The weather in the Netherlands, as you may expect, can be very … wet. There were days during our month when it just poured from morning until night. Luckily, those happened to be days we’d planned to have a quiet day at home anyway. Good timing!

Mostly, the rain isn’t really a big deal. You see the clouds coming, get out your umbrella, and continue on your way. The rain stops, you fold up your umbrella, and continue on your way. It certainly doesn’t stop the Dutch! There are still just as many cyclists on the road, even in wet weather!

PER says his mother always used to tell him and his brother, “You aren’t made of sugar. You won’t melt!” We tell our boys that they are more than half Dutch, so they will be just fine in the rain 🙂  (I myself am 1/8 Dutch, and so I tip the scale for them a bit!)

Sometimes if you are really lucky, you might even see a rainbow! When we first saw this one, it was just a faint streak in the sky. And it wasn’t even raining on us yet. As we got closer, the color intensified. Then it started to rain, quite hard, but we could still see the rainbow. And then we got a real treat – it spread over the street into a full arc! I took several dozen pictures, but of course it was never captured quite as brilliantly as it appeared in real life.

Usually, if it rained at all, it was just a short time. And the sun would come out from behind the clouds and warm us all up. It would often start out at around 70 degrees – or cooler – in the morning. But by the afternoon, we were shedding our jackets and glad we’d chosen to wear sandals, as it warmed up to about 75. Not exactly the stifling heat and humidity of the Philadelphia area in August!

Most of the time, I wore cropped pants, short sleeves with a light sweater or rain coat, and shoes or sandals. We did have some hotter weather when we first arrived, and we were wearing shorts and tanks. The bottom line is, you have to be prepared for all kinds of weather in the Netherlands! And layering is key!

Now, if you know anything about the landscape of the Netherlands, you may know that it is flat. Very flat. One of the reasons it’s so ideal for cycling! But it is also good for harvesting wind. The modern windmills are peppered across the green acres of land. But sometimes, you see so many, you can’t even begin to count them. When we were on our way to Hans & Grietje in the Flevoland region, we were gaping at the number of them! Again, you just can’t really capture that on film. But I tried!