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Zuid Holland and Zeeland

— Canals and coastline: a quick jaunt around the broad, open spaces of the southern Netherlands.”

A national holiday gave us the breathing space to disappear to the Netherlands for a couple of days.

The temperature was high. So was the pollen count.

Perfect conditions indeed for discovering the lush fields and stretching sands of these distinctive and historic regions.

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Zuid Holland and Zeeland

On the first hot weekend of 2009, we found ourselves in the Netherlands. Thankfully, cool waters were never far away, on the beaches and beside the canals.

Great grilled sausages

Paintings by genre specialists such as van Goyen, Ruisdael, van de Cappelle and Cuyp describe a peculiarly Dutch affinity for the sea. Some of these vast and expansive works were on show at a small and expensive museum in Den Haag’s Mauritshuis.

Moody pallettes and sweeping strokes evoke both the awesomeness of Nature and the bravery of Man. Indeed Vincent van Gogh, that singular Dutchman, once said:

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore

Today on the beach at Scheveningen, as the high sun burns on mercilesslythroughout the afternoon, people remain ashore despite the dangers.

And all around are the splashed, lurid colours of cheap lycra and Chinese plastics. Like great grilled sausages, the Dutch struggle to expose every bit of skin within the limits of decency. On some, there are mottled patches of variegated pink skin, the scars of past campaigns sunbathing in Spain, Greece and the South of France.

Canalside dominoes

Gasthuislaan in Delft on a hot Saturday afternoon. It strikes me suddenly that I’d be perfectly capable of rolling over a parked car into the canal. Like a giant domino.

Because everywhere you go, there’s a car – or better, a crowd of cars – filling the viewfinder of your camera, stopping you crossing the road, gifting you the shitty, off-beer smell of their catalytic converters.

In this otherwise beautiful town, a good photo is one that somehow avoids all the cars and their junkfood diet of ugly road signs. In this town, the camera does lie. It has to.