To enjoy the winter in Limburg we stayed at Chateau St. Gerlach near Valkenburg for New Year’s. We woke up in the countryside with everything hidden in the fog. You could only see a few meters in front of you. Then…the sun burst through the thick clouds and revealed a landscape covered in frost. It makes everything so magical, as if someone sprinkled little diamonds onto every twig, every berry and all the mistletoe hanging in the trees.
It’s fantastic to be the first out in the field on mornings like this, walking around in the Christmas card perfection. To only hear the crackling sounds of your shoes on the frozen grass, to breathe in air that feels amazingly clean and to watch horses and birds go around their business as if no one is watching. It’s absolute calm. Unfortunately there aren’t many real winters in The Netherlands, so days like this are absolutely rare. Every year we hope and wish for a really cold winter, like we had a few years ago, when we could ice-skate on the Amsterdam canals.