Travels in the Netherlands – Entry 1

I spent last week traveling across Holland to visit some different companies. My trip started in Rotterdam where I met with the people at Artistix. Artistix is a distributor of stones and stone carving supplies. I was shown soapstone and alabaster stones and was given some rasps and chisel to try out the carving process. I found out quickly this is a very difficult type of art to do. Despite the soft nature of the stones, I could not seem to shape the stones into any real shapes (artistic or otherwise). In my lifetime I’ve seen beautiful stone sculptures. My hat really goes off to these artists now that I understand the degree of difficulty involved in the process

On Tuesday my friend Andy from Artistix took me to Kinderdijk – this is an area of Holland with about 25 working windmills. This area has a magnificent landscape and I learned some interesting thing on how the windmill works and its importance in Dutch history.

It was now off to Helmond to see another and an old friend. Check back in a few days for the next entry of my trip to the Netherlands.