February 27, 2014

The white bikes of the Hoge Veluwe, 40 years of loyal service

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 11:49 am

white-bikes

On 27 April the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo, Gelderland will be celebrating 40 years of free-to-use white bikes for visitors, originally suggested by members of the mid-1960s Provos, a Dutch anti-establishment cultural movement whose co-founder passed away in 2009.

The Hoge Veluwe, a three Michelin star tourist attraction and the biggest nature reserve of the country, features 5,400 hectares of green and forest. When cycling through it on your white bike, you may catch a glimpse of animals like deers to rabbits. Also on the grounds of the park is the world-famous Kröller-Müller museum, featuring works by Van Gogh and Picasso indoors and with sculptures and paintings outdoors – a great place to spend the day. There’s also a nature discovery museum for kids and of course, white bikes for kids and even for parents with small children.

At the celebration, five of the white bikes will be painted by artists and auctioned off, and there will also be a photo competition, the winners of which will have their pictures enlarged and placed around the park.

(Link: , Photo of White bikes, Hoge Veluwe by 123_456, some rights reserved)

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March 1, 2009

Robert Jasper Grootveld, co-founder Provo movement dies

Filed under: Art,General,History by Branko Collin @ 10:54 am

On Saturday evenings their parents were watching the TV with their left eyes, and the cars in front of the houses with their right, seated on refrigerators and washing machines, with mixers in the one hand and copies of De Telegraaf in the other, and the children went to the Spui. […] When the electrical clock on the Lutheran church indicated it was midnight, the high priest appeared from an alley in full regalia, sometimes with painted face, sometimes masked, and started to walk magical circles around the nicotinian demon, his disciples clapping and singing the Cough Cough song all the while.

Thus describes Harry Mulisch in his book Report to the Rat King the happenings of self-proclaimed ‘anti-smoke mage’ Robert Jasper Grootveld who died last week at age 76.

I’ll just say it: Grootveld was instrumental in harnessing the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and helping decide its course, and as a result the course of the Netherlands. BN/De Stem calls him (Dutch): “the man who put Amsterdam on the map,” and Marijuana Library holds the Provo movement responsible for the Netherlands’ current drug laws.

(more…)

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