windmill ice skating tour - a photo on Flickriver

            Natural ice in the Netherlands is a rare occurrence. In fact, some winters there's no natural ice at all. Maybe that explains why the Dutch love to skate outdoors. They hardly ever get the chance! But when a cold wave hits, and the interconnected maze of canals, rivers and lakes freeze over, it's a spontaneous celebration, a national holiday. Businesses close their doors and everyone goes skating.
The Alblasserwaard tour starts in the town of Kinderdijk, a tourist mecca famous for its windmills. (Molentocht means windmill tour.) The Krimpenerwaard is one of the oldest polders in Holland, dotted with ancient villages, and you can skate through nine of them in a day. (Negendorpentocht means Nine Villages Tour.) You can read about the area's history in this Krimpenerwaard site.

Aside from the scenery, the joys of Dutch skating are the companionship of other skaters, and the delicious food served up along the canals. With so many skaters on the ice, you're guaranteed to find someone who skates at your speed, and gets hungry or thirsty with the same regularity.
   

Taken on: January 10, 2009

Tags:

molentocht

iceskating

alblasserwaard

10-jan-2009

schaatsen

Bleskensgraaf

de-Vriendschap

holland

winter

atmosphere

Dutch

canon40d

canon10-22

beauty

molentocht-2009 « less

Sets appears in: • winter in the alblasserwaard • winter

Groups appears in: • L'Europe pittoresque • Alleen top NL Fotografen

Camera: Canon EOS 40D, f/11.0, 1/250 sec, 17mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 40D
Lens:	EF17-40mm f/4L USM
Aperture:	f/11.0
Exposure Time:	0.004 sec (1/250)
Focal Length:	17mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-1/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.3 (Windows)
Show full info

Stats: 8,773 views / 164 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder