Did you notice the subtle change of title sequence?
I'm afraid today was quite a boring day. Left the lovely De Prince Hotel at 10.00am and drove to Amsterdam Schipol Airport, got there by mid day.
Well, then there was a long, long wait, checked my bag in for Stockholm at 2.30pm and then waited for boarding at 7.45pm !!!!!
However, it gave me chance to get stuck into a book my brother bought me for my birthday, aptly named "The Book of Eels" by Tom Fort. Its a combination of the eels relevance to social history, natural history, mixed with a bit of science and a bit of cookery !!!!
Discovered something fascinating today though. None other than the famous Sir Humphrey Davey, the inventor of the miners lamp, speculated about the eels life cycle (he was a keen angler and naturalist and )and postulated that they deposited their eggs in deep holes in the sea.
Also a couple of chaps called Grassi and Calandruccio were first to correlate the strange transparent leaf like larvae (now known as Leptocephali) with the European Eel in the late 1800's. How did they do it? by matching the number of vertebrae!!!!!!
Well, didn't get to my Stockholm hotel until midnight so really pooped!!!
Looking forward to next few days
Friday, 15 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Day 2 13th April 2011
Remind me to think of a more inventive title for the third day of my tour!!!!!
Had a bit of a wonder around Nijmegen today, fascinating place. My hotel is on Lange Hezelstraat which apparently is the oldest street in Holland!! This place was bombed a lot during the war.
I still can't get used to all these Bikes, nearly got wiped out today, head down typing on my mobile phone....could have been the "text us bike chain massacre". I reckon they should allow a day of "jousting" once a month just to thin them out a bit.
Came across somthing really weird up the main street, a shop devoted to Cowboy boots !!!
I thought that's got to be a one in a million then, blow me, another hundred yards on there was another one!!
What's that all about? I scoured the streets looking for more but only those two?
It really is a beautiful city, really quite big, here is a view of the main square.
History abounds here. Up by the museum I came across this castle
Apparently some Emporer geezer Frederik Barbarossa started this in 1155, well I reckon his blokes have knocked off early 'cos it's only 3.30 and it's not half finished. Talk about health and safety....no scaffolding here!!!!
The bridges in Nijmegen were the scene of fierce battles during world war II and pivotal to the Allies' success.
Changed rooms 3 times today to get better internet access, and got a free coffee, orange juice and cheese and ham bagel courtesy of the good folks at Bagels and Beans (De Prince Hotel)!!! I thought I was the one causing trouble!! They are lovely people, I shall be sad to leave....but on to Sweden tomorrow in search of some serious eel experts
Had a bit of a wonder around Nijmegen today, fascinating place. My hotel is on Lange Hezelstraat which apparently is the oldest street in Holland!! This place was bombed a lot during the war.
I still can't get used to all these Bikes, nearly got wiped out today, head down typing on my mobile phone....could have been the "text us bike chain massacre". I reckon they should allow a day of "jousting" once a month just to thin them out a bit.
Came across somthing really weird up the main street, a shop devoted to Cowboy boots !!!
It really is a beautiful city, really quite big, here is a view of the main square.
History abounds here. Up by the museum I came across this castle
The bridges in Nijmegen were the scene of fierce battles during world war II and pivotal to the Allies' success.
Changed rooms 3 times today to get better internet access, and got a free coffee, orange juice and cheese and ham bagel courtesy of the good folks at Bagels and Beans (De Prince Hotel)!!! I thought I was the one causing trouble!! They are lovely people, I shall be sad to leave....but on to Sweden tomorrow in search of some serious eel experts
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Day 1
Visited Nijvis BV commercial Eel farm today after a fairly tense (mainly because I messed up my rental car details and was running late) 1.5 hr journey from Amsterdam. Found the town but only found the eel farm thanks to a gentleman in the street equiped with a GPS aerial photo app on his phone!!!
Was met by a very sweet Admin lady, sorry forgot your name but could not forget that extremely welcome coffee and easter cake......a sort of fruity/doughy bread with a sweet marzipan middle, so nice.
What an amzing place, located on an industrial estate, looks nothing like a place where you would expect an eel farm.
One of the Directors, Willliam Swinkels, gave me a very good introductory talk and video to his business then we had a wonder round his farm..........WOW!!!
60,000 juvenile eels in a 2metre long trough, 0.5m wide by 0.5m deep, climbing out of the water on each other to be first to the food....amazing.
Nijvis produces eels for the table but also produces 4 million juveniles for re-stocking. He grows on the juveniles from captured elvers but aims to have a zero impact i.e from all the elvers that are imported onto his farm, those that are destined for re-stocking compensate for the total removal in that they have a much higher survival rate and hence contribute more to silver eel escapement.
A very impressive place with total re-circulation, closely monitored water quality through biofiltration, UV disinfection, solids filtration, 24 hr presence.
William has an intruiging theory, he believes that not all European Eels spawn in the Sargasso sea, his theory is that as soon as they reach the depths of the continental shelf they may spawn at more local regions. Evidence supporting this is cited in age determination of glass eels which William says can be 1-2 months old, impossible if they drifted over from the Sargasso. Intruiging theory.
I obtained a lot of invaluable information today that will help me eventually start my own eel re-stocking project back home in Wales.
Thanks to William and his team for giving up their valuable time
Was met by a very sweet Admin lady, sorry forgot your name but could not forget that extremely welcome coffee and easter cake......a sort of fruity/doughy bread with a sweet marzipan middle, so nice.
What an amzing place, located on an industrial estate, looks nothing like a place where you would expect an eel farm.
One of the Directors, Willliam Swinkels, gave me a very good introductory talk and video to his business then we had a wonder round his farm..........WOW!!!
60,000 juvenile eels in a 2metre long trough, 0.5m wide by 0.5m deep, climbing out of the water on each other to be first to the food....amazing.
Nijvis produces eels for the table but also produces 4 million juveniles for re-stocking. He grows on the juveniles from captured elvers but aims to have a zero impact i.e from all the elvers that are imported onto his farm, those that are destined for re-stocking compensate for the total removal in that they have a much higher survival rate and hence contribute more to silver eel escapement.
A very impressive place with total re-circulation, closely monitored water quality through biofiltration, UV disinfection, solids filtration, 24 hr presence.
William has an intruiging theory, he believes that not all European Eels spawn in the Sargasso sea, his theory is that as soon as they reach the depths of the continental shelf they may spawn at more local regions. Evidence supporting this is cited in age determination of glass eels which William says can be 1-2 months old, impossible if they drifted over from the Sargasso. Intruiging theory.
I obtained a lot of invaluable information today that will help me eventually start my own eel re-stocking project back home in Wales.
Thanks to William and his team for giving up their valuable time
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