About

aaardsezaken – Earthly Affairs – is the name Annemarie Aardewerk uses to present her cultural journeys.

Annemarie Aardewerk has, literally, a world of experience as organizer and guide of cultural, arts and garden travels. In her tours she aims at keeping a balance in programme content, comfort, and relaxation. The journeys she offers are diverse and of outstanding quality — not just the beaten tracks and ‘highlights’, but they also include surprising extras and hidden treasures which contribute to the pleasures and the multitude of impressions for the traveller.

For twenty-five years Annemarie has been organizing and guiding unique journeys. Initially, these travels were mainly garden tours, with the rich culture of English gardens as the focus. Historical as well as modern gardens, country estates and mansions were included, and often the owner, designer, or head gardener welcomed the visitors and showed them round, or offered a ‘private viewing’.

The tours went to various English counties and also to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. These journeys offered many special encounters, such as with: Christopher Lloyd and Fergus Garrett (Great Dixter), Penelope Hobhouse, Mary Keen, Lord Carrington (The Manor House, Bledlow), Tim Smith (Lost gardens of Heligan / Eden Project), Beth Chatto (The Beth Chatto Gardens), Rosemary Verey (Barnsley House), Sandra and Nori Pope (Hadspen House) and Sir Roy Strong.

In France Annemarie guided ‘green journeys’ to Paris (gardens and parks), Normandy and to the Loire region. Annemarie’s popular garden trips gradually developed into broader cultural travels in which the history of landscaping, architecture and art were included in the programme. Often Annemarie organizes special excursions or receptions, collaborating with the journalists Peter Brusse, Bram Vermeulen and Ellis van Gelder, the author and actor Ramsey Nasr, the geologist Salomon Kroonenberg and rabbi Tamarah Benima.

And together with art historian Leo Delfgaauw she regularly accompanies art and cultural journeys. Local guides with special knowledge often enhance the contents of the programme.

For the Dutch travel organization Voyage & Culture and The Dutch Institute for International Excursions (Instituut Voor Internationale Excursies IVIE) she developed and/or guided many cultural journeys to places and countries such as Istanbul, the Baltics, Paris, Berlin, Denmark, Iceland and South Africa.

She also contributed to cruises to the Mediterranean and North Africa, the Black Sea and the Crimean, the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia, Russia and to Iceland and Greenland.

For Friendship Cruises Annemarie has been guiding river cruises on the river Seine in France and on the river Danube through the Balkans. Many of these tours are accompanied by specialists who give talks on their subjects and thus provide the travellers with in-depth knowledge.

For Dutch tour operator Asgard Reizen she has been developing garden and cultural journeys to countries such  England, Scotland, and Georgia. Sometimes these are citytrips. to places such as Paris.

For Dutch tour operator Pied à Terre she accompanies the NRC University trip to CERN, Geneva, together with  Prof. Dr. Sijbrand de Jong.

Annemarie also creates ‘tailor made journeys’: programmes for a select group of people with a specific interest. For the Dutch Study Centre for Judaism (Studiecentrum  voor Jodendom)  she organized journeys to Morocco, to Istanbul and Odessa. And for various newspapers and magazines she organized trips for their readers: for NRC Handelsblad, de Volkskrant, Trouw and Dagblad van het Noorden.

On her website you will find further information on the travel programmes and links to the travel agencies concerned. Under beeldlog you will find photographic impressions, shot by Annemarie Aardewerk during recent journeys.