Two ponts and a castle
30 January Monday DAY
66 of trip
Left eleven am to Maastricht overnight at Buitenplaats Vaeshartelt
We left straight after
breakfast on Monday morning to have a little foray into another country; a road
trip. So ‘first thing’ was around 11am, not bad. We set the GPS to ‘no
freeways’ and drove through many lovely towns and villages; almost all had a
central very old church, and some surrounding cobbled stoned; old towns. We
crossed rivers twice by ferry; quite a surprise. The ferries are ‘ponts’ in Dutch, in case you were wondering. The ‘castle’
loomed and surprised us completely. We’d actually become quite lost amongst the
market gardens, with lit up glass houses, fascinating; no idea what was being
grown, perhaps flowers, and then there it was! So we accidently found the best
preserved castle in the Netherlands, built in the 1300s and restored recently.
Just beautiful.
The castle was originally built in 1350 by Dirk van Herlaer along the river Maas. Ammersoyen
was a unique castle as it was built using a fixed plan, which was unlike other
castles built during this era. The design included four wings that were
constructed around a center court. Each corner had
its own heavy tower for extra protection. The castle included a gatehouse and
was originally surrounded by a moat. At the time, it was one of the finest
defensive structures in the country.
In 1386, the castle was lost to Duke of Gelderland who gave the
castle to his illegitimate son. He then sold the castle in 1424 to Johan van Broekhugen, Lord of Waarenburg.
For the next four hundred years, the castle only exchanged hands through
inheritance.
31 January Tuesday DAY
67 of trip
The next morning we
had a nice breakfast at the hotel, then returned to the city centre, and
explored more of the lovely narrow streets and buildings. Found the worlds most amazing book store; amazing because of it’s location in an old, stately church with wonderful
arches in the ceiling.
Selexyz Dominican Church in Maastricht is a real cool place - now a bookstore but dating back to the 13th century, the structure was a Dominican church until Maastricht was invaded by Napoleon in 1794 and the group was forced out of the country.
The Basilica of Saint Servatius
Terrell also got some
more bits and pieces for his camera and I bought him a Maastricht mug for the
good memories. Then we had coffee, which was served with little glasses of
Baileys or Kalua, topped with whipped cream; pretty cool.
The rest of the day
was frustrating as we tried to follow two GPS’s with opposing views, out of a
city under renovation. We did quite a few hours of circling Maatricht
before we finally sat down in a nice hotel for soup, to calm us down. The
server there was very helpful and told us the insiders path out of town. “Just
follow the letter “L” on signs, and it will take you to the road that leads to
Liege.” Who knew? Good grief! Anyway it was not over. We drove for some more
hours into Belgium, with a reasonably price hotel earmarked for the night. Just
before Spa. Well, the two GPS’s did their thing again and got us amazingly
lost…in tandem. So it took longer than we thought, but now we are happily
there, in a modest, comfortable room at LE MIDI Hôtel, 4800 VERVIERS Belgium,
nice and warm, and ready for dinner.
We both slept,
uninterrupted, for 10 hours!
1 February Wednesday DAY
68 of trip
Narda spoke with Mäu 8 am we decided to go to Hamburg 8.30.
Now there’s a rapid
change of plans. We checked driving time, and distances and decided to do it.
It took us 6 hours, and apart from getting freaked out by the fast German
drivers, it was pleasant and uneventful. Easy coffee and pee stops on the
highways (you pay 70 cents to pee!).
We prebooked (expedia) the
Hamburg Centrum
Hotel Commerz am Bhf Hamburg Altona for 50 Euro. This turned out to
be 3 minutes from Mäu’s place, a bit of luck. They provided
some urban style (time garage down in a basement) for 10 extra Euros, which was
a pretty good package as Hamburg can be expensive. Mäu
came to meet us and we had some snacks at her place, met her Johann her 10 year
old, recorded his drumming; pretty great for a kid his age, and had dinner with Mäu at ‘lorient’ restaurant a Lebanese
food place http://www.restaurant-lorient.de.
We are living in our bubble – we
drive in our bubble – our bubble rolls along the highway close to the posted
limit of 130 kilometres per hour (130kph= 80.77825mph) but we were often in the slow lane with the trucks. Germans have little
sense of speed limits. I would see them at a distance in my rear-view mirror
then there they go just their tail lights barely visible from being so far so
fast away. From distant tail lights to head lights in seconds. Narda’s relative said he likes to see what his BMW will do
and 190 is a good speed (190kph= 118.0605mph). Of course my question to him was ‘why not go past 200?’
Left Paramount Apartments nine am –Netherlands (A293 from Alexanderstraße
> Take A28, A31 and A37 to Rondweg/N382 in Dalen,
Nederland. Exit from N34 > A28
lunch at Lunchroom The Goose Girl Markt 13, 7741 JM Coevorden
Home at five pm
watched three episodes Blacklist