Get you own dessert Paul!

We woke up to clouds this morning with 25 mi/hr. wind and a temperature of 46 degrees. Because of the wind, the temperature gauge says it feels like 27…burr! Considering it was near 70 yesterday, this was a dramatic change.

But that didn’t stop the Greens or Kellys. But, because of the challenges the Talanians had yesterday, they decided to sleep in and enjoy their morning onboard the Viking Sigrun.

Our bus left at 9am for the tulip farm which took us approx. 45-minutes to reach. Although we had a few sprinkles along the way, it had stopped by the time we reached the tulip farm. The farmers wife had set up tables and chairs inside their large covered green house and tractor storage area where they served us coffee, tea, and sweets while she gave us a presentation about the farm.

She also had a store with several items for sale. Karen was the only one tempted, so she bought a watercolor reproduction of tulips.

The owners wife also had some beautiful murals so we took our pictures next to them.

We then got back into the bus, and she narrated as we drove to the fields where they raise the bulbs allowing us to walk through the tulips. 

So off went Karen walking through the fields and it turned out she fell on a bunch of them but did no harm to herself or the tulips as they were going to cut them off anyway. This is Rule #5 when we travel – “No one falls”.

 We thought you might be interested in some tulip facts:

-        Tulips grown in fields are for production of bulbs - not for flowers.

-        Tulips grown in fields are allowed to bloom, but their flowers are cut off so that the plant can concentrate all its energy into the bulb.

-        Tulips can only be planted in a field every six years.  The farmer will grow other crops in the field while he waits to plant more tulips in his field.

-        Tulips grown for flowers are grown in greenhouses and the flowers are picked with the bulb attached and the bulb is then crushed so that the flower will have the longest stem possible which brings in more money for the flower.

On our way back we stopped at a lovely windmill, but more about windmills later. 

This afternoon we enjoyed leisure time to read, exercise and do laps (Bill for cardio rehab) while the ladies played cards.

Our cruise departed Enkhizen at 4pm today, sooner than originally planned because one of the many locks we will pass through will be closing for repair work and we had to get through it before it closes, or we would have been ‘locked’ out of any further progress.   We had a great view of the town on or way to our next port.

Once underway, the wind continued and created many waves from the lake we were crossing and you are not supposed to have waves and rocking and rolling on a river cruise.

Dinner was once again great, but get your own dessert Paul!