The Students Leave.

On May 30, our students left for the States. We had a wonderful good-bye party, and the weather permitted a real cook-out. Eric handled the barbacue expertly (photo left), and we organized a mock-graduation ceremony for Katie, who missed out on her Commencement. But really touching (and funny) was our students’ tribute, on the melody of an ancient Yorkshire ballad ... Next day, the bus went very early in the morning. Good bye, we'll miss you ! (Now back to grading...)

Hadrian's Wall.

Most of our students turned out to be done with exams a week before their return date. This gave us an opportunity to organize one more trip, one we originally though we couldn’t fit in: to Hadrian’s Wall. First we visited the Vindolanda excavations (site of the adventures of the Latin mouse "Minimus"), and after that we hiked a distance of the wall, from the Roman fort at Housesteads to Caw Gap. Without a doubt, this was one of the most spectacular parts of the wall, offering some impressive views. Every half hour or so, we were hit by a rainstorm, that you could see approach from far away. Despite the chilly weather, it was a rewarding day.

A Visit to Malham.

Apart from our short trip to Wensleydale, we had never been to the Yorkshire Dales. So, at the end of May, we visited Malham. The impressive Malham Cove was formed by one of the last Ice-Age glaciers in Britain. For a long time, it was the site of a waterfall, until the river seeped into the limestone rock, and now emerges from the bottom of the cove instead. On top of the cove we saw these fantastic limestone formations (photos above). We hiked up glacial valleys to Water Sinks, where the river that comes out of Malham Tarn (Yorkshire’s biggest natural lake) disappears. (I guess that is the same river that reappears under Malham Cove, Malham Beck; it eventually flows together with the Gordale Beck, to form the River Ayre, just south of Malham, in a place appropriately called "Ayre Head".)

After returning to Malham, we had some tea, and visited Gordale Scar, an impressive canyon with a waterfall. I had originally planned to come back this way from our walk, but the official footpath led right down the waterfall, so perhaps it was a good thing we changed our original plan. Thomas and Kees had some fun climbing the waterfall nonetheless.

On the Minster.

That same first weekend in May, Richard and Carleen and their kids (Maaike, Joost, and Gemma) also visited us. We took the opportunity to walk on the walls (Thomas is impersonating a gargoyle, above), climb the Minster tower. We could just make out the Kilburn White Horse in the distance.

Moors and Dales

The first weekend in May, I organized an optional hiking trip for Calvin Students to the Hole of Horcum. My brother Jan also was visiting us, and we conveniently all fit into two cars. I was a bit sleepy, because the night before, Kristin (one of our students) had broken her elbow, and we spent most of the night in the Hospital Emergency Room. (Kristin underwent surgery, and is now doing fine!) We hiked from the Hole of Horcum to Levisham Station, and took the train from there to Pickering and back. It was Steam Gala Weekend, and we got a glimpse of the Tornado, and were pulled by Sir Nigel Gresley (pulling in to Pickering, photo right).













Pickering is a friendly town, with a bailey-and-keep castle, and wonderful fifteenth century frescoes in the church of Saints Peter and Paul.

That same weekend (a Bank Holiday) when Jan was visiting, we also visited Wensleydale, where we saw not only Middleham castle (below), but also the folly gardens and mazes of the "Forbidden Corner", England's answer to the gardens of Bomarzo.

Left and right: Kees and Thomas in the garden of wonders, the Forbidden Corner. Below: More mirabilia, when on the way back we made a brief stop in Ripon to see the cathedral’s fifteenth-century misericords (including this boar playing the bagpipe).

Edinburgh Rainbow.

We took our students on a weekend-long trip to Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating, and our visit to Edinburgh Castle was pretty much rained out. But the rain also made for some unforgettable moments. Saturday evening, when the weather seemed to have cleard up, we climbed the Salisbury Craggs, the steep cliffs just outside the Old Town. From there, we not only had a wonderful view of the whole town, but we also could see a rainstorm coming up very fast over the Firth of Forth. Within moments, the rain was upon us. It set the Old Town in an eerie light (photo above), and made for a wonderful 180 degree rainbow over Arthur’s Seat, behind us. Thomas went seeking for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (photo below) ...

Easter in Rome.

We spent the Easter weekend in Rome. We took a direct flight from Heathrow to Fiumicino, and arrived in Rome on Wednesday evening. Some days earlier, the nearby city of L’Aquila had been hit by an earthquake, which left some 200 people dead, and many more injured and homeless. The second night of our stay in Rome, we actually felt a slight tremor while in our hotel room. It turned out to be an after shock, which caused even more damage in L’Aquila.

The first day of our stay we fulfilled the boys dream of visiting the Colosseum. (Above right, one of Kees' many action photos of his hero "graeco-romanus" on location). It took us a while to figure out that the ticket was also valid for the Forum Romanum and the Palatine Hill, so we could skip the line. After our visit to the Roman antiquities (tiredness started to replace Kees’ and Thomas’ enthusiasm somewhere on the Palatine Hill), we took a walk through along the Tiber, crossing the Tiber Island, and ending up in the Giudecca. The weather was very pleasant, and the smell of the wisteria alost overwhelming. I realized I had only been to the Forum in mid-summer before, when it was always unpleasantly parching hot.

On Friday, Good Friday, we decided to visit some ancient Christian sites. We took an early metro and bus to the Via Appia, and took a pleasant stroll along the San Nicola and the tomb of Cecilia Metella. In a small road-side cafe we discovered this Bocca della Verita; the day before the line before the original had been so long that we never got to see it. But this one, after insertion of a euro-coin, could even tell foretell your future, something the original Bocca is not capable of. Afterwards, we visited the catacombs of San Callisto, and saw the famous crypt of the Popes. Later, we visited Saint John in Lateran. To our surprise, the site was not very crowded at all. This was especially in contrast with our later visit to the Scala di Spagna, and the Trevi Fountain. Visiting Rome at Easter time can actually be quite pleasant as long as you stay away from the obvious tourist spots.

This is why, on Saturday, we visited Ostia Antica. Visiting these extensive Roman ruins was perhaps the highlight of our visit to Rome (left). But nearby Renaissance Ostia (the seat of the Cardinal Ostiensis) was also a pleasant surprise; shortly after the sixteenth century, the Tiber changed its course, and Borgo di Ostia became a sleepy and insignificant village (the photographs below capture the sleepiness very well). A visit to the Mediterranean beach in Lido di Ostia (not the most beautiful beach ever, but it is the Mediterranean) completed this perfect day.

Below: Kees and Thomas play in the Mediterranean at Lido di Ostia.

Next day: Easter Sunday in Rome. We visited the Chiesa Valdese in the Piazza Cavour, for a beautiful, very "Calvinist" Easter morning service. And that left us plenty of time to walk to Saint Peter’s Square, and see the Pope. The festive atmosphere was quite worth it. A walk over the Gianicolo Hill and a visit to the Capitoline museum concluded our Easter visit to Rome. Rather than closing with a picture of the Pope (whom we only saw from a kilometre distance), we'll close off with a photo of the cat sanctuary at the Piazza Argentina. The cats were considerably better fed and cared for than when we last visited Rome, in 1996.