Europe 2018: North Netherlands, Germany

April 8:

Dropped Jeremy at the airport as planned. It is nice to have the opportunity to visit with him more than once a year with the kids in Amsterdam. From the airport we drove a little northward of Amsterdam to a town called Zaanse Schans, a relocated historical Netherlands village. As expected, it was somewhat of a tourist trap, and on this warm sunny Sunday there were thousands of tourists to trap in the tiny village. That said, we thoroughly enjoyed it, and managed to spend almost nothing. The parking was 10 Euro, so we parked outside and rode in. There was a 15 Euro each entrance fee to the museum and some of the craft workshops, but the village itself was absolutely free to wander, and many of the “museum” shops were free because they were selling their wares, such as the cheese makers and bakery.

There were windmills to view… different from Kinderdijk as these ones were operating grinding mills and lumber mills, rather than pumping water. There was no wind, so they were not working, which saved us more Euros because there was little point in going in and seeing nothing working.

We crossed over the bridge to the actual town, and found it to be almost as charming as the fake one, but quieter.

At noonish we set off north eastward across the Afsluisdijk, which is the 30 kilometre dike closing of the Iselmeer, to Leeuwarden. We have been here before, to view the Ceramics museum, but today we discovered it as a vibrant little canal town with some very pretty little renaissance era streets and buildings. We ended up just roaming around, and will do the museum in the morning. The atmosphere in the cafes along the canal was just too much for us so we had to indulge in a beer and some nachos along the way.

We are camped out at a parking lot attached to a yacht harbour, which is a typical locale for the inexpensive “parkings” in Europe…. 12.20 Euro, but it has restrooms, water, grey water dump, and electricity if we wanted it.

April 9:

We were going to revisit the Keramiek Museum in the morning having enjoyed it in 2010, but realized it wouldn’t be open on a Monday. So we headed off to the northern coast of Friesland, the furthest north east province of Netherlands.

As we left Leeuwarden I was hearing a quick roaring sound every few minutes. I thought it was maybe the wind in our slightly open skylight, then thought it sounded like a big jet taking off, and was there an airport nearby?… but the sound was too brief for a passenger aircraft. As we got out into the countryside we noticed some banners along the roadside, and dozens of cars parked with their owners gawking at something, many with cameras. It looked like they were awaiting a parade or something, but on a Monday morning in the middle of the countryside?

So we parked and joined them, just staring at the sky with our camera ready… for what? I thought maybe some new fangled passenger airplane was going to make a visit or something.

So… I asked the guy next to us. It turned out to be a big NATO air forces exercise, and sure enough… ROAR!… a fighter jet takes off, then another and another.. maybe a dozen as we watched. That was the noise I’d been hearing earlier. Apparently this is an annual event and people come from miles away to watch them and take photos. The couple I was talking with had driven here 2 hours from Amsterdam. It was one of those things Europeans seem to take very seriously, like train spotting.

The countryside along the north of Friesland is beautiful… very flat with long vistas of grassy fields, with small towns huddled tightly every 2 or 3 kilometres as if to stave of the storms. At one point a road headed over toward the large grassy dike, so we took it… it turned out to be a ferry terminal, about the size of Langdale, with a ferry to the sandy little island of Ameland. We didn’t catch the ferry, as much as we love them, but had our lunch at a viewpoint along the quay with a good view of some of the ancient dike structures.

The farmsteads in this region are interesting… huge peaked roof barn structures with the farmhouse attached, all in one unit. And most of the farmhouses were proud and beautiful brick structures, with decorated windows and gables, looking like small manor houses… obviously farming has been a profitable enterprise in this region for a few centuries.

We crossed into Germany in mid afternoon, and are heading southward toward Munster before turning back toward Amsterdam later in the week. We are in the town of Meppen, in a parking lot of a swimming pool complex for the night. Just 8 Euro, and a nice chat with the guy who came to collect in the evening. He gave us a card to use the swimming pool facilities in the morning, then, as Pat was playing her guitar when he arrived, he gave us another card in exchange for her singing him a song!

April 10:

Moved on to Munster today via Melle. Why Melle? An automobile museum of course!

Again, we are taking it easy with driving this week, so have instructed Emily (our Garmin GPS voice) to stay off motorways so the whole day (2.5 hours of driving stretched over the day) was beautiful rolling countryside, small 2 lane tree lined highways, beautiful farmhouses and barns, quaint little towns… but trucks, trucks, trucks. It pays off with fuel mileage… this last fill up was the best yet… 7.7 litres per 100 kms… almost 35 mpg (imperial). The weather i truly springtime now, so warm we had windows open much of the way.

The auto museum was in an old furniture manufacturing building with art deco facade. It was quite a good collection, mostly European makes some of which I’d never heard of such as the Gaz vehicles. There were some great examples of rare vehicles such as Tatra, DKW, a tremendous Stanley Steamer, BMW models I’d never heard of, three 1901 to 1905 DeDions. and of course Mercedes, Porsche, Peugeot, Citroen and VWs through the ages… and a smattering of huge American behemoths. Even Pat enjoyed it!

We wound our way into some heavy traffic in the outskirts of Munster, and into a peaceful little free parking lot alongside a sportsplatz. So great to find such peaceful little spots with only a half dozen other campers, a ten minute bicycle into the old town, through mostly canal side parkland, and free! The only catch is lack of any facilities, so one must plan ahead vis a vis some necessities.

We did bicycle into town in the late afternoon… a delightful atmosphere with hundreds soaking up the sun in the parks and canal banks, bicycles almost to the point go rush hour. We had a quick look around the old town but will have a more careful look tomorrow.

Some of you may have read of a tragedy in Munster just last Saturday. A mentally ill man (not a terrorist) drove his van into a crowd at a popular restaurant in Munster. I knew of that but wasn’t thinking of it until we came across a crowd of people and a spray of candles and flowers in the small square outside the restaurants, which are still closed. A sobering reminder of the fragility of peace, though such things never dampen our travels through fear… accidents and violence can occur anywhere. European cities are many times safer than the equivalent US cities, and more bullets are flying in Greater Vancouver in a year than much of Europe.

April 11:

Walking tour of Munster all day. At least 5 churches from 12th to 15th centuries, and some beautiful old town hall and university buildings. Much of these were reconstructed after WW 2 devastation.

We decided to eat out tonight as a last chance for German dining, and found ourselves in the Pinkus Brauerie… not exactly a beer hall as such, but a very old dining hall in a full service traditional restaurant. We had a platter with various wursts, sauercraut and a nice traditional bean thingy, then back to the campground.

April 12:

Awoke to a big front end loader and a couple of dump trucks roaring around us for some kind of project alongside the parking lot. We weren’t actually in their way, but still a bit weird having them all milling around as we got dressed and had breakfast. I guess that is one drawback to a free camping spot.

The goal today was Apeldoorn. We had some inkling it was a good tourism spot. Well, not really. The first clue was difficulty finding the “parking”. It was near the middle of town, but was still a totally vacant parking lot alongside a huge modern but abandoned apartment complex. It cost 9 Euro for the overnight parking, but no facilities at all, not even a dump station. One other camper came along, but departed after looking around.

We rode into town to find the usual tourist information centre… found what should have been it on Google, but a couple of misleading signs finally got us to a little corner of the museum that had a few pamphlets, but no agent.

Poking around the town, we found mostly modernist shops and walking malls, a couple of 19th C churches, and that was about it. So, we decided to go to the “Palais Het Loo”, a 17th C palace built by some royal prince of the time, and more recently used by the Royal family in the late 19th and early 20th C. Hmmm…. it was closed for renovation! At least the main palace was closed. We were still able to tour the stable and vehicle museum, and the huge garden, ala Versailles. It was sort of worth the 10 Euro, but all in all Apeldoorn was a bust.

April 13:

We stuck to the small roads from Apeldoorn back to Amstelveen and the kids house. We did stop over in Amersfoort for morning coffee… much more quaint and interesting than Amersfoort. We may pay it another visit at a later time.

This afternoon is mostly preparation for our trip to England for the next 10 days, taking Nyah with us and visiting nephew Erik in Kingston upon Thames. As a bonus, his Dad, Pat’s brother Mark is visiting while we are there. Should be great fun. Stay tuned to this channel….

Watching the NATO jets: