We all had a really enjoyable evening and I think Leon and Tonny left round about one in the morning. We retired shortly after.
Next morning, Ed and Monique had arranged to take me out for the day. Our destination was in The Hague, about half way between Rotterdam and Amsterdam (then left a bit).
In The Hague, or Den Haag as the dutch call it, is The Madurodam.
The Madurodam is a small version of Holland! Yes it is a model where everything is 25 times smaller than real life.
The weather was very kind to us, a little cold but bright and sunny most of the time.
I took 34 photo's in there but will just share half a dozen of them with you. After all, this is not 'modelworld.org'!

This picture is at the entrance to Madurodam.
It is of Hans Brinker, the little dutch boy who saved the whole area by plugging the hole in the *** with his finger.
That's him with the dutch clogs on, not the one with the pink headband,

Perhaps if I had spelled 'dike' properly then the bad word filter would not have replaced it with ***!

I have to include this picture as Romy took it, bless.
The girl in black with the happy smiley face was not with us.

jandyt:

...
The girl in black with the happy smiley face was not with us.

Here is Romy next to St John's Basilica, affectionately known to locals as St Jan.  The original started being built in 1380 and took 200 years to complete!
The workmanship on the model is marvelous, right down to the workmen's scaffolding where restoration is ongoing
Love the Bonzai-type trees, they're real.

This is the Dutch parliament buildings in the Hague. The one with the big roof was built as a hunting lodge in the 13th century.
The dutch premier has a study in there.

Placing the camera on the 'street', makes it look as if you are really there! (apart from the huge bloke on the left)

Superb picture. Hard to tell that this is a model, isn't it?

There is an exact replica of Amsterdam Airport (Schiphol) her too with planes that actually taxi round the apron.

Can anybody tell me why this Concorde pilot is daft?

The pilot seems to have landed in the wrong place. As far as I know the concorde has never been on Dutch soil. This must be a first for an airport in Holland.

jandyt:

Can anybody tell me why this Concorde pilot is daft?

Well apart from the fact that the aeroplane has no airworthy certificate now, he is also taxiing with the nose up so won't be able to see out of the front!  Good guess?

I have to agree with peter.

jandyt:

Superb picture. Hard to tell that this is a model, isn't it?

Agreed, bar the person on the left hand side of the picture! Either it's a model, or he's very, very big...

It does look a superb model town though. Very impressive!

By the way Ed, you have a truly beautiful daughter - and very photogenic!

Well spotted Peter.
Probably doesn't even know he is in Holland!
Romy is lovely yes. I didn't manage to have much dialogue with her but we played games like Noughts and Crosses (Tic tac toe) and I taught her a game where you take turns at joining dots in a grid in order to make boxes. You then put your initial in the box and the one with the most boxes wins. I think she beat me once.
Talking of giants, look at this one!

There are 4542 trucks and cars at the Madurodam, many of them are automated.
This DHL driver looks like he could do with some driving lessons. Yanking the steering over that sharply will almost cetainly roll him over!

No problem Ed
Get them on!