Northern Holland, 30 minutes inland from the sea

I spent Friday morning in London, going through town to get to the channel crossing. After breakfast I found my way to the bus line, got turned around and finally made it to King's Cross/St Pancras for the Eurostar train to Brussels. The English countryside is lush green, fields rolling away into the distance, beautiful tight towns nestled in amongst trees everywhere. More trees per capita here than thought to be anywhere else on earth!
Across the chunnel, through French countryside, more compact villages with farms scattered at the edges. Red Spanish roofs on most houses, large fields with cows and crops. Belgium, similar to the midwest, but def European. Large fields of corn, hay, crops. Round hay bales wrapped in plastic, haystacks with plastic sheeting held down with tires, but much smaller than American ones! Tiny narrow streets in Belgium and the Netherlands, and bicycles everywhere! The bikes have spaces to "park" closer to trains than the cars, and there are more of the bikes. Cars are very compact, and park on the sidewalk in narrow streets. Flowers and gardens throughout every town, neat, clean, tidy.
I switched trains to come noorth to Leeuwarden, a town of 100,000. Will spend the day looking for a bike and going over to Harlingen on the western coast, near the island of Texel. Cool chilly nights here, needed all the blankets last night. Sunny today, and church bells ring once on the half hour, the hour on the hour. I love the bells!
Breakfast reminded me of Ray's favorite market in Missoula. There is orange juice, fresh milk, 4 kinds of sliced meat, Swiss cheese! and rich wheat bread or rolls. Still hot hard-cooked farm eggs, coffee from an espresso machine, tea. I put butter on my bread and made a sandwich, and later watched a man eat his meat slices with a knife and fork, then pulled bites of bread to go with the meat- oops! Fresh apples and oranges. Yum! simple but good. The meat is just like what Ray gets at the delicatessan on South Higgens.
I'm off to enjoy Holland in the sunshine.