A Great Big Catch-Up!

After ages without Wi-Fi today should have been a Wi-Fi-ful day. Although I’m writing about Maastricht (Netherlands) and various places in Belgium, we are actually in France and today we are just outside Reims (great Cathedral, entirely average Tourist Information Office), in a marina which boasts free Wi-Fi for boaters. Except that it’s just switched itself off.

No problem – whilst in Reims, we visited the Orange shop and a nice young man sold me a card for my dongle. And that won’t work either. So I’m writing this, not knowing if/when I’ll ever be able to actually publish it. Aggghhh!

Whilst I’m typing away, Stephen is servicing the aft head (rear loo, for non-boaty types). Yes, Life Aboard Pershilla truly is a life of non-stop glamour.

Back to Maastricht. What a lovely place! I’d been there before, about 10 years ago, on a wet Sunday and it was shut. Not this time; the sun shone, the cafes and shops were open. Wonderful. Except the Swiss couple we had to moor up against. Mrs Swiss-Lady got hugely upset because our boat was blocking her view of the city. Given that we were all on a free mooring which works on a first-come-first-served basis, we weren’t hugely sympathetic, but to try and be helpful we offered to swap places with them, so she could have her view, despite the fact that Emma was already asleep and the swapping places scheme would me starting the engines, which might wake her.

Mr Swiss-Man was all in favour of this and we agreed to move once we’d finished eating. Thirty seconds later, another tap on the window and Mrs Swiss-Lady was back “My husband has drunk too much to move our boat and you shouldn’t have moored here (we were perfectly within our rights to moor there and, in fact, had been directed to do so). Also, your boat has a funny smell, close all the windows”. That would be the delicious steak and chips rapidly cooling on my plate.

Yes, but I can switch the extractor fan on and in 5 minutes, the smell will be gone. But you, Mrs Swiss-Lady, will still be rude and unpleasant in 5 minutes.

I was tempted to start boiling cabbage and Brussel sprouts with all the windows open at that point, but thought better of it (also, I had no cabbage on aboard).

Next morning, we headed into town to the market. As you’ll have seen from previous posts, I love markets and Maastricht’s market does not disappoint. Huge and marvellous. Selling everything from fish (we had some wonderful tuna steaks, soft as butter) to clothes, to fabric, to bike paraphernalia, to plants and ironmongery.

I couldn't resist a picture of this wonderfully colourful stall in the market

After Maastricht it was back into Belgium, to Liege. We moored alongside some friends we’d made in Venlo, Sue and Mushy, and Sue very kindly offered to babysit for Emma, so we could go out. What a treat! So, all dressed up in our (only set of) smart clothes we set off into town and had a great meal at an outdoor restaurant in the Cathedral square.

Next morning – another market. Liege’s Sunday market is 2km long and alongside all the usual stuff it also had lots of livestock stalls – chickens, quails, rabbits etc. At first we thought “Sunday Lunch” but on closer inspection these were actually fancy varieties, so either to show or as pets, I think.

Not lunch, apparently.

The scenery radically changed in this area and especially as we moved on to Namur. We were now in the Ardennes and the size of the hills and the scale of the rock cliffs were a real change from The Netherlands. It is so beautiful; I really can’t imagine why the area isn’t better known as a holiday destination.

Namur was a big hit with Emma. We went up to the Citadel which involved a boat (ours) a water-taxi, a bus and a little road-train. Plus, when we got up there, there was a children’s play area. She wasn’t so fussed about the tour of the underground passages (in three languages with a rather grumpy tour guide) but has been asking about water-taxis ever since.

View of The Citadel from our boat

 

View of our boat from The Citadel

We did have one funny moment on the taxi when a couple got on with their two grandchildren and the grandparents said “Two adults, two children – eight and five”. Now, under six’s travel free, but the small boy immediately shouted out “No! I’m six! I’m six”. His poor grandmother looked terminally embarrassed.

Next stop – Dinant. What we hadn’t realised until the last minute was that the day we arrived was a public holiday in France – Assumption Day. This, for reasons unknown to us, is celebrated with a Bathtub Race. Which we sailed right into! The bridges and river banks where packed with people watching the races, so obviously all the mooring points were already full. However on the outskirts of the town, beside the very impressive Bayard Rocher, was a great mooring place which was just a stone’s throw from a mini-supermarket and a fabulous butcher, who took a shine to Emma and added some slices of sausage to my order for her lunch – the advantages to being blonde, blue-eyed and cute, I guess.

Dinant's BathTub Race

Sadly for Emma, no water-taxis at our next mooring point – right outside the Chateau Freyr. It was, without doubt, the most beautiful mooring place we have stayed at, and made even better by the fact we had it all to ourselves and it was free!

We visited the Chateau as soon as it opened the next morning and had the house to ourselves for a while. If you are in the area, it is well worth a visit as the house is very interesting and each room has descriptions in English as well as Dutch, German and French. The gardens were less interesting to us, but still worth walking around.

Chateau Freyr

Our beautiful mooring - this photo doesn't really do it justice

On again, and the next part of the journey involved going through the infamous Ham Tunnel. It’s just over half a kilometre long and pretty low. We weren’t certain we would fit, but thought we should. However, the roof is very rough rock, so the height does vary in places. Stephen did a great job of protecting all the high protruding bits of the boat with fenders and rubber pipe and we’d been told that the lock-keeper just before the tunnel would be able to tell if you would fit or not.

Arriving at the lock he waived us through without comment, so we went for it and, thank goodness, it was fine – it would have been a long slow trip re-tracing our steps back to Namur to take an alternative route.

Ham Tunnel

So, we are now back into France proper and heading toward Paris, where we hope to be at the end of the month. We are passing through some wonderful countryside and I saw my first live, wild red squirrel a couple of days ago (my great-grandmother had a stuffed one, hence my adding “live”, as I don’t think that really counts) and we’ve also seen kingfishers, sand martins and marsh harriers – a bit different from the wildlife I see in the garden in Godalming!
 

The Floriade & Big German Women

One of the main "things we must do on this trip" was visit Floriade 2012 so this week it was off to Venlo, the nearest town, to do just that.

We'd had a couple of really nice quiet days in Leukermeer, one in a marina and one anchored out on a lake. Both were good, in different ways. The marina was well equipped and next door was a static caravan site with a pool and a great play area. Emma and I had an afternoon there which she really enjoyed.

I enjoyed it for entirely different reasons. The site is very close to the German border and the vast majority of the other women in the pool (no men - no idea why) were German. And very "well covered" they were too. For the first (and possibly last) time in my life, I was the thinnest woman in the pool.

I think I will holiday exclusively in Germany from now on.

Anyway, on to Venlo. Brand new city-centre harbour, which, like the rest of Venlo, will be lovely when it's finished. But, at E10 per night and a big screen showing the Olympics at the end of the harbour, I really can't complain.

I'm still feeling a bit "hmmmmm" about Floriade. I have been once before and loved it, but this time - not so much.

Some bits were great; we loved the Chinese and Indonesian Pavilions and Emma loved the Tunisian Pavilion as she was entranced by the on-site potter, who made her a pot with her name on (can't believe I managed to get a wet-clay pot all the way back to the boat in one piece) but a lot of the national pavilions were just "have a holiday brochure" or "our apple industry is second to none!", which isn't that exciting.





The Chinese Pavilion

Emma's Tunisian Potter


The site is very good. Flat, obviously (this is The Netherlands) but quite varied in that you walk along woodland paths to get between the various areas. Spotlessly clean and with plenty of loos (and no queues - important when you have a three year old who goes from "Do you need a wee?" "No" to "I need a wee! Nooooowwwwww!" in about 10 seconds. Still, it was a garden exhibition - plenty of bushes to hide her behind).

We loved:

The really deep, dense planting

The very comfortable astroturfed recliners

The tractor with video screen field to drive it in

Feeding the fish (the best 20 cents we spent all day!)

The Living Wall

The Glass Stream - this is something I'd like to recreate at home

Next stop - Maastricht. We've been there once before, years ago, but it was closed (honestly - everything was closed). Am hoping it will be a little more lively this time!

Utrecht: Miffy & Summer Darkness - All Of Life Is Here!

We hadn't originally planned to go to Utrecht, but had a bit of a re-plan a week or two ago and decided to go across country rather than further north, then back south again.

Also, the fact I'd seen a poster advertising the "Dick Bruna Huis" (Dick Bruna House) was also a factor in my mind - Stephen was totally mystified, as he had never heard of Miffy (philistine!).

The route into Utrecht is beautiful; lovely countryside, nice houses and gardens to look at and lots of houseboats (my current favourite type of house - I think I'd revise my view in winter, though). We moored up in the centre of the town, right at the top of the canal ring which runs around the town. We had hoped that we'd be able to go through the town by canal, but our boat was about 5cm to high to go through the town-centre bridges.

First stop - launderette! Found one fairly close and within an hour and a half we had 21 kilos of washing was clean and dry. Always a relief to know you have plenty of clean underwear!

Next morning we set off into town by bike. The town is busy but easy to navigate by bike and is well signposted. There wasn't much car traffic, but we did have to watch for for buses and trams.

We set off to see the flower market and the fabric market. Both were fabulous and it's probably just as well I got to the fabric market just as it was starting to pack up - stall after stall after stall of every type of fabric, trimming and general haberdashery stuff. Being a crafty/sewing/making person I could have filled the boat, but settled for a couple of bags of material; some for projects I have planned and some which was just too beautiful to not buy - how could I not get some Chinese silk-type fabric when it was only E2 per metre? It would have been rude not to!

My new fabric hoard - what to do in the evening is now sorted for the foreseeable future!

We stopped for lunch at a cafe and couldn't help but notice a larger than usual (even for a university town) population of Goths/Steam Punks. At first we put it down to a fetish/alternative clothes shop across the road, but would just one shop, however good, really attract people in these numbers?

My favourite outfit of the day

Obviously, in The Netherlands Goths travel by bike - black bikes, of course

We didn't think much more of it and got back on the bikes to explore some more and, by chance, headed straight into "Summer Darkness 2012" which bills itself as an "interdisciplinary underground festival".

The square in front of the Dom (bell tower) was filled with market stall,s a music-stage and food and drink stands, all catering to the Goth/Steam Punk sub-culture. At first sight the (mainly) black-clad crowds and stall selling some very odd stuff could appear a little threatening, but actually, nothing could have been further from the truth.

The participants were incredibly friendly, all seemed delighted to have their outfits admired and photographed. It seem very inclusive too, with people taking part ageing from about 5 to well over retirement age; all shapes and sizes; able bodied and disabled. We had a great time walking around the stalls, listening to the bands and admiring the hair, outfits and outrageous shoes.

Given this unexpected discovery, we didn't make it to the Dick Bruna Huis until Sunday morning. It is part of the Centraal Museum and you ticket gives you access to both. Stephen decided to go to the "proper" museum and Emma and I headed off to see Miffy.

A whole wall of Dick Bruna books

What can I say, other than WONDERFUL! Beautifully designed using the same small palette of colours used in the books with stories to listen to (in English, Dutch and Japanese), games to play, Miffy's house and clothes to explore and dress up in, art-desk plus an area for adults about Dick Bruna, his life and work. Emma had to practically dragged out when it was finally time to leave - another Miffy convert!

Emma listening to a story

Emma in Miffy's House

Amsterdam - A Bit of Culture & A Lot of Paddling

We rather dragged out leaving Haarlem; we enjoyed it so much we were looking for excuses to stay on, but the time had come to move on. So, on to Amsterdam for a couple of days.


Amsterdam docks are big and busy; I hasn't realised it was also a cruise ship terminal - below is Stephen looking a bit worried as we passed a huge liner which was right outside the marina we went into.

The marina was in north Amsterdam, which is on the opposite side of the canal to the main part of the city. Getting into the city is really easy as there are fast, free ferry services laid on which take foot passengers, bikes (obviously - this is The Netherlands!), mopeds and even tiny two-seater electric cars. I imagine they are provided free to discourage people driving into the city. They reminded me a lot of the Star Ferries in Hong Kong.


Cycling around Amsterdam wasn't so much fun, as the city is, understandably, much busier than anywhere else we have been. It was the first time we were really cycling with delivery vans and a lot of cars - the roads alongside the canals simply aren't wide enough in a lot of places for separate cycle lanes, which other places have.


That said, vehicle drivers are very respectful of cyclists and don't automatically expect to just zoom through, as seems to be the norm in the UK, so it was actually all very safe and well organised - Emma actually fell asleep on the back of my bike at one point, so the journey must have felt fairly pleasant from her point of view!


Our main outing was to the Rijksmuseum, to tick off another Vermeer. The museum is undergoing a major renovation, so not everything was on show, but what was there was fantastic and I saw "The Little Street" which is one of my favourites

We didn't take Emma into the museum, having found in the past that if we do we don't actually get to look at much, as too much time is spent trying to keep hold of her and stop her from getting in other people's way. So, we went in shifts, which worked much better for all three of us.

Just outside the museum is a huge paddling pool. It's about 30 - 40 cm deep and absolutely massive. I sat with my feet in it, cooling down and Emma spent over an hour splashing around with other toddlers.

She was very worried about her clothes getting wet and was not happy that I had only taken her trousers off, leaving her top on knickers on. She got increasing vocal on the point, then paddled over to the other side of the pool, took off her remaining clothes, dumped them on the side and jumped up and down, waving at me, much to the amusment of the others around the pool. She then paddled back towards me, refusing to bring the clothes with her.

Emma  in the pool - before the clothes showdown

I did finally manage to get the clothes back, by which time she had totally charmed the Indonesian girls we were sitting beside, and was helping herself to their "Hot and Spicy" Pringles. I guess I should just be glad she's willing to eat a lot of different foods!