Haarlem by night

We arrived in Haarlem in rain, the streets were quiet and empty. The first thing that we saw was the famous windmill that I dreamed to see for so long. I’ve been to the Netherlands several times but I have never seen the symbol of the country – windmill. Now the windmill De Adriaan was standing just in front of me, like brand new. Like I read later it is really new, it was completely rebuilt in 2002 instead of the old one that has burnt. Through the windows we saw that inside of its building there is a museum and sometimes the windmill is turned on for the tourists’ pleasure. But on Sunday evening everything was closed. And we continued walking the streets of Haarlem in rain.

We stumbled upon a cute little restaurant on the canal but all the tables for that evening were reserved. So we just had a couple of glasses of wine in the bar, warmed up a little and went out in the rain again. It started to get dark, small houses along the canals started to turn their lights on and slowly all street lampposts started to get lit. Then I took out my camera, my favorite tripod and started to capture the beauty of the night city in pictures…

From the gallery: professional photos of the Netherlands

Utrecht – a green place of tranquility in the Northern Europe

I was here a year ago when I had a train from Amsterdam to Frankfurt with an hour change in Utrecht. At that time I almost ran through the city center, immediately liked it and promised myself to come back.

And now again summer came and I’ve got an opportunity to go to the Northern Europe and I remembered about my promise. Passing the noisy Amsterdam by I took a train directly from the airport and in just 30 minutes I was back in Utrecht!

The town is very picturesque, it is pierced by unique 2 level canals with cute bridges thrown over them. Utrecht is very green. On both sides of the canals grow big old trees forming with their leaves a natural roof above the canals making a very romantic mood.

I have never seen such canals as here. Water is not on the street level (as in Amsterdam) but several meters below and down there is one more strolling waterfront, very calm and beautiful. Historically this lower level served as a storage. Special niches were hacked through and it was convenient to unload there goods directly from the boats. Now in some of these niches there are restaurants and cafes and some are “ground floors” of lucky apartments.

It’s difficult to restrain an exclamation: “That’s a good place to live!” when on a warm sunny day a door of such “ground floor” opens and the owner brings on the bank of the canal a table and chair and sits down to enjoy the beautiful day with a book.

There are not many really significant landmarks in Utrecht. It’s just very nice to go to this city to relax, take a boat or catamaran and sail the canals watching the life if the “ground floors”…
   

From the gallery: professional photos of the Netherlands

 

Three night verticals from Amsterdam

It’s interesting: while staying in Amsterdam I was making night images only in vertical format. All the surrounding views were suggesting to me only that style.

Here are three of so many beautiful canal views of that unique city.

Those and other images from Netherlands you can view here in higher resolution: photos of Amsterdam