The Island of Texel

A free Saturday with no plans...a forecast of sunny weather...let's get out of town!  We drove an hour north to the tip of the Netherlands and took a 30 min ferry ride to the island of Texel, pronounced Tessel.  It is the largest of a string of islands, but still only 30 miles long.  When we got on the ferry the girls were drawn to the 'gift shop' and Tessa found a backpack charm with her name on it!  Now to those of you with kids named Claire, Allison, William, or Joshua, this may not seem like a big deal, but we can never find Tessa or Allie.  I guess we didn't consider that while picking out names...or maybe we did...Anyhow, we had to buy it.  No such luck for Allie.  She bought one that was cute, but we have no idea what it says.  I'm sure it's all good... 

We rented tandems when we got to the island and started on our adventure.  The island is beautiful; full of sheep and cows grazing and a few little towns scattered about.  Oh, and there were goats.  Allie thought it would be a good idea to rally them all over to her by jumping around and yelling.  In a matter of seconds they were rushing over to us and braying or whatever it is that goats do.  Fortunately there was a fence between us and them, otherwise we might have lost our shorts...

We biked to one town and popped into a small church where people kept going in and out.  Not to miss out on a tourist site, we headed in.  We were treated to a bunch of old Dutchmen singing and 'Captain Hook' leading them.  We were hanging out in the back snapping pics and after each song he would turn around and look right at us and in a serious manner, say a bunch of words in Dutch.  We looked back at him with our big American smiles; hopefully, he wasn't telling us not to publish pictures of him! As we left the church, we looked at each other and said,
"Never in Eden Prairie..."

We biked out to the beach and walked along the shore.  It is absolutely beautiful with no land in sight and beach for miles.  We didn't wander long because it was so windy and cold.  We stopped in at a restaurant and sat around a fire pit table and sipped warm drinks, ate french fries and warmed up a bit before our bikeride back to the ferry.  The bike ride back was a bear!  We were pedaling right into the wind and somehow we missed the most direct way back.  Why do we never buy a map? But we made the ferry and Chris and I got our workout in.  It was a fun adventure, close to home.