‘Buiten’ offers really good coffee, lunch and delicious local products:). This little gem can be found opposite Zigt, Koekela (check the Koekela article) and close to some nice clothes shops, Odile Hemmen winestore and the Wittetandenwinkel.

(Alles komt van) Buiten, meaning ‘Everything comes from outside’, has all sorts of delicious dishes and products made with love and care. Don’t kill me but those who know the Groene Passage might understand when I say it’s like a little mixture of Gimsel and Spirit but definetely in a MODERN STYLE! 

The shop is nice, open with a brightly designed interior and has very friendly staff. Buiten uses only organically grown products for their freshly homemade dishes, salads, pasta’s, soups, juices and more. They also offer a wide range of best cheeses, oils, coffee and other specialities like chutneys, (sweet) mayonnaise, bionades, hottie sambal, jams, regional season vegetables, pestos, bread and more. Fairtrade products can also be found like Tony Chocolonely chocolate and goods from Oxfam. And one day my famous Tiramisu will be on sale here (I’ll keep you posted:))

Go here to taste regional products, to do eco-friendly food shopping if you don’t feel like cooking or just for a good tea or a coffee to go. In the back you will find a large table where they let you read and eat in.

In 1937 they began to build the Maastunnel, which included the moving of the Norsk Sjomannskirke which is in the park nearby nowadays. The building continued during WWII.

There is a story that while they were officially opening the tunnel at one side, two schoolboys had entered the tunnel at the other side. I would have loved to see their faces, when they saw the two boys, before the cutting of the ribbon. This opening was in 1942, and back then it was the first car tunnel in the Netherlands.

Besides a car tunnel there is also a bike tunel and a pedestrian tunnel. You can go down the escalator with your bike or request the elevator. The tunnel for pedestrians is another stairway down, since you are not allowed to walk in the bike tunnel.

I have been biking here about once a day up and down for five years. When I lived on the south bank my work and my son’s school was on the north bank, we always took the Maastunnel on our way. Especially in the summertime you are met by a pleasant fresh air, since it is quit cool under sea level.

Going up the escalator with your bike takes some getting used to, but since my son has been doing it since he was five years, I suppose you can manage. As long as you take care to put your back wheel firmly on one stair, you can hold your bike with only the touch of a finger.

I like the zoo a lot and I go there regularly. They rebuilt and enlarged many animal homes over the last few years. You do not get to see the animals you like too often, but at least the animals enjoy their stay. And since they have to live there, that is the most important thing. The African Savannah-Area has by now been completed.

I do not know how populair this news was abroad, but Blijdorp is the zoo with Bokito, the escaped gorilla. Personally I do not visit the apes much. I like to look for feathers. I do not encounter many, but I have collected some birds’ feathers over the years, although I lost a few too (has something to do with cats and them stealing it from my shelves…). And I like to take pictures. I love them in a natural environment, so it is quit a challenge to make pictures without the fences. Sometimes I go there to draw.

One time I was there I forgot my camera. A monkey caught a mouse and was trying to kill it. My friend was so upset, she ran off with her camera. I still consider it a lost chance. But my search for specialties goes on and on.

On the drawing is a cormorant. There is a lake with cormorants and pelicans near the old entrance. I thought my drawing of the pelican was better, but I gave it away to a little boy.