exploring again

with the beginning of warmer weather, i've been enjoying exploring again [having someone to share exploring with makes it more fun, too]. the other weekend was to Muiderslot Castle in Muiden and last weekend was to Zandvoort aan Zee, via Overveen.

i've been meaning to get to Muiderslot Castle for awhile now. now that i've discovered that there are old castles in this part of the netherlands, i'm excited about getting to see them - and Muiderslot is probably the most well known castle in the area. the following are a couple of pictures:

the castle as you'd see it from the water

a view of the area behind the castle, looking towards the sea.

the view from above the drawbridge - important for our attempts to figure out how to conquer the castle (we never did find a great method).

and for those of you who appreciate maps, the following will help you see where the castle is located. it's east of Amsterdam. we took the train to Weesp and then walked (bus back) to Muiden.

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and the last weekend was a bit of a different adventure - a walk in nature. it was supposed to be a day of enjoying the sun at the beach. and friday was gorgeous weather, as was sunday. unfortunately, saterday, the day we decided to go to the beach, was dreary.

so instead of taking the train all the way to the beach, we got off halfway at Overveen and decided to enjoy a walk through the woods and dunes and hope that the sun would show up by the time we got to the beach. and so we walked through the stillness of nature where nobody else was in sight, climbed a large hill (odd in the netherlands, must have been an old dune), tried to sight buffalo, instead sighted deer elsewhere, found a castle-like wall by the deer, jumped over a fence (though we'd stayed at paths like we were supposed to, i think one of them was more of a deer path than a people one and we ended up fenced in), got lost, ate lunch by a rabbit hole, walked against the wind at the beach, ate ice cream, walked until we were sore, and almost fell asleep on the train ride home. all in all, it was a lovely day of exploring.

to give you an idea of where we were, the following is a map between Overveen and Zandvoort.
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we started out walking east, along the northside of the tracks. at some point we crossed under the tracks, and eventually we ended up on the Visserspad. it's the inbetween part that i'm not sure about... but that's also part of the adventure of exploring :)