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).
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.
