustris or maybe better known as Grass of Parnassus.

Maybe next year I'll paint some plants from the salt marshes.

Florence

Finally I found some time to tell you about my Florence adventure. In the last week of November I visited my good friend Giovanni Cera (aka Ciuccio51) and his wife Michela. They live in Florence, Italy and I had a wonderful week there. Yesterday I found some time to sort out my photos from the trip. Here are a few of them. More photos can be found on my Flickr photostream.
If you want to see the locations of these photo's you can also take a look at my map.

I arrived on Saturday. I left a cold and snowy Amsterdam around noon and two hours later I landed in Florence where the weather was mild and sunny. It’s like a different world. The country, the weather, the people…. Giovanni and Michela showed me a lot of their beautiful city and country.
On the first day they took me to Piazzale Michelangelo. From that point I had a spectacular panoramic view of the city. Also I could take this nice photo of Ponte Vecchio across the river Arno.

Near the Piazzale Michelangelo was a beautiful and very old (1015) Romanesque church. It’s the church of San Miniato al Monte. Impressive and beautiful, from the outside but also from the inside. It was Sunday and the church was packed with people, listening to a very old mumbling priest.

The next day it was raining but not very cold. Giovanni wanted to show me Villa il Gioiello, the house of Galileo Galilei in Arcetri near Florence. He had told me about this house and its history before and now I got to see it. The house isn’t open for public. There are only three keys to this house and Giovanni has one of them. It was a privilege to get in and see the house and gardens.

There’s no furniture in the house (that all went to museums) but that didn’t mind. The house is beautiful. Giovanni did some restoration work on this house, since it is owned by the University of Florence, for which he works as an architect.

After that we went to see the beautiful Palazzo Vecchio in the centre of Florence. The ceilings of this palazzo are all beautifully painted. Every little part of the ceiling is decorated. If I would stay a month in that museum I wouldn’t only have a very cramped neck but also I wouldn’t have seen half of the painted ceilings yet. And that’s not all because there are so much beautiful paintings on the walls as well.

The square where this palazzo is situated is also very nice. Next to the palazzo is the Uffizi museum (photo left) and also there is a sculpture gallery, Loggia dei Lanzi, where I could admire the famous Perseus bronze by Cellini (photo right).

Is this post getting too long? Well.... I'm not finished yet, there is much more....

Giovanni showed me a lot that week. I won't bother you with telling you all and showing my entire photo collection but there are some things I really want to share with you. Just skip it if you don't find it interesting enough. I will never know ;-)

He took me to see the Botanical Gardens of Florence. He showed me the old greenhouses he restored last year. The plants were inside for the winter and that was very nice to see. Outside Giovanni and the director showed me a very old (203 years) oak tree, Quercus suber. Beautiful and impressive.

Another museum we visited that week was The Museum of Opificio delle Pietre Dure. In this museum are a lot of mosaics made of semi-precious stones. The style is typical for Florence. At first I didn’t think very much of it. It is not my style at all. But when you think that it’s all made with stones and you see how beautiful they captured the shades and textures of the subjects. It is truly amazing to see.

Michela and Giovanni took me also to the beautiful old town of Monteriggioni. It is situated on a hill near Siena in the beautiful countryside of Tuscany. It is extremely old and I suppose in the summertime packed with tourists. Now it was almost December and there were not much people walking around.

The sun was shining and we had a good lunch outside in the townsquare. Olives were being harvested and we had nice walk around the village.

All in all I had a wonderful week. I will definitely be back to see more of Italy, Tuscany, Florence and of course Michela and Giovanni. Not to mention all the other nice people I met while I was there… Thanks Giovanni for inviting me :-)

Bark

On the first day on Schiermonnikoog I found this piece of bark of a Pine tree. It was a perfect project for the moments we had to stay in our house. When Bertus was sleeping or when it was raining, or just a bit too cold to paint outdoors. It's not finished yet but wanted to show it to you anyway. It's a watercolour by the way. Something I normally don't do, only when I'm on vacation.

Back from Schiermonnikoog

Last week we were on vacation. We went to an island called Schiermonnikoog. It's the most northern part of the Netherlands and not far from where we live.

There are no cars allowed on the island so we took our bicycles. At the start of the week it wasn't very warm. We had some rain at night and in the morning but in the afternoon we could go out and explore.

It was Bertus' first time to the seaside so we took him straight away to see the North sea and the beach. (on the photo above you can see Bertus having a close encounter with a seagull) It was very windy but that didn't mind a bit. In the evenings Ward went with me biking through the dunes. On one of the first evenings we went to the west coast of Schiermonnikoog to view the Wad. The sun was carefully shining through the grey clouds and it was low tide. On the horizon we could see Ameland, the island next door. It was beautiful, Ward kept on telling me how wonderful everything was. And he was right!

During the day I biked across the island solo. Mostly to find an interesting spot where I could sit and paint. I rarely paint, but on vacation I like to pick up my brushes and dust of my watercolour palette. This is one of the things I made:

On Thursday morning Jeroen took Ward and Bertus for a walk in the forrest.

According to the photo's they took and the stories they told they had a great time. Bertus wanted to do most of the walking by himself. Up the dunes and down the dunes again.

Ward and I also went to the beach one afternoon to find some cockles. Ward found out a really good way to find them in the sand. Soon our little bucket was filled. That evening we had pasta with cockles on our plates. It was very nice. Bertus wanted to eat them all!

On Friday it was warm but very windy. We went to the beach again. The wind by the sea was to cold for Bertus. But we found a small puddle closer to the dunes with some warm water in it. Bertus had the time of his life! He had so much fun in the dirty sand...

The next day we had to go home (today). It's always a little bit sad to leave Schiermonnikoog. No cars, no computer, no work to be done, no television (although we had one in our small house)... Just nature, books, paint and each other.

More photo's of our stay on Schiermonnikoog are on my Flickr photo stream.