Next stop is Giethoorn

We skipped breakfast as we were still full from last nights food and decided to have a banana each and then departed for the two and a half hour drive to Giethoorn which had been recommended to us because if it like a Venice , with lots of waterways etc, but more of that later.

We decided to come of the Motorway as we were running rather early and found for a lunch a delightful bar- restaurant on the shores of a lake and so we sat outside in the sun and Noel had the smoked salmon sandwich which was massive and Jennifer  had a ham and brie with salad and they were both excellent.
We then continued on to Giethoorn where we arrived at about 14.00 hrs and not being sure if the Hotel would accept us this early but they did and then off we went down the road for a one hour boat ride through the waterways  and under the many bridges.

The area was largely caused by the digging of peat for many years and so the water drained in to it and then the reads began to profusely grow and so thatched houses became the norm with many of the houses in the centre of town being reached by boat only as there are no roads. Not sure we would like this and then we heard on the intercom from our tour guide that the village has 2700 residents but hosts 1.5 million people per year and all of then go for either a boat ride with a cruise operator or you can rent a boat and boy did we see some very bad driving  with boats hitting each other and going backwards and sideways and all over the place and causing chaos. There are also 1500 boats available to rent and in the busiest time of year there can be a boat jams for hundred of yards which is quite ridiculous really. The strange thing was there were no life vests available for anybody and not sure what happened to H & S in Holland??
We did a tour round for a while and then returned to the Hotel. Why they call this place the Venice of Holland I can't really say except it has water and bridges and is nothing like Venice at all.
We had dinner in the Hotel restaurant which was very good and chatted to a couple of ladies who visiting like us and we then went to the bar for a ten minute sit after dinner and then adjourned to bed as we don want to be late tomorrow as we have a long journey to Ypres in Belgium