European Tour…

We started our northern European tour by crossing through the Channel Tunnel one evening and stopping overnight at the basic but cheap Ibis Budget Calais Tunnel sous la Manche at Coquelles. This enabled us to get an early start for the long drive to the Essen game fair, crossing through France, Belgium, Netherlands and into Germany. We got to the show mid-afternoon and found all the regular carparks full, so after a long diversion, we ended up at the remote carpark number 10. It was a very busy show for a Thursday with lots of kids about, so it must be holiday time in Europe. Sue was quite overwhelmed by the scale of the show and started to appreciate what it is like for me when visiting. We met David and Kotie there, who had driven up from their home in Antwerp. We were staying, as always, at Mulheim an dur Ruhr at the Handelshof Hotel.

We had only planned to stay two nights before moving on for our holiday. The first night we had dinner in the hotel and caught up with a few people. Sue spent the following day quietly in Mulheim, wandering about or reading at the hotel, while the rest of us went back to the show. That evening, we had a lovely traditional meal at the Mausefalle ‘mousetrap’ with David and Kotie (pig knuckle is their speciality).

Next morning we drove down to Cologne where we planned to stay a couple of nights at the Mercure Hotel Severinshof Koeln City.

We walked into the old town and had a look about where we found a quirky bar called Papa Joe’s Biersalon where they had many different coin-operated animatronic musical machines (including the puppenband) and with a full house the place was vibrant and lively, we had a couple of beers and shared a pretzel and apple cake.

The town is dominated by a large cathedral (biggest in Germany) and we visited it and the glittering treasure chamber rooms. It was the weekend so the town was heaving and since it was almost levelled in the war much of the architecture was relatively new and uninteresting. It was also quite dirty and grey looking.

In the evening, we went to the Papa Joe’s Jazzlokal club (part of the same group as the Beirsalon) to see some enjoyable jazz-blues music. The jazz club does not serve food, so we nipped across the road to a take away joint that prepared fabulous slices of pork in a bun. This club has a reputation for being one of the oldest still running in the world and has music every night. They cram the people in like they do in New Orleans and it had a great buzzing atmosphere, unfortunately after all that excitement I needed a lie down.

The next morning, we took a different route and walked towards the river (stopping for breakfast at a bakery on the way). The area we stared at had been redeveloped and new crane inspired ‘kranhaus’ buildings had been built for commercial and residential use. It was a pleasant stroll as we passed the old Olympic building and past the chocolate museum (we didn’t succumb to temptation though there were a queue of people waiting for it to open). We crossed over and went up a tall building to get a panoramic view back across the river of the city. Afterwards we crossed back passed the ‘love-locks’ that cover railings along the railway bridge. We had lovely rustic lunch back at Papa Joe’s (which was much quieter on the Sunday) and then strolled through the old town into the new passed the original Farina eau de cologne and 4711perfumeries. We picked up an apple strudel and headed back to the hotel for the evening.

We drove on to s’Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) in the Netherlands (where I had visited many years before with work) we took a canalboat tour along the Binnendieze, that runs through and under the old town, after having a lovely lunch at the Bolwerk. After we walked through the delightful town and visited the cathedral, the liquorice and sweet shop called Tum Tum, and had the local delicacy Boschebol (a huge profiterole the size of a child’s head – we shared it) at the famous Jan de Groot bakers.

Our hotel was across the road and was called the Little Duke (the full name of the town translates somewhat to mean the Duke’s forest, and they have a larger hotel in town. This smaller one had no common facilities and even had an automated check-in/check-out system).

In the evening, we went to the fun and lively DIT for a meal where we enjoyed traditional bar snacks such as bitterballen and broodjes along with some fusion Asian food. The town is obviously quite wealthy as is evidenced by the design and trendy boutique shops, and by the interesting breakfast the following morning at CoffeeLab (coffee flavoured acai bowl and mini pancakes dressed with grapefruit and granola). Before we continued our journey, we had a visit to the Hieronymus Bosch exhibition (a local 15/16^th C artist renowned for his disturbing religious imagery of hell), in the display were reproductions of his works (often triptychs with a story to them) and modern, three dimensional models of his more bizarre characters from the paintings.

It had been quite a revelation to us how close everywhere seems to be in mainland Europe, each of our stops being within two hours of each other, however, I would not recommend driving into Antwerp now as the place has always been busy and now with major road works it is a nightmare. The wet weather didn’t help, so with the later start, the traffic and the weather, we didn’t get to see much before we drove out to meet Dave and Kotie at their place. We all went back into town on the more efficient tram. The old city centre looked attractive with the clever lighting and the reflections in the wet cobbles. We ate at Pelgrom where they have a large number of beers and sell flights of them for sampling (which we did). The food is wholesome fare and tasty. We stayed over with David and Kotie at their house and returned to the old town early in the morning to wander around and visit the Cathedral (which had an exhibition that included original Rubens – a local boy – paintings, along with some interesting modern artworks).

Getting to Bruges was much easier and checked into the Velotel, which was further out of town than we would have liked, but as we left it late to book and didn’t realise that All Saints Day was a public holiday, it was the best option for us. It did mean a 40min walk into the old town, but luckily the weather was glorious. We had a beer on the main square and watched the crowds of tourists before joining them and wandered around admiring the architecture and views. We ate and sampled another beer flight at the Bourgogne des Flandres brewery, which has a canal side terrace. We had another drink at a bar decorated for Halloween before having a disappointing meal on the square.

Breakfast the next margining was at the cute and trendy Cafune coffee shop and fortified we wandered around some more before retiring for a leisurely and lovely lunch at ‘t Nieuw Walnutje in a one of the many pretty squares around town.

On way home stopped a Dunkirk to visit the moving Operation Dynamo exhibition and walk along the beaches, before loading the car up with goodies sourced at a wine shop and supermarket and getting the train back to old Blighty.