Written by Belinda

 

After a bleak and blustery night, we left Almere, Holland and headed to our next destination of Bruges in the NW corner of Belgium. I had booked a room for two nights, breakfast included, at the Novotel Bruges in order to keep my points balance with my Accor Hotels membership card. This is the first chain accommodation we have stayed in on this trip and it did not disappoint. We arrived in the afternoon and headed out for a gentle exploration of the surrounds – we also needed to find a bite for lunch as driving through Belgium we noticed a distinct lack of roadside stops, so we were fairly hungry by time we arrived in Bruges. We loved our first taste of Belgium frittes, of which this country is famous. Bruges is a very historic and picturesque town and I was very, very pleased to find a beautiful shopping strip. On the way home, we purchased some local chocolates, another of Belgium’s delicacies.

 

The next day, we split up so I could get in some retail therapy. Rod and Hamish took a horse and carriage ride around town and visited the chocolate museum. It rained, but was not too cold. We met back up in the lobby of the hotel and had a long lunch of meats, cheese, bread and beer. Beer is the third thing Belgium is famous for – one store advertised selling over 500 brands! We did not sample them all.

Friday we planned a bit of a WW1 historical tour, firstly stopping at Tyne Cot Memorial Cemetery and then onto Toronto Ave Commonwealth War Graves. There is a big museum at Ypres, but the suggested 2 hours for this was out of our reach with Hamish. Upon arrival at Tyne Cot, other than the bitter cold, we were surprised by how big it was and how many visitors were there; school children and older visitors, from many nationalities. This is the biggest commonwealth cemetery in the world, the home of many fallen Australian, New Zealand, British and Canadian troops. Four German servicemen are also buried there. The centre of the cemetery is highlighted by the “Cross of Sacrifice” which is the former site of a German bunker, captured by the Australians. On the way back to the car, we noticed a sign saying “No picnics allowed” – we thought if nothing else, these men had fought and died for our right to picnic where we want.

Whilst driving through Passendale, the weather was getting a bit worse so we decided to scrap Toronto Ave (near the French border) and stop at the Passendale museum. The grounds of the museum are surrounded by former trenches and Rod and I felt very moved seeing them now as lawn and with the background sound of children playing in the school across the road. It was decided that I would go into the museum and Rod would keep Hamish occupied outside. After this, we stopped for some lunch – this changed the rest of our day as the news was showing how Brussels and Antwerp were in lockdown due to bomb threats (the staff at the shop filled us in). So we changed our course for Dusseldorf, heading SE towards Liege. This was the long way, but we thought is best to stay away from the other cities. I was pretty glad to get to Germany.

 

 

We have stayed the weekend with Ulrike and Hans-Georg Nelles in beautiful Dusseldorf (you might remember Mattia who lived with us as a gap student five years ago, these are his parents). As we approached Dusseldorf Friday evening, satnav seemed to want to send us the long way. Due to past experience, we don’t really trust satnav, so I redirected Rod using my MapsMe app (thanks Ricky McCarthy). I got us bang on 41 Volmerswerther Strabe and was very proud of my efforts; it’s dark, it’s busy and we have been driving all day. Mattia had mentioned there was a hotel next to his parents’ house, however, there were no hotels in sight. We call Hans-Georg and Rod nearly suggested he walk out on the street to find us. Lucky he didn’t. It turns out, there are TWO 41 Volmerswerther Strabe in Dusseldorf and we are 9.1km from the correct address. So we humbly return to satnav who seems to know where to go.

 

After eating delicious home-made pizza this evening, it dawned on me I have not cooked a meal in 7 days; I think I have managed to make myself a cup of coffee – Rod has poured cereal into a bowl. We are being totally spoiled by our European hosts and quite frankly, seeing the best of the city they call home. We have seen many lovely sights, but at a pace Hamish can cope with and often with Hamish in mind. They dusted off their daughter’s blade scooter for Hamish to ride around yesterday whilst we walked to the Rhine-side (a bit like our South Bank in Melbourne). We rode the speedy lift up the Rhine-Tower (169m) and Hamish gave us all sweaty palms as he fearlessly lay on the windows. It even bothered other guests to see him do this! I saw adults gripping furniture to peer over the edge of the windows; thank God for German engineering. Later in the afternoon, Hamish and Hans-Georg turned down the opportunity to walk around the old town in the cold and rain, but this did not stop the rest of us.

Sunday morning we headed to the ruins of Kaiserswerth Castle (also along the Rhine) and walked through the old city centre there. The castle is just a bit older than the ones in Scotland – 1000 years old. Hamish enjoyed the open spaces and ran around in the ‘fresh’ morning air of 5 degrees. The afternoon was spent at a special animal park, the name of which none of us can translate to English (Hofclen im Sudpark); there were many super-sized animals such as, pigs, goats, sheep, chicken, rabbits and geese. The ‘Pink Palace’ (Schloss Benrath) was our last stop for the day, beautifully presented and surrounded by many parks and gardens, however, I spent much of my time chasing Hamish around and trying to get him to put on his beanie and gloves as the mercury dropped to 3 degrees.

Tomorrow sees us heading to Berlin for one week. It snowed there today and is forecast for more ‘snow showers’ this week. This will test our winter gear which we may need to fine tune for the rest of trip.