Netherlands – David Kotz

What a year!

A year of personal and professional exploration.

One year ago, today, I headed out the door for a year-long sabbatical. The professional core of that sabbatical was my Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship at Imperial College London, but I also enjoyed meeting colleagues at University College London, during visits to universities across the UK in England, Scotland, and Wales, and at conferences in France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The year was academically very productive! And the year also presented incredible opportunities for travel, much of it described in this blog. Here’s a quick summary, with one photo per month. Each month’s heading is a link to the blog posts for that month, and the bullets link to a few travel highlights.

Amsterdam and tulips

A perfect weekend to visit!

The tulips are in full bloom in Holland! For my “hike” this weekend, Pam and I joined our friend Jen for a weekend in Amsterdam. (It’s only four hours from London via train!) Jen kindly arranged a bike rental in Lisse, a small village south of Amsterdam surrounded by vast fields of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths – all in full bloom – where the air was sweet with the scent from hundreds of thousands of flowers. We spent a lovely few hours riding the bike paths – the Netherlands are heaven for bikers, because nearly every street and road has an adjacent bike path, with dedicated signage.

Vast fields of tulips, hyacinth, daffodils, and other flowers – outside Amsterdam.

Delft, in The Netherlands

I enjoyed a couple of quick days in the historic district of Delft, The Netherlands, while attending the SafeThings workshop in advance of SenSys 2017. Although it rained on and off, the picturesque streets and canals were a delight to explore. I also ducked into the Old Church and New Church (both hundreds of years old), for a peek at their excellent exhibits. I stayed in Hotel Johannes Vermeer, named after the famous painter, so I was especially interested in those exhibits. Beautiful town! See the photos; the one below is from my hotel room (which was a 4th-floor attic!).