Wed. 7/19/00

Having decided to get into York early today, Bruce woke up at 4:30 and waited until 5:00 to get me up - ugh, I was not ready to wake up. We were into the city by 7:30, having scoped out a laundromat to wash our sleeping bags later on in the day. First on our agenda was walking the city walls. This is about a 3 mile circuit and very much fun. The city has grown beyond the walls and we got to look into a lot of backyards of homes backed up to the walls. Lots of gardens, and not just vegetable either! We crossed the two rivers, the Fosse and the Ouse, at whose junction York is situated. We walked past Clifford's Tower, a structure dating from the days of the Norman conquest and site of a Jewish mass suicide in 1190. Upon completion of the circuit, I went to the internet cafe, a pleasurable experience with the latest equipment (spell F-A-S-T), while Bruce went to wash the sleeping bags. We met back in a little over an hour and began our second quest, finding sheets and a seamstress to sew a sleeping bag insert for us. That accomplished, we decided to do the Jarvik Viking Experience, a "Ride" that recreates the Viking village at Coppergate that existed in 984 AD. They know about this through an archeological dig that uncovered thousands of artifacts depicting pretty completely the village as it existed then. They have recreated the village with sample sights, smells and sounds and have done a pretty impressive job of it. For those of us used to Disneyland spectaculars, it is a little flat, but that is just because Disney has spoiled us for anything else. I thought the real neat part was the display on how the archeologists put the artifacts they dug up together to create the whole era. By this time, it was 2:00 and we had to pick up the sleeping sheets from the seamstress. We did, knocked around the city a bit more and decided we were tired, let's go home. So we did, and I did some serious housecleaning while Bruce washed clothes with his "Maytag". Once more we had steak, plus chicken thighs, cauliflower and salad for dinner. The weather is still summery and we are enjoying it for all it is worth, having been told it will not last. I have been razzed by friends about the dates and the history I am using in the diary, I need to say that I am just SO impressed by the length of time civilization has been going on over here, and the way I share it is by telling about how such and such happened in such and such year. Gads, in California, a house is old if it is 75 years, I tell people that over here and they fall over...they regularly live in houses 150 years old and older! These are just regular old homes, not historical monuments or preservation homes like in Charleston NC or something. In the states, our history is stretching it at 500 years, we have seen buildings and trees that were 300 years older than US history, and monuments 3 and 4000 years older! And that is why I am relaying all this stuff, not only for you all, but for me so I can remember it too. Our next stop is Nottingham and Sherwood Forest, then it's off to Norwich to deliver a gnome, and Harwich to ferry to Holland. You may not hear from us until well into next week after we arrive in Holland.  Until then...Cheers!!

8/1/00 Utrecht

An interesting thing has happened to us. Our last posting, on leaving England, was sent out in Colchester, England. When we hooked up into Hot Mail, for the first time since we left we received no letters from friends. We had about 20 spam messages but nothing from anyone we knew. Here we are, the intrepid travelers, off on a year-long jaunt across the European continent, and we felt that our umbilical cord had been severed. We were devastated. It was a real eye-opener to us that, as much as we think of ourselves as independent and footloose, we are still tightly tied to everyone at home. We thought, "well, out-of-sight, out-of-mind - took everyone about 3 months to forget us". That was where the "anyone out there?" question at the top of the last diary came from. When we arrived in Utrecht, even though we had no diary yet to post, we found an internet cafe and hooked up. Thank heavens we had several notes from you all back home and we really, really thank you for it. We don't like that feeling of being cut loose at all.Isn't the internet a remarkable thing - 5 years ago this sort of correspondence would not have been possible, now, so many people are connected that I, in "Somewhere, Europe" can all but instantly share with you what we are experiencing, and you can easily share news from home with us. Our ferry trip from Harwich, England to Hook of Holland was on the fast ferry and took only 3-1/2 hours V the 10 hours the regular speed ferry uses. Departure time was 7:30 PM and we landed at 11:30 PM (Holland gains an hour on England). We had to remember which side of the road to drive on, which was amazing, and in keeping with a previous decision, we headed for the nearest parking lot, which was still on ferry company property, to camp for the night. Our night was uneventful and the next morning, in our search for toilets, we (typically) found a spot right on the beach perhaps 1/2 mile down the road where we could have freecamped in lovely and restful surroundings. Oh well (and we didn't find the WC's either). We are spending our 3 month anniversary in Utrecht, where we started out. It is amazing to see how seasoned we have become since we were last here. Queenie is outfitted, we have a good idea of how the whole lifestyle works, we are confident, no longer the green travlers we were. It is something! We now have campgrounds to compare this one to, and guess what, this one is a DUMP! Filthy toilet block, the managers should be fired for neglect. We returned to Utrecht for our end-of-warranty checkup for Queenie plus a tune-up from the mechanic who originally spruced her up. She checked out fine; got an oil change, new spark plugs and they fixed some little things that needed to be dealt with, radio is finally working, a cabinet door latch had broken, we had a reading light put in for Bruce's bedside, etc. Queenie is spruced up now!About 1/2 hour after we got into the campground, a VW campervan with Netherlands plates pulled in right next to us. It turns out they are Canadians (from Victoria Island) who are just finishing up their year-long tour and are selling their van back to Donna (whom we bought from)! THEN, about an hour later, another VW camper van rolls in and, lo and behold, they had just picked up THEIR campervan that day, starting out on their trip!! Talk about a small, small world! The new guys are so green, have no supplies, just like us 3 months ago. They are a good yardstick as to how far we have come. We took them with us to the grocery store (and made sure they bought toilet paper!!) so they could buy something to eat. We have been giving them survival tips. But from the couple who are finishing up, the McNeils, we are pumping information as fast as we can get them to spill the beans. They have been to 22 countries in 12 months, on a wine country tour theme and have seen so much, we are now really anxious to get going on our continental quest. It is good to talk to someone else who is doing JUST what we are doing (minus the wine) and be reassured we can enjoy it as much as we hoped. (Plus, we are getting first dibs on their camping castoffs since they are done.)I am in an interesting contrast to my youthful trip of 30 years ago. Then, I landed in England and didn't much care because they spoke English and I was anxious to try my hand at communicating with the Europeans. This trip I found myself apprehensive about communication abilities and we reversed course to England where we could talk with people with little troubles and lots of amusing dialect differences. England was good for us by helping us adjust to our major lifestyle change with the most minimal culture shock. Now we are both much more comfortable with tackling the continent and working together. The McNeils, who speak no foreign language, have, through their successful trip, reassured us that we too will have fun. I am continuously impressed by the people we are meeting on this journey. Everyone has a story that is interesting aside from their traveling stories. We hope to continue communications with them all in the future.  Tomorrow (Monday) we are driving the McNeils to Amsterdam airport, after they drop off "Big O", their van, at Donna's and we will set up camp again at Gaaspar campground to finish our visit to the city. We need to see the Rjyksmuseum, Vondel park and hit that flea market once again! We plan to give Amsterdam 2 more days then off towards Germany. Tonight we six Turner Travelers are having a joint BBQ to celebrate trips beginning, continuing and ending, it should be a wonderful evening. This will be posted in Amsterdam, until next time, ciao!

8/2/00 Amsterdam
Dropped off Robin and Alimay at the Amsterdam airport on Monday morning and continued on to Gaasparplaz campground, where we originally stayed on our first visit to Amsterdam. I remember thinking it was run as if by the Gestapo, but this time I welcomed that well-run, clean, "Achtung" feel after the Utrecht campground. We set up camp, went grocery shopping and then sloughed off the rest of the day. In Utrecht, we had purchased an outdoor bed - remember the "banana lounge chairs?", this has that frame but a thin mattress is used instead of tubing for the bed. Very comfortable. Bruce laid down on that to read and in 5 minutes was napping. I followed suit shortly thereafter. It was a WARM, SUNNY day and we enjoyed it. For dinner we BBQ'd (on our new hand-me-down gas BBQ) a couple of different kinds of Bratworst sausages with Wijnzuurikool, which is the Dutch name for European saurkraut (and much less sour than American-style). It was a preview of what we hope to eat in Germany. We also had a salad and cauliflower with cheese sauce (which I am not very good a making - can't get the cheese to melt in with milk very well). Went to the Ryksmuseum on Tuesday. The starring exhibit was called "The Glory of the Golden Age: Dutch Art of the 17th Century" The collection included paintings, sculpture and decorative art. There were 200 pieces in the exhibit and they were excellent. There were several Rembrandts who, having lived here, is claimed by the city as it's own. The "Nightwatch," his mammoth group painting that is so famous, is here, as well as works by Frans Hal, Jan Steen and artists I don't know. Then we just wandered the museum for another hour or two checking out the treasures. There were a couple of fantastic doll houses, owned by wealthy women, not children, that were completely furnished down to Delft china, silver tableware, miniature paintings and all manner of furnishings representative of homes in the 17th & 18th centuries. One of the reasons we came back to Amsterdam was to see this museum and I am glad we made sure to go.We were searching for sandals for Bruce - our feet get too hot in tennies and our flip-flops are too floppy. I got my Clark Mary Mag's and Bruce was looking for an Ecco brand of sandal. We wandered around town looking for shoe stores - last time we were here we couldn't believe how many shoe stores were in Holland, now that we are in the market, we couldn't find any!  We did come across the Flea Market again though and found a couple of pearls we couldn't live without. We went shopping again on Wednesday and scored big time. Found Bruce's shoes at the Ecco shoe store and we also found our toaster oven!!!! We decided a while back that a toaster oven would expand our cooking opportunities by leaps and bounds and so we have been looking out for one since. Finally it showed up in Amsterdam. Now we can cook stuffed bell peppers or a meat loaf, or bake a little cake. We also found a decent skillet - our first one was a cheapo and was really scratched up in the 3 months we had it. We decided we needed to invest a little more money in one and probably just bring it home. So, maybe now we are finally setup for the year. Hope so, Queenie is getting pretty stuffed right now! And so, we spent our second trip to Amsterdam seeing the Museum, shopping, walking the streets and refreshing ourselves with a city that is just plain fun. Our last dinner in Amsterdam was vegetarian - we finally tried a new veggie and had a European version of an old favorite. While at a grocery store in England, a woman buying leeks was in line with us and she told to slice and saute them in butter with garlic. Last night we tried that and I think I have discovered a new veggie to put on our favorites list. We also cooked up an artichoke - the edible portion was twice as big as Californian ones and had a milder flavor. We topped those two dishes with salad (we eat a lot of good salads), cauliflower, and a French-onion-soup-flavored bread (which we warmed in our new mini-oven). I swear!...it has sliced onions, tomatoes and some sort of cheese all baked together and tastes like French onion soup! Delicious!

On advise from Jackie P., a friend in Oroville, we decided to take a side trip to Giethoorn, a small canal-side town in mid-Holland. We took a very circuituous route, north of Amsterdam to Alkmaar, of cheese market fame, and further north along the 30KM long Afsluitdijk, a dyke that blocked off the north sea and turned the Zuiderzee (south sea) into a gigantic lake called Ijsselmeer.(Why the Dutch wanted to close off the Zuiderzee is a mystery to me, and if anyone knows and would share it with me, I would appreciate it.) Our route was circular and we followed the A7 to Sneek, in the Dutch state of Friesland, then the A32 to Giethoorn (actually on smaller roads, but they paralleled the A32.) The route is flat, as is most of the Netherlands, with so many waterways it is a boater's heaven! Being a Californian, I am not used to a lot of rain, but if I had to live where rain was frequent, Holland would be my choice
(she says now that it is summer and fairly dry), I could ride bikes in the summer, stay in shape and save on gasoline, and we could make as much use of our boat as we could possibly want using the canal systems. And the scenery is wonderful. Giethoorn seems to be a town who's existence depends on the lengthy canal that it spills up against. And abundance of upscale thatched-roof homes and businesses give it a quaint and prosperous look and the quantity of boats in the main canal and the tributaries complete the . Without a doubt, boats outnumber cars in that town. Smaller craft are rent-able, there are many tour boats just waiting to take tourists on canal trips, and then there are all the beautiful, privately-owned boats (yachts) that cruise the canal or park alongside to watch the tourists watching them. Finally we got to see how the bridges we saw all around Amsterdam work (the webpage shows the "little bridge" which is one). The roof of the bridge works as a counter-weight to the road part and they both move, becoming parallel to each other. In fact, along our route south towards Apeldoorn, we saw many bridges opening and closing, letting boats by. Giethoorn and our route to and from it was really a great side trip. Our original destination upon leaving Amsterdam was The Hoge Veluwe National Park, possibly 1-1/2 hours east of Amsterdam where we can bike ride to explore the park and see what is purported to be an excellent museum. That is still our destination but we camped Monday night in a small, Dutch campground outside of Ede, another town that just begs to be admired. The homes in the vicinity are gorgeous with every third one thatched, and of course, we crossed more waterways with all manners of boats. We oohed and aahed repeatedly as we drove around. Somehow, Holland satisfies something in me that I never even knew existed until I got here. Maybe it is no more than the relaxed, friendly attitude the Dutch have, maybe it is the land itself or maybe it is that this was our first country to experience, but there is something about Holland that I like. I know, it's the cheese!!! Which brings us back around to Alkmaar, the cheese market town. About an hour north of Amsterdam is the town known for it's huge cheese market. Every Friday, in the market square, hundreds and hundreds of BIG rounds of cheese are graded and auctioned off to buyers from all over. The purchased rounds are stacked on wooden gurneys which are carried off the market grounds by men to a warehouse for delivery. It is really a show; the quantity of cheeses, the purchasing and most of all the carting away of the purchased cheese. It is also very difficult to see because the crowds are massive. But we did happen to be traveling in the right direction on the right day and made a point of going there. We came, we took photos, we bought a couple of small rounds, we left! Tomorrow we continue towards the Hoge Veluwe.

Saturday, 8/5/00

The campground we stayed in last night was really Dutch - hardly anyone spoke English (or confessed to it!), but all were really curious about us. We were watched all evening as we set up camp, made dinner, washed dishes, etc. I think they may have been wondering how we got to that campground - it wasn't on the beaten track so no other "foreigners" were there. Most of the time, when we are on the road, we pick our campgrounds by seeing a camping sign, deciding we don't want to travel any further, and pulling in. There are an unbelievable number of campgrounds around so far so we don't have to use our campground location books often. We got up, packed up and continued on our way to the Hoge Veluwe National Park, only about 35 miles away. However, in that 35 miles we had a large altercation, I (Peg) as navigator was directing us through a town with a ring road and several opportunities to take the wrong road, which I did, and the driver (Bruce) got a little upset. A spirited argument insued with the upshot being we switched roles after Bruce got us back on track. In that process we passed a private airport in time to stop and watch 2 groups of about 9 parachuters float down to the ground in their brightly colored parafoil chutes. Very interesting! With Bruce navigating (and doing so much better than I) and me driving, we finally got to the National Park, completing our loop that began yesterday in Amsterdam. This park is the largest in Holland, 5,500 hectares (bigger than an acre) once owned by the wealthy Kroller-Muller family and donated to the country early in the 20th century. The park provides 1000 free bicycles to use to explore the grounds, with bike and walking trails everywhere. It is awesome. The park also houses the Kroller-Muller Museum, a fantastic art museum with 278 Van Goghs (to start) and Picassos, Seurats, several impressionists and the largest sculpture garden in Europe. The sculpture garden housed many different types of sculptures from abstract to classical to interactive all in a great outdoor setting. We really enjoyed these. We got to take photos of the paintings in this museum and shot up a couple of disks. After our museum visit, it was getting late and we pretty much needed to get back on the road to find a campground, so we completed the drive through the park and headed towards Arnhem, on the outskirts of the parklands. South of Arnhem we found our spot, another "locals" campground, and stopped for the night. We made tacos for dinner and were in bed before it was dark, being pretty pooped out from our full day.

Sunday 8/6/00

We drove most of the day heading south past Masstricht, the oldest city in the Netherlands, on our way to Belgium. We are taking lesser roads so we can see more of the countryside as we drive but it takes longer to get from point A to B and tends to be more tiring. I am still driving and Bruce got us lost, so now I hope he has more patience with me when it is my turn to navigate again! Always it is interesting, but I think we forgot that maxim about there being no wrong turns - we need to re-learn that.We reached the Ardennes mountains in Belgium and Queenie learned about mountain driving, slowwwww, second gear worked well several times. I am looking for "Hansel and Gretel" forests, where the trees are so great they block the sun and you feel if you closed your eyes and turned around 4 times you could loose your way - the Belgian Ardennes are not it, they say the Black Forest is, does anyone know where in Europe I can find that? Our stopping spot was Bastogne where the Battle of the Bulge was fought in WWII. We had no Belgian Francs and searched out a bank only to learn that OUR bank computer evidently was down for the day, leaving us with no access to local currency. Lovely. We knew the campground we wanted, but had lots of trouble getting to it and once we did, the managers didn't speak English; we spoke only enough French to barely get our idea across (can we camp for a night with no money??? - Oui.) We set up camp, collapsed on our bed to unwind and immediately fell asleep for 3 hours!! Woke up at 7:30 pm cooked tortellinis and salad, this time went to bed and read for a while then slept for the rest of the night, no problem.

Monday, 8/7/00

We slept in, can you believe that after all the sleeping we did yesterday? When we got up, we took wonderful, excellent pressure showers (hot water included in camp cost) and, after asking if we could stay a second night (oui), headed for the bank so we could pay these patient people! The bank decided to give us money and we were now ready to explore the town. Bastogne is a crossroads to 8 different destinations and in WWII was a strategic location. In December 1944 it became a military target for the Germans, hoping to dislodge the American 101st Airborne (Screamin' Eagles) from the town. They failed, but only after a lot of devastation. There are a lot of tributes to the battle, with tanks (Patton's) and tank tops in different sections of the town. Aside from the military history aspect, Bastogne is an attractive town - I suspect they had to rebuild great sections of it - with the grand square (where lots of military action took place) in the center as a focal point. We walked around for a while, looking at memorials to the war, (tomorrow we will go to the American Memorial as we leave town) then walked back to Queenie where we had some housekeeping chores to do that we had been putting off. Dinner is a repeat of our bratworst/saurkraut/cauliflower dinner of a few nights ago. Easy Day.

Tuesday, 8/8/00

Well, we seem to be having a little trouble finding an internet cafe to upload this section of the diary, although I must say, we have been in areas we were not expecting to find them. So I will just keep plugging along and send when I can. It began raining in Bastogne in the morning and just as well, we were planning to leave anyway. We made for the American Historical Museum, couple of km out of town. There is a large star shaped building housing the museum and a star shaped monument outside that probably names the soldiers involved in the Battle of the Bulge. At any rate, the museum was closed, it was Tuesday and that may be why, although as we traveled through the day, we found many business establishments closed too. One of the disadvantages to speaking no foreign tongues is we can't read the newspapers, so if this was a holiday or something, we will never know. On the other hand, ignorance is bliss! Since the museum was closed, we decided just to head on for Clervaux in Luxembourg, the start of our scenic trail through the Ardenennes. But first we saw a directional sign to the "Peace Woods" and decided to check it out.It was a planted woods that was created in the design of the UNICEF logo (a mother holding her child) and this logo could be seem from the air. It was a joint effort of the children of Bastogne and other towns in Germany, Italy and Poland to promote understanding so that the atrocities of WWII would never happen again. A noble effort and I left my donation to peace on site. Clervaux is one the villages along the Ardennes Eifel (which I suspect means trail or road or the equivalent of Scenic Route) and is know for it's Abbey and medieval castle. It grew in a clef of the mountains and is pretty neat to see. You know, I keep talking about these sque villages we see and I to sound redundant, but damn, they really are sque and I can't not mention them just because I use the same adjective! We are getting to see the different architectural styles of the countries we are visiting and they are different from one another. But still, they are attractive to see.We passed several little towns nestled in the forest on our route to Vianden, a 9th century village with a incredible chateau perched above the town which you could view from a chair-lift ride (or from the road as you entered to village). Here we stopped for money and gas which is supposed to be cheapest in Europe, and was cheaper than we had seen it anywhere else (but we are still talking $3.75-$4/gal). This drive was really scenic, through forested mountains, into small valleys, past rivers and villages until we finally made our way to Luxembourg City early in the afternoon. Using our camp book, we chose a campground 5 km to the west of the city in the suburb (read village) of Mamer. It is quite a peaceful setting with a flowing creek gurgling merrily behind us and a viaduct containing the freeway 200 feet above us and a football field away. Honestly, the freeway doesn't affect us at all.We walked down a path through the woods, (looking for Hansel and Gretel - oops, wrong country) but instead found Luxembourg's largest shopping mall, where we picked up a couple of food items we needed. Two hours later we returned home to a campground quickly filling up with a whole lot of Dutch campers. We are trying to decide if they are a touring group or just
coincidentally stopping at the same spot. It is 6:30 PM, I am typing this with a glass of wine on the counter and I just want to say, I cannot envision a more enjoyable lifestyle and surely wish all of you the opportunity to see your dreams, whatever they may be, come true. Even when it is raining - which is becoming less and less often - we count our blessings that we have been granted this opportunity to experience this whole trip. I don't know how this journey will end up but I know we would have been fools not to begin it. Tomorrow we visit Luxembourg City and hopefully will post this

8/9/00 Wed. Luxembourg

Well, I am really an idiot. After finally tracking down an internet cafe yesterday, I came to find out I had forgotten to bring the disk with this diary on it! I was so mad at myself (ever seen a grown woman throw a tantrum? - it is not pretty). So, I am going to just continue with the updating and eventually you will receive this massive missive! We walked to the bus station in Mamer, across from that mall I told you about, which took usto Luxembourg City, about a 20 minute drive. The city's history begins in 987 or so, when Count Seigfrid built a fortress on a rock promontory, called the Bock, at a loop in the Alzette river and between two valleys. That was expanded over the centuries into a defensive position, with the city growing up around it, that was unconquerable until, in the 1870's, according to some peace treaty, the castle/fortress was destroyed. Ok, so that is sort of the history. Now we have the views. Somehow, this city is built along both sides of the very narrow, very beautiful, Petrusse Valley. Looking down from a viewing point at Constitution Square, you see a gorgeous park-like setting with a teeny tiny river flowing through it. (I am talking stream here, with a concrete path for a river bed - go figure) A couple of beautiful bridges span the valley and you just can't get enough of the view! The whole Old Town is walkable, in fact should be walked, with different areas from which to view the two valleys and river. There is an old church, St. Michael's, built in 987, the Ducal Palace, 1600-1800's, a cathedral of same period and several squares spotlighting buskers, flower and food markets and many outdoor cafes. The streets are cobblestoned and narrow and easy walking. All in all, a quite attractive city that I suspect is overlooked by tourists on vacation. (Don't get me wrong, there were tourists here, but not overwhelming like in other major cities). Luxembourg City location was a strategic area and had a lot of fortifications in it's past. The Casements, caves dug out of the cliffs (remember this is a river valley), were massive enough to house 35,000 citizens as a shelter for WWII! They covered 23 kilometers of area underground, and are now open to the public. Quite the undertaking, cutting out all those tunnels.We enjoyed our day here, and once again, I can recommend this city to anyone preparing to travel in Europe and wondering where to go. Ah, just take a year off and go everywhere!!! Tomorrow is the Moselle River Valley and probably Germany.