1 day, 4 cities

This Saturday was pretty busy :D An idea came around a could of weeks ago concerning a visit to 7 cities in the Netherlands called Hanseatic cities. These include Kampen, Hasselt, Zwolle, Hattem, Deventer, Zutphen and Doesburg. The initial plan included all 7 cities but after realizing that it wasn't in fact a feasible option, it was altered a couple of times until we finally decidade that we would visit Kampen, Zwolle, Deventer and Zutphen - all reachable by train :)

After gathering a group of about 12 people, we left at 7:30am (with 3 of us having been left behind and catching the train 30 min later). 

A rainy weather awaited us in Zutphen where we were greeted by the IJssel after exiting the train station. 

@ market

@ city gate

First time I saw tulips besides in the market! :)

The next stop was Zwolle, the province capital of Overijssel. It is a city surrounded by the river and shaped similarly to a star. They even bake a bread with it's shape... 

@ city gate

@ city walls

After lunch we headed for Deventer. There we also made a pit stop to 'chill' for awhile... Time flies by fast when we're having fun :D

@ de Waag

@ market

A windmill!!!! Finally :) After having been mislead into thinking there was a windmill in Zwolle (it said so in the tourist maps scattered around the cities), I was hoping that we could see (and find) the windmill in Deventer. And we did! So, this is the traditional Dutch photo :P

Next and final stop was Zutphen. It was ideal to have done this after the hour change last weekend because it means that daylight lasts longer... So the whole time spent in Zutphen was done with the sun still in the sky.

The weather changed during the day, giving us some opportunities to enjoy the sun. However, since we were always so close to the water, the wind made it a very cold day...

My initial plan was to return and head to a party after dinner and after watching slbenfica vs sc braga, yet, I was able to fail this enormously because I was dead tired... It was just one of those days when I just needed to crawl into bed and sleep until there was no more sleep left. My eyes were closing while watching a pretty exciting game, so imagine...