Visit to Sneek in Friesland

The relatives on Andrew's mother side are fewer.  Bouk, his mother, had one sister Tante Grietje and she has two sons, Klaas and Bareld, and their wives are Irma and Gerda.  Tante Grieje is 94 years old.  They took us out to dinner in Sneek.

The family dinner in a restaurant by one of the canals where many people with boats come and they can moor and stay overnight.  Peter and Toni would have loved it.  And the food was very good.

We did not look around Sneek much on this visit.  We were here five years ago and then we did walk around the town.  Our visit this time was to catch up with Tante Grietje and the boys.  They remembered many stories about their older cousin Andries who went to Australia with his parents and left a big gap in his grandparents' life back in 1950.  The other grandchildren did not come along for another six years.  Andrew's good Dutch is due partly to his own perseverance and also to the love and affection of his maternal grandparents who continued for may years to send him parcels of Dutch books to read.  They missed him a great deal and he owes them a lot.  It is a privilege to catch up with cousins and aunts.  Tante Grietje is the only one left of Andrew's parents' generation.

We did take a quick look again at a famous Sneek landmark which we had seen on our last visit.  This is the famous Waterpoort of Sneek.  It is a water gate, which is in a defensive wall that surrounds a city.  It was built around Sneek in the 15th and 16th centuries when the area was part of an important trade route.  When large parts of the wall were demolished in the 18th century, it was decided to leave the Waterpoort intact.

It is a very picturesque sight on the canal.