Deventer in the Netherlands

Gee…it sure is easy taking digital picures, just snap, snap, snap. But try organising them when you return from a long trip and you have more than 2000 pictures to go through! LOL! I’m going bonkers! Have been trying to sort them out for days and I’m still struggling with it. Anyway, I’ve managed to pick some out for Deventer to go with my write-up. Hope I make sense in my writing. Read on if you’re interested.

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Deventer, The Netherlands

Me and E arrived in Schipol Amsterdam Airport before 6am. The usually busy airport was like a ghost town at that early hour. While waiting for our train to Deventer, we stepped out of the airport to test the weather. As it turned out, the weather wasn’t as cold as we expected.
Deventer was the only city we visited in Netherlands. Well, we did drop by Rotterdam and passed by several other big cities like Den Haag (The Hague) and Utrecht on our way back from Brugge but we didn’t get the chance to tour them due to poor planning or should I say no planning! Anyway, having visited Amsterdam before, I wasn’t keen to travel too much just to see ornamental windmills or Dutch ladies in traditional costumes nor visit shops that make stiff and uncomfortable looking wooden clogs.

Ok, back to Deventer. My friend C has been residing there for 10 years. During my short stay there, I basically saw only the residential estate where she’s staying and the city centre. With just a population of almost 100,000, it is known for it’s schools and education centres, as well as the oldest house in the country. Apparently, it also hosts the largest book festival in Europe held in August every year.

The city centre is made up of rows of small houses lining both sides of the streets giving its visitors a pretty warm and cosy feeling. As with the character of European houses, there are many beautiful cast-iron signages and aesthetic wall paintings for me to photograph. The houses in the city centre looked small from the outside but step into them and you’ll realise they actually house huge departmental stores within!
Nice right…those paintings and signages…why can’t we find them in Singapore???

The city by night…the sky starts to get dark at around 4.30pm.

The pace of life in Deventer seems leisurely, in fact slow by Singapore’s standard, making it highly ideal for retirement. According to my friend, during summer, the sidewalk cafes at De Brink (the town square) would be packed with people basking in the sun enjoying their cappuccinos, lattés or wines. As it was already winter, business was brisk only at the indoor cafes. I however, almost suffocated at the cafe because smoking is still allowed in them. High time to ban smoking in F & B outlets worldwide! A tea set comprising a slice of cake and coffee cost less than two Euros…very affordable.

The Dutch eat mainly dairy products. Meat is expensive there so bread, cheese, sandwiches are what they normally eat in the day. Many kinds of cheese can be found there. Walk into any of the cheese shops and you’ll be amazed by the wide variety of cheese available. We actually tasted sambal cheese at one of them! But be warned, you gotta be prepared for the strong smell if you were to visit the shop.

The Dutch are basically very thrifty people whom rarely eat out so we didn’t see that many restaurants in town, neither did we eat out while we were there. A single-item Chinese takeaway costs around 11 Euros (S$22) so I can imagine how much a sit-down Chinese dinner will cost there. Anyway, we brought a lot of local food, condiments and cooking sauce over for my homesick friend so we cooked all our meals at the apartment.

The Dutch buy their groceries mainly from the supermarkets. There are no wet markets there but mobile markets move from place to place throughout the week. The biggest market is probably the one at De Brink on every Friday. You can get all kinds of things there such as fish, meat, sausages, cheese, pickles, vegetables, fruit, Vietnamese spring rolls, Oliebollen (oily balls) clothes and bags etc. I find it strange that the workers spend the whole of Thursday setting up the stalls but the market operates only for a few hours on Friday morning and then the stalls are dismantled again right after that. Tedious right?
This is what the market looks like…mobile stalls which are always on the move.

Flowers can be bought in the market even in winter…dried fruit and vegetables are often used as ornaments outside Dutch homes.
The traditional way to eat Oliebollen or ‘oily balls’…just kidding! My two friends were having some fun posing for me while I was taking pictures.

Cycling is a common mode of transportation for the Dutch. Because Holland has one of the flattest terrain in the world, 85% of the population cycle. To discover the country on the two-wheelers is easy, especially when the country has separate lanes allocated for cyclists’ usage. Everyone, young or old cycle and in all kinds of weather…yes, even in winter. So when you walk along the streets, you need to be on the lookout for cars as well as speeding cyclists.

The Dutch also seem to be animal lovers. I saw people walking all kinds of dogs there. Big ones, small ones, you name them, they’ve got them. The climate there is definitely suited for dogs with thick fur like the Chow Chow and Saint Bernard. Singaporeans with such dogs, if you really care for your pet, do consider migrating to Deventer. I was quite frustrated that whenever I bumped into a Dutch walking his/her dog, my camera would be in my backpack. I thus missed many opportunities to capture the pictures of the happy dogs of Deventer. When I actually held my camera in my hand, I somehow don’t see the dogs…duh! :(

Besides the dogs, we also saw many animals there. Ducks and swans are aplenty along the rivers and canals. The Milieu Centrum located behind my friend’s apartment houses all kinds of animals. It’s supposed to be an educational centre for kids. We also saw some free-roaming animals such as chickens, ducks, peacocks etc at the small park located opposite the train station in the city centre. The chickens there were fat and fluffy with their thick feathers and looked very prepared for winter with their bell-bottom feathered pants…hehe! It was certainly a joy to see and touch those animals at such close range.
See how happy I looked when I’m with animals…Clio will definitely freak out when she sees this. ^_^
ps: I forgot to mention an observation I made. I really liked it when I saw the Dutch acknowledging each other wherever they go. Whenever we entered a shop, the staff or owner would greet us in a friendly manner and when we leave, they will also acknowledge it. Even on the buses, i noticed that most passengers would acknowledge the driver with a greeting or a wave when they board or alight. This is something that I find lacking in Asian societies. Hmm…why are we so aloof?