Wednesday 8 May 2024--I'm off to the Netherlands, first via the tram to the airport, and then aboard easyJet, today's budget airline. It's about on a par with Ryanair, I guess, fine for a short and cheap flight. Departure is delayed for an hour. Once landed at Schiphol, I spend an hour getting through passport control. I don't remember it ever taking so long before. I'm inclined to blame Brexit, but I don't think it ever took this long coming from the US, either.

The gent at the rental car desk is well practiced in droll banter--he reminds me of the fellow at the hotel in Tórshavn--which lifts my mood, after all the delay. I drive an hour and a half north, past Amsterdam, to Den Helder. It's a fairly straightforward route, but I'm glad to have satnav to guide me through a couple of confusing interchanges. (Pro tip: do not pay for satnav as an option. The car will have it, anyway.)

I arrive at the ferry terminal just in time to see the gates closing on the 4:30 crossing to Texel. No big deal, there's one every half-hour. Aboard the 5:00, I watch Den Helder receding in one direction, and the island approaching in the other. From a distance, its one striking feature is its flatness.

Once across, I drive to Den Burg, the largest settlement on the island (pop ~6500), check into my hotel, and go for a stroll around. I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but I assume Den Burg will have typical Dutch holiday town charm, and so it does. The old center is pedestrian-friendly and full of restaurants and shops. And there's a nice pub, of course, Taveerne De Twaalf Balcken (The Twelve Beams, usually styled De 12 Balcken) with an enticing menu and beer list, as well as a friendly staff. The barmaid is pretty and kind of goofy, and about fifty years younger than I. I have dinner and a couple pints, then go check out De Slock. It looks, on first glance, like the town's evil rock'n'roll bar, but the denizens are all benign-looking geezers. It's not my style, though, and I know De 12 Balcken is going to be my local for the next few nights.