Friesland
 

We plan to spend 3 days in Friesland early May. We do not have any plans at this time which actually sounds good. We probably will try and visit the Princessehor Museum and maybe the Fries, both of which are in Leeuwarden. I have seen a couple of other towns mentioned as nice towns: Makkum, Hindelopen, Workum, Mirnser Klif and Harlingen. Are there any suggestions out there about where to stay for 3 nights (town and even name of accommodation if you have one. Also, if you have ideas of activities or things to see that is also appreciated. I'm hoping this is a nice area to bike some.

I now live in Harlingen. 't Heerenlogement is supposed to be good, Hotel Zeezicht and Hotel Anna Casparii also have good reputations I believe. There are several B&Bs too, and some unique (but expensive!) places like the lighthouse, harbour crane and lifeboat.

Oh this sounds very interesting.

Leeuwarden is European city of Culture in 2018 so there will be lot going on there.
You may also like the old planetarium in Franeker, just down the road from Harlingen: http://www.planetarium-friesland.nl/en/

Harlingen has a lovely old centre, with a large fleet of old Dutch sailing barges. It is also a fishing port and the ferries for Vlieland and Terschelling leave from here.

They are currently building a replica of Willem Barentz ship, and there is a good microbrewery too. The Tall Ships Race is coming in August.

New in 2018 is the Wadden center on the Afsluitdijk. https://www.theafsluitdijk.com/proje...rience-centre/
and the Kazemettern museum there is also worth a visit.

Makkum is a small village which won't take long to visit, but it is nice. Workum is also quite small, and is the most "Fries" of the the places you want to visit, and is where you are most likely to hear people speaking Fries.

Hetismij said it all. As it happens I’m in Friesland at the moment, at my mother’s. I believe in May the capital of culture programme in Leeuwarden has a performance/participation theatre thing about Jewish Leeuwarden. Should be interesting.

I also recommend Hotel Oostergo in Grouw. Near Leeuwarden and an interesting village. You could go boating for a day.

Visited Leeuwarden last September.
Even without the European city of Culture status it is well worth a visit.
http://www.leeuwardenholland.nl/en/

It totally is. And Leeuwarden is only one of the Frisian 11 cities. You could day a day's tour, @tidy, to visit a substantial number of them. All somewhat frozen in time, all with a flavor and style of their own. From provincial capital and former Royal Court Leeuwarden, to the tiny city of Sloten, with only 700 or so inhabitants.

https://www.friesland.nl/en/discover...s-and-villages

European City of Culture in Leeuwarden's case will spread to the entire province.

Also interesting is a drive from Leeuwarden to Sneek, along the old Hegedyk, to visit the very old villages along it: Boksum, Hilaard, Jorwerd (the latter to be able to have a coffee or lunch in its famous inn, Het Wapen van Baarderadeel. After a visit to Sneek, you can go back via Franeker, driving along the "old road" past Easterein - Wommels - Tzum. If you drive north past Franeker, almost at the Waddensea coast, there's a reconstruction of an early medieval sodhouse in Firdgum.

http://yebhettingamuseum.nl

It's part of the Terpenland trail, which combines 4 major archeological sites in the north of Friesland

https://www.facebook.com/Terpenland/

Is the local language in Friesland much different from Dutch spoken elsewhere? Curious.

Frisian today is the language most closely related to English, but of course it's been heavily influenced by Dutch. Dutch and Frisian come from two different Germanic language streams. Dutch is in the Low Germanic stream, while Frisian is (together with English) in the North Germanic stream, via Anglo-Frisian, from which both Old English and Frisian developed. It's a joke with some truth in it to say that if William the Conqueror hadn't won at Hastings, modern English would have been a lot like Frisian.

To a Frisian person speaking Frisian, Dutch is perfectly intelligible. The reverse is not true, and Frisian speakers will be subtitled on TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbeHUcSc4PI

[the language in the video is standard Frisian]

As a native English speaker I can understand a lot of spoken Fries, but struggle with reading it.
In the past (40 odd years ago) I had a conversation with a person where he spoke only Fries, and I spoke only English and we understood each other well enough to complete the complicated transaction to everyone's satisfaction. I still have the wicker rocking chair he made for my son.

I was in Norway, a few years ago, with a bus full of old Frisians, who spoke Frisian almost exclusively. They could make themselves understood to Norwegians pretty well, although the Norwegians thought they came from some obscure valley, with a weird Norwegian dialect.

Knew a guy who came from Ameland, and spoke the micro dialect of the village of Hollum (a more archaic kind of Frisian than on the mainland): no problems speaking the language in Norway: people understood him quite well. And when I started learning Norwegian a couple of years ago, I quickly found out that if I didn't know a word, I could say it in Frisian, and usually it would come across. Scottish Lowlands dialects also sound a lot like Frisian.

this will be so interesting.

I hope the better part of 3 days will be enough in this area. I could give up a day in Texel. As of now I have 3 nights in each.

No worries. You'll be able to get a good look at almost the entire province, if for instance you do the Eleven Cities Trail by car.

For instance: https://motorroutes.net/routes/elfstedentocht-2016/

Unless into walking 3 days in Texel doth seem a little much.

PalenQ, it isn't.

I will not arrive in Texel until the afternoon of the 1st day so will only have 2 full days and on the 3rd day we plan to leave early.