January 14, 2012
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Munstergeleen, Netherlands
The province of Limburg is the only part of the Netherlands (except for a smaller area where the river Rhine enters the country in the east of the country) that has any hills of significance. The rest of the country is as flat as flat can be. People in Limburg will happily tell you that the Vaalserberg (Vaalser Mountain, which is a terribly exaggerated name) is the highest point of the country at 321 metres or just over 1,000 ft.
Even that small claim to fame is no longer true these days. After the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles (a group of five islands in the Caribbean) as a sovereign country within the Kingdom, the islands of Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba became special municipalities of the Netherlands, while two other islands, Curaçao and St Maarten, became sovereign countries within the Kingdom. And as it happens, the small island of Saba, which already had the highest point of the Kingdom, now can also claim to have the highest point of the Netherlands with the wonderfully name Mount Scenery at 877 metres (2,900 ft) dwarfing poor Limburg's Vaalserberg.
Nevertheless, Limburg does have some wonderful scenery of its own. In the early afternoon, before the rest of the family arrived, I had a stroll through some of the hills just east of Munstergeleen. The weather was fantastic, and everything looked beautiful. I only walked for just over an hour, but it was very nice to walk for a bit in the land that of course will always be my roots. I returned to my parents' place and much to everyone's surprise my sister Ilse, who lives in Amstelveen and my niece Stefanie arrived as well. It was a very nice afternoon and the typical Limburg delicacies that my parents had prepared tasted delicious. I returned home in the early evening, having to use a replacement bus service (oh those dreaded words) for part of the way, and was home just before 11pm after a very nice weekend in Limburg.
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