You don’t have to visit coffee shops to enjoy psychedelic experiences in the Netherlands. We visited the Alkmaar area in April to be greeted by stunning displays of colour in the surrounding tulip fields. If this wasn’t enough, I went a little bit crazy with the photo editor programme to see what abstract images and absurd colour schemes I could create. Martina also helped out by posing wonderfully in the tulip fields as a scarecrow…

We also came across some rather strange “goings on” in the town of Alkmaar as a group of exotically dressed bohemians, bearing see through plastic umbrellas, converged out of nowhere to provide an impromptu arts performance in the centre of town. We hadn’t the faintest idea what this surreal event was mean’t to be about; however it was certainly a piece of unexpected entertainment (though who the intended audience was, I’m still not quite sure).  The street performance provided some more good raw material for the photo editor programme.

A final surprise on the Dutch coast near to Alkmaar was to find highland cattle grazing on restored coastal dune systems as part of a habitat management and flood protection system. In an intensively managed and engineered landscape like the Netherlands, it’s great to find areas where nature is still given a chance. The Dutch have been taking this very much to heart and have been developing a network of protected areas into a national ecological network.

And so our short trip to Holland was a somewhat surreal experience indeed and without even a coffee shop in sight…