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The Milavsky RV Letters
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Camping Europe in an RV |
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# 2 -- Enkhuiven, Tilburg,
Aachen and more . . . July 22-July 25, 2005 Hello again! The museum was both an open air and an inside museum. The outside part consisted of buildings from three very pretty typical Zeeland towns – each with slightly different architectural styles. Some were from the 18th century, others from the early 20th. The “residents” were dressed in the clothes suitable for their time and class and spoke only of matters true to their “residence”. Everyone did speak English, of course, but those who were of earlier periods wouldn’t admit to it. A lady in an 18th century house asked me (in Dutch) where I came from. When I said “America” she seemed very impressed at how far we had come. They also had a great collection of beautiful Dutch round-stern-and-bow sailboats with leeboards (huge boards that are let down into the water to provide stability when the boat sails). The harbor was full of huge boats of this style, as well as a huge marina filled with all kinds of sailboats. Going back to the museum entrance by ferry proved to be a lovely boat ride. An inside ride, because it is cold and rainy in Holland. This morning it was in the 50’s and it didn’t warm up much. I was wearing a wool sweater and Ron had on a sweatshirt. By evening, I was cold in just a sweater and a shirt! Not much like Florida weather – or Connecticut either, for that matter. The drive to the local campground was another one of the very long scenic variety again. “Taking the scenic route is what our RV’ing Scottish friends call getting lost. We were unsuccessful in finding the campground until the fourth try! The next morning we headed south again, past Amsterdam, to visit friends in the city of Tilburg. If you look at a map of the Netherlands, there is a part of it that sticks out into the North Sea that looks like a person’s thumb with a wart on the padded part of the thumb. Enkhuizen is on that wart. It is pretty far up in the northern part of the peninsula. Tilburg is pretty far south, almost on the Belgium border. The drive there took about two and a half hours, and covered a distance of 110 miles. The Dolphin with its 4 cylinder engine can hit as much as 55 going down hills with the wind behind us. But there aren’t many hills in Holland and those that are there are mostly up because a lot of the country is below sea level. And even though there are good winds, they often are against us. So we toodle along at between 45 and 50, staying to the right with cars whizzing past pretty continuously. After checking into a campground we drove into Tilburg for our visit. We spent a lovely afternoon with our friends and were served a delicious dinner. Our host, who is known to some of you, is a very learned judge of beer, an excellent cook, and has yet another distinguished attribute. He is an inexhaustible long-distance bicycle rider. He recently returned from a bicycle trip that started in the Austrian alps just south of Innsbruck and ended in Rome. He rode over the mountains rather than the less punishing route through the 14% grade of the Brenner Pass. (What would be the point of using the pass? he asked.) After that, he rode over the Dolomites and Appenines into Italy. He did it on a bike, and even the Brenner Pass is an incline too steep for our Dolphin motorhome! The next day we left for a campground in Vaal, The Netherlands, which is just outside the German city of Aachen. As those of you who have read our book know, we had no luck finding a campground in Aachen on our last trip. This time we do have better information, and the English Caravan Club book suggested the Vaal campground as the most convenient to Aachen. The drive from Tilburg via Eindhoven was about 110 miles in all. We arrived before noon. As we neared Germany the land got a little more hilly and forested than most of the Netherlands. Nice campground, as usual. Clean and well cared for. The bus stop was a bit far for us to walk – but we drove into town and found a perfect place to park the RV. It was very near the supermarket and only a few yards from the bus stop. The supermarket was a puzzle. We always go to supermarkets – and we’ve never been in one that had such ultra long displays of coffee. In fact, three types of items made up about half the inventory of that store: coffee, sweets—candy, cake and cookies--and cigarettes. We saw shoppers with twenty or more packages of coffee in their carts! Obviously, coffee, sweets and cigarettes are more expensive in Germany than in the Netherlands. This also led us to speculate about how much Germans drink coffee and eat candy. How much they smoke is immediately apparent wherever you go. The new form of German invasion uses Mercedes and money – they come and they buy! Aachen, like many other German cities, was almost completely destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII. Indeed, the fact that so many cities here were destroyed was one of the reasons that we were sort of reluctant to come here. Almost nothing of the old architecture remains and that does affect the feel of these cities. Most of what you see is from the 50’s and 60’s. But the Germans did rebuild a lot in the old style. The bus ride to Aachen took only about 15 minutes. We had a lovely day – shopping for groceries, joining the throngs walking around, having lunch at an outdoor café with totally gorgeous pastries (Yes, we did try them!). We visited the Cathedral – which has the largest, tallest stained glass windows we have ever seen– and the remaining remnants of Charlemagne and other Holy Roman Emperors. Charlemagne is as looming a figure in Europe as G.Washington is in the US and was associated with this Cathedral, as well as the nearby State House that we also visited. Then we took a bus “home”. Aacheners don’t seem too different from the Netherlanders. Perhaps the population is weighted a bit more toward whites than the population in Holland – but there are some black people and middle eastern as well as oriental faces in the crowds. And there were crowds. Everyone was out in the city – walking their dogs, pushing baby carriages, sitting in the cafes. The interesting thing is that we are much more at home with the language than we have any right to be, and we are feeling considerably more comfortable than we expected to feel. So far the people with whom we interacted were easy to be with. We went about our business, gawking at things, trying to figure out what things were and how things worked and asked people whenever we had difficulty. As in Holland, almost everyone we approached knew how to speak English. And everyone so far has been cooperative and helpful without being condescending. We both began to feel that coming here was no mistake and that we would enjoy our visit. We’ve had our problems of course. This time, they are all American problems. Verizon has decided it doesn’t like us. It won’t let us retrieve our e-mails via their internet server. My brand-new T-Mobile phone, purchased just for the purpose of being used in Europe, doesn’t work. The T-Mobile store in Aachen couldn’t fix it even though they tried very hard to and spent a great deal of time with us. But this too will pass – and so will we. Monday morning we drove to Cologne (Koln to the Germans), which is less than 70 miles from Aachen. We were about 12 kilometers from the city when we first spotted the spires of the Cologne’s Dom, It is supposed to be one of the largest in the world. And we found the campground readily. That is two days now that we did not have to “take the scenic route”. That is a comforting thought. Having pulled into the campground, we decided to make the day a housekeeping day. Did the laundry and relaxed – although we did have to move inside when the rains began. On Monday morning we walked from the campground to the bus. Both our campground books state without hesitation that the bus is only 500 meters from the campground. We do not believe that for a minute. It was a very long walk, but we did get to the bus and we got on. Unfortunately, we did not get off at the right stop. We were supposed to catch the tram into Koln quite soon after we got on the bus. Having missed it, we just waited. At the end of the line, Ron went to talk to the bus driver, and he told us (in German) where to go to get this same tram from where we were. So we did. As we sat there, talking to each other in our native tongue, the lady across from us suddenly smiled and we found that we had made a friend. She told us that the tram line runs from Bonn to Koln. We had nearly been in Bonn when we boarded! The rest of the trip was a pleasure and we got into the city just before noon. After checking our e-mail messages and eating lunch, we walked around the Dom. How can we explain about that cathedral? It’s very tall and it really does soar. But this Cathedral boasts yet another unique asset that may prompt some of you to decide to come to Cologne. Anyone who wants to get up close and personal with the bones of the Three Magi (of Christmas Eve fame), or as they are known here, The Three Kings, this is the place you can do that. A very large, prominently displayed gold reliquary is proclaimed to contain them. In addition, the church’s treasury is full of extremely beautiful and priceless artifacts. One of them on display there is a piece of very rich looking cloth above a sign that states that it dates from the second century and was found near the tomb of the three Magi. It was almost a religious experience. We now knew how to get back to the campground – but it was still a very long hike. And for the third day, it rained late in the day and most of the night. For those of you who are interested, the price of gasoline is lower in Germany—about 1.25 Euros per liter instead of 1.39 in Holland. And we have been paying between 14 and 18 Euros in camp fees per night. Next stop was even more complicated – but we didn’t get lost. In fact, we even figured out a better way to get to our campground in Frankfort by using our good new German map book! This campground is very clean and very convenient. The walk to the tram that takes you into the center of the city really does take less than 10 minutes. Maneuvering through the automated ticket machine though, did prove to be a difficult learning experience. We managed to figure it all out with the help of a young lady we met at the train station. We saw not one person who works for the public transportation system in the stations to help us. Everything except the driving of the trains and busses is automated. We were a little surprised to discover that English is not common among ordinary Frankfurters. And there are very few signs directing you to anything you might want to walk to. Frankfort has very few old things to look at. Like Aachen, it was pretty well destroyed during WWII. The food shops – and there are many of them - are filled with gorgeous displays. There is a bakery every second block it seems. Lots of shops sell ham and wurst, some of it made locally. We spent an interesting day and half – walking endlessly, visiting an indoor food market with all kinds of independent shops specializing in different foods, buying too much food, visiting the art museum, and enjoying the pastries, the gelato and today, a “smoothie”. Ron had to have a frankfurter in Frankfurt (but here they call them weiners) for lunch today. Very spicy. I ordered a Schnitzle Brodje – a sandwich of thinly sliced fried chicken. I figured that they wouldn’t give me much for my 2euros 50. Was I wrong. I could only eat half of it! Tomorrow we will use the trams and trains to go to Mainz and visit the Guttenburg Museum. The next morning we’ll be off on a longish trip. We’re going to Leipzig and Berlin, which are about 300 miles from where we are now. I can hardly believe that we are going to have to drive so far. In fact, I made Ron promise that we could do the trip in two days. I’m not used to such a long trip in the RV! So, more later. Ron and Adelle |
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© Adelle and Ron Milavsky, 2005 |
