July 25; Pandemic travel love 🛫✨🛬

Long cool days of Northern summer... these were my two weeks ☀️🇳🇱🇩🇪

Happy Sunday,

It’s been a long and unusual two weeks without updates from my side, and for a very good reason; Ellie and I were enjoying ourselves extensively in the Netherlands and Germany.

It’s an interesting new reality that will obviously stay with us for some years now. On the one hand the constant calculation of where you can and can’t go, and on the other the deliberation of what accounts for common sense, and what doesn’t. This month it’s become painfully clear that with only about 1/7 of the world’s population vaccinated against the first variants of Covid-19, we’re slipping into a situation where the virus is mutating, with at least 6/7 of the world’s population being at a huge health risk, while at the same functioning as a petri dish for new, ever more aggressive and resistant variants that will spread and keep us hostage for the foreseeable future.

It is very likely we’ll face new surges of Covid-19, with new lockdowns and restrictions, and most likely new vaccines to be administered next year.

In the meantime, those of us who have multiple places we call home, and those who travel for work, will be constantly calculating the risks and rewards of getting on airplanes and going places.

Ellie and I decided we wanted to visit the Netherlands and Berlin as soon as we got our vaccination certificates last month, and looking back now that we’ve returned to Bulgaria, it was all a massive stroke of luck. On the very evening we made it to Groningen, our first Netherlands destination, the Dutch prime minister held a press conference announcing an explosive growth in positive PCR tests, and the rollback of a number of forfeited prevention measures. Even with these renewed measures, the Netherlands is still one of the easiest places when it comes to Covid restrictions, with masks only required in public transport, and the only effective thing banned being nightlife and large events. As of tomorrow, travelers from the Netherlands to Bulgaria are required to present negative PCR test results even if they’re vaccinated, and the Bulgarian government is even mulling a decision on limiting entry from The Netherlands only to its citizens and permanent residents.

Apart from the Covid luck, we were also extremely lucky with the weather, and being able to see my parents, sister, and a couple of friends. Over a span of twelve days, we covered a good half of the country, and I discovered a number of beautiful new places that I had never been to before, or that didn’t even exist during my previous visits or when I lived there.

Groningen, Leeuwarden, the island of Ameland, Sneek, my hometowns of Hoogeveen and Amsterdam, then The Hague, the Hoge Veluwe national park, and magical Zutphen; all places we managed to visit the last two weeks, and that are highly-recommended, mostly off-the-beaten path beautiful spots to visit.

So here’s a little photo account of some amazing places we went to. The Netherlands now has a government policy to deflect visitors from the well-known spots like the Amsterdam canals, to lesser known but not less beautiful locations, and this overview may be a really good cheat sheet for some less obvious, and less busy places to visit on your next trip there.

Getting groceries by bike with Ellie in my alma mater town of Groningen. In our current list of places we can retire to someday when we’re older, it’s number one.

More cycling with Ellie, this time on Ameland island. We left our rental car on the mainland, took the ferry, and biked the 30km-long island for three days. In Dutch, there is a word for the kind of recreation you have on the islands, it’s called uitwaaien, which roughly translates to “getting a breath of fresh air”, but literally means “having the wind blow you clear”

Ameland boasts one of the Netherlands’ longest and widest beaches, with a few spots where the waterline recedes almost a kilometer inward into the North Sea twice a day during low tides. A spectacular natural phenomenon to witness: huge beach with no sea.

Cycling around the western part of Ameland, with the beautiful Bornrif lighthouse behind me.

Once in my home province of Drenthe, I discovered that the Netherlands’ northernmost winery has been operating out of the small village of Havelte, very close to my hometown of Hoogeveen. Together with my parents and sister, we paid a visit and tasted some quite impressive whites, reds, and even a dry sparkling wine. Check it out: Wijngoed Havelte.

Founder Peter Pels of Wijngoed Havelte pouring the dry sparkling wine, Havelter Bruut, for us.

If you are heading to Amsterdam, find a friend with a boat, or someone who knows someone with a boat. By far the best way to experience the capital city.

In The Hague we spent a night in the iconic Hotel des Indes, and of course got bikes from them, to explore the city and the Scheveningen beach.

Ellie sporting a Frisian flag bandana in The Hague, in front of the Hofvijver pond, with the Dutch government complex of the Binnenhof behind her.

Ellie in the swimming pool installation at the fantastic Voorlinden museum near The Hague, in Wassenaar.

The Voorlinden museum opened in 2016 on the private estate of Dutch business tycoon Joop van Caldenborgh, and features selected exhibits from his private collection, as well as a few visiting exhibitions by prominent modern artists.

Ellie’s dress for the day surprisingly matched one of the installations at Voorlinden.

After one more day of cycling and outdoors art at Kröller-Müller Museum, which deserves its own write-up someday, we spent an evening in the beautiful Hanseatic town of Zutphen, which I somehow never visited before. It’s a small town of about 50,000 inhabitants, but has a fully intact medieval old town about the same size as Tallinn’s, and is really worth a visit.

At the end of our trip, we made it back to Berlin, where we spent another two days full of hanging around, meeting a few friends, Ellie dropping in on her launchlabs office in Kreuzberg, before heading back to Sofia on Friday.

Brandenburg gate with Ellie at sunset

Accidentally wearing the best t-shirt I have for the occasion, with the Berlin Wall remnants at Potsdamer Platz.

The most gratifying thing about this trip back to places where we used to live before, is getting back some sense of normalcy of being connected to our roots and friends and relatives abroad. It feels good to know that, despite all the complications and restrictions that we’ll have to continue dealing with in the coming months and years, there are ways to go places and meet people. It seems like the only way to continue doing this, and expanding back our travel options towards some sense of normality is if we all get our vaccines, and continue getting new ones when they become available. We’re so privileged to live in places where it’s easy to do so, we simply owe it to ourselves and all the health workers and people at risk.

On a final note, for this trip, we booked a Tesla Model S rental, and it was very much a great experience. The price is about the same as renting a normal lower-premium vehicle, but with juice included and cash-back perks, it might actually even be a little cheaper. Netherlands and Germany are a luxury when it comes to charging, with charging stations present in nearly every street, parking garage, and Tesla Superchargers littering the freeways. The company that rents them, UFO Drive, has locations all over Western Europe, I suggest you try them out if you ever need a car. You can even get EUR 30 off your first rental with a referral from me:

Thanks for checking in today and talk to you next Sunday! 😇

If you enjoyed this Sunday Max update, feel free to subscribe to get it weekly in your inbox, if you haven’t yet: