Beautiful Belgium

Our last night in Luxembourg brought us a massive thunder and lightning storm, like we’d never seen or heard before.  The thunder seemed to swirl around the camp and was so loud and angry it shook Mildred.  It certainly woke us up at 12.15am and then came the lightening.  This was very scary stuff, the sort of lightening you see on TV but never real life, alarms went off in the camp and village.  We watched the storm from our upstairs bedroom windows.  It was scary stuff as we were parked under a very massive tree, but after a while I figured the church steeple next door was more likely to be hit and the bell ringer, whom we reckoned was paid by the dong, would have been fried first.

When we woke later that morning the camp was calm and clear.

We cruised off via Brussels to Ghent, Belgium for the night staying at the city camp site.  We arrived about 3pm and decided to cycle their estimated 2 km into the city that afternoon then move on the next day.  The bike ride was more like 4km and not quite as simple as they made out so we biked about 5km on the way in, it was lovely so it didn’t really matter.

We wandered the town, stopped at the essential Belgium Chocolate shop, purchasing a sample for our after dinner treat.  Then through all the historical places, before finally stopping for the famous Belgium fritkat (hot chips).  When we left this shop it started to rain, so we hightailed it home on our bikes getting soaked in the process.

Belgium chocolates are very rich, so we didn’t even make a big dent in the small box we purchased, but they were/are oh so yummy!

Today we headed for Ieper, where our GPS (Simon) told us there was a camp right in the city centre, he lied it was a car park where the big self contained motorhouses could park for one night.  However we drove through the British War memorial and the town centre before heading to nearby Kemel. It was humbling driving past all the war cemeteries.

Liking Luxembourg

On our way to Belgium we travelled through Westfaphia (there’s a surprise) and stumbled across this little town called Rees, so of course we had to stay there!  It was a quaint wee town along the Rhine.

From there we travelled to Belgium stopping at the tri-border and walking up the viewing pathform some 361 stairs.  Enabling us to view Germany, Holland and Belgium all at once.

(looking down from the top at Mildred)

From there we continued until just over the border of Luxembourg where we camped in a town called Troisvierges.

Next day we cruised the 90 km into Luxemburg and caught up with our washing and chores.

Today we biked the 10 km into the city centre, then browsed the city before going on the underground casement tour in the city’s ancient tunnels.  All up there was 23 km of tunnel we were allowed in 1km.  The tour included 450 stairs.  This is a world heritage site and still had one original cannon dating back to 1834.    The actual casement was built in 1644. 

After our tour we cruised the town and ended up at their equalivent of Oktoberfest, but to us more like a carnival, it opened today for the next few weeks.  I wanted Daryl to shoot and win a Smurf, but he chickened out and said there’s no room after all the gadgets I’ve purchased.

Oh, by the way Mildred got another gadget for her collection today; it will go finely with her toaster, Nobit and new cooker.

 Tomorrow we head back to Belgium.

Beautiful Bremen and the RTTS

Our friend, Ludwig, who lives in Bremen came to our camp on the Wednesday night and picked us up to go into the city to the riverside where numerous cafes and bars were.  We had a great catch up and coffee with his friend Jens at his café/bar before getting back to camp at midnight.

After a great sleep in, we biked into the city through a long park, it was beautiful.  Bremen reminds us of pre-quake Christchurch without the hills.  We parked up our bikes and walked through the centre square, then to view the Schnoor area, before checking out the Town Musicans.

We then walked to the Fiddle area to Jens bar for a drink and ended up meeting up with both Ludwig and Jens again.  Then to Bottcherstr. for a look at the buildings.

We loved Bremen and arrived back to camp at 7pm from our outing.

Friday seen us up early sorting Mildred out ready for a 10am departure to the Run to the Sun, VW event.  We cruised down the autobahn and seen lots of other dubs travelling the same direction.

The event was a very casual affair and very relaxed.  It was fantastic to see all the lovely vehicles parked up and we meet some extremely nice people.  We were treated like Kings.

Late in the afternoon we had the privilege of being interviewed by German Television.  Neither of us were very good at handling that!  But Peter, the cameraman was very nice and patient, shame he forgot to bring the makeup crew with him.

On Saturday evening there was a sunset cruise along the dijk and through the town before heading back to camp for the prizegiving and music.  We won the Furthest Travelled award, a little hard for anyone to beat us in that category with half a world plus 16,000km in Europe under our belts.

Today (Sunday) we were back at camp by midday we parked up and almost straight away headed to the lake beside the camp, as we discovered on Wednesday it was a clothing optional lake, so we again took advantage of that, plus the temperatures must have been in the high 30’s.  We love this lake and you can wander up and buy food or drinks from the lakeside stall in the buff.  This is our first trip to a bar naked, so another new experience to chalk up.

Tomorrow we head towards Belgium, however tonight we had a very lovely outing visiting Luwig and Larrisa's home and having Vietnamese for dinner with them on their rooftop terrace.

Bye Holland, hello Bremen, Germany

We loved Holland, especially the great cycleway system they have in place (not to mention the flat land to cycle on).

We went south to the Zeeland region to a wee village called Zerikikzee a beautiful place where we stayed a couple of nights, having our lunch out in Holland (fish of course).

(NB I had the soup all the rest was Daryl's lunch)

From there we had to visit Kieft en Klof, a VW reseller, restorer and parts company – amazing…

 Click here for more photos of this wonderful business

We then continued on to Deventer for a night then onto the north of Holland for our last night.

Today we drove to Bremen where we will be for the next few days before attending a VW Run to the Sun rally departing from Otterndorf – about an hour’s drive from here.

And last, but certainly not least, we have found the sun again!

Hallo Holland and Amsterdam

Our second night in Denmark was at a quaint wee village called Tonder, right near the German border, duri­ng the day we also stopped at Ribe for a look around at the old houses.

Next day we decided enough of the rain we were heading for Holland, expecting it to take two or more days to get there, but due to the rain we just kept driving until we were over the border at a town called Zwartemeer, where we discovered a wee camp with only one other caravan camping there.  Lovely bathrooms,  a good dishwash area and a lounge with TV (not that we used that).  It was so quiet we actually slept in the next day, awaking about 9.20am.

Then we took the scenic route to Amsterdam taking in some great scenery on the way, we drove along a huge canal of about 20km.

Today we biked the 10 odd km into the city, getting lost about 4 times on the way before we consulted Simon (Tomtom).  I think we biked more like 14-15 km getting into town, lucky we got it perfectly right coming home.

We visited Anne Frank’s house, then the Dam, before wandering to the Red Light District for a look about.  It was very interesting seeing all the girls on display in the windows, the coffee shops and the sex shops.  We both think this was the best pussy in the window.

After browsing the street markets, canals and buildings, we biked to the Heineken factory for a tour and free beers.  That was an interesting experience, they didn’t make it too long and boring, we even seen some of the famous Heineken horses.

Now we are back at camp trying to plan out where to head to tomorrow.

The Vikings - Sweden, Norway and Denmark

On our last update we were heading to Norway expecting it to take two days, we made it in one.  Mainly as the weather was not that great so it made a good day for driving.

The first camp choice was in the middle of Oslo however it was not taking any campervans or caravans only tents due to soft grounds, so Tommy (who is now called Simon after we changed the voice when Daryl commented on having two woman telling him what to do all the time) directed us to another camp some 7 km away.

In the wet we were lead up to the tent area and what do you know told to camp right beside another VW Kombi with a tweedy bird on the front, yes Larry, Loralee and Piolin Brown – the USA team we meet in Siena, Italy.

They welcomed us with G&T’s then generously shared their evening meal also, it was a great catch up and only happened as they had clutch problems and were getting a replacement cable fitted the next day.

Oslo, Norway was very pretty and the sun came up to play for us.  The sculptures were fantastic and we enjoyed wandering around the city.  The prices at restaurants at lunch time drove us to the Max burger bar instead where two buggers with drinks cost nearly NZD45!!!

From there we cruised back to Sweden to a wee place called Trollhatten.  We visited the locks on Sunday morning to discover that they were going to open in about 10 minutes, what a fantastic site to see, the water filling (about 10 m depth to make up), the 8 boats, mainly yachts going in and securing themselves with poles and ropes to the sides, then the gate closing, the water draining and then they were off, the entire process took less than 30 minutes.

Next stop was a shopping centre as our beloved Warehouse double electric hob finally died on us in Oslo.  We searched appliance stores, housewares’ stores and finally the best to be found was in good old Coop. 

We spent Sunday lunch and most of the afternoon at Pia, Morgan and family’s home in Sollebrunn.   They put on a huge spread for lunch, let us use their washing machine to catch up on much needed washing and generally entertained us.

Sunday night was spent in a wee camp in Varsberg.

Today we set sail for Copenhagen crossing the Oresund Bridge, the journey was mainly in the rain.  We drove through the centre of Copenhagen on our way to our camp and realised we were driving right past our ‘must see’ in Copenhagen, the little mermaid.  We stopped and got her photo, then decided to carry on across Denmark. 

We are now camped in Nyborg, Denmark on the coastline looking at the Great Belt Bridge (12.9m) , that we crossed earlier.Today was an expensive day toll-wise Danish $540 (NZD approx. $120) to cross the two massive bridges.

Haven’t set tomorrow’s plan of action out as yet.  Now it’s time for dinner.