Holland

Előszó

In a corner of Limburg a wholly medieaval, wholly white little town lies dreaming of its thousand years of history. Its name is Thorn and it is a delight to wander through its stillness. Have you ever strolled across the ramparts of Zutphen? In summer the pointed little steeples and roof-tops of that ancient city rise up out of a wealth of foliage; in autumn a blaze of reddish leaves is projected against a background of grey houses. Near the fens of Oisterwijk, pure mirrors of still water surrounded by trees, I have sat by the banks doing simply nothing. Walking past the old houses and through the dusky alleys of Dokkum, that small Frisian town, I have listened to history. I have done the same in noble Zierikzee with its mighty gates, and in Veere, of which a writer once said that it is the horn of the Scheldt and that the past lies there like the present. You can go along narrow footpaths, past a small stretch of water, and relish the smell of the grass to the very depths of your soul. Or roam through the woods of the Veluwe, or the dunes of Terschelling, or savour the silence of the Delft canals on a mild summer evening. If you know Groningen you know one of the most fiercely energetic cities in Holland, with its wide markét square at the foot of the Martini Tower, the centre of a great province. He who has wandered through Medemblik and Edam realizes how beautiful, how tranquil, yet at the same time how fully alive a Dutch town can be. He who seeks Holland at its quietest and broadest must travel along the wide majesty of its rivers, enter the cool height of its splendid churches, or tread the virginity of its beaches, where one can be alone with the rush of the sea and the cries of the birds. There is the country itself: the gentle slopes of Limburg, the barrenness of the Veluwe or the interior of Brabant; the sparkling greenness and endlessness of the western regions, of Groningen and of rich Friesland. And everywhere there is water; on the outside the land is skirted by the sea beating its coasts, on the inside it is traversed by the rivers, the brooks; the lakes and the broads. There is Amsterdam as the symbol of everything that is called Vissza