Luxembourg

The drive from Holland to Luxembourg was fascinating. Firstly, it was amazing to watch how quickly the landscape changed from being flat fields to hilly forests as we left Holland, drove through Belgium and into Luxembourg. Secondly, it was bizarre stopping for lunch and a 30 cent wee, genuinely not knowing if we were in Belgium, France or Luxembourg. The upside of travelling with a GPS is that you get where you want to go with no stress, but the downside is that you’ve got no idea how!

Our stay in Luxembourg, while brief, was fantastic. It was only by chance that we ended up there. When we were planning our trip (read ‘planning’ in a very general sense), we were looking at the map and working out how we would get from Holland back to France. Luxembourg was kinda along the way, so we thought we would stop. It was a good decision.

Luxembourg is a gorgeous city built on a cliff face that forms a natural fortification around the city. The valleys below are a mix of the beautiful old town on the one side, and rich forests on the other.

One of the highlights was touring through the Bock Casemates – a series of tunnels that have been dug into the cliff.

While we were beginning to pride ourselves on our newfound ‘walking fitness’, we were absolutely exhausted after strolling through the streets for about 6 hours.

We headed back to the campsite and got a good nights sleep, excited about driving to Paris!

Our New Home

We thought we would try a video for a change...hope you enjoy!

Amsterdam, a museum and Oma

Our last few days in Holland were spent…

• With a day trip to Amsterdam. It was an interesting place. While the canals and buildings were beautiful, we got an overwhelming sense that the vast majority of people were there solely for the sex and drug trade. It is a shame that this is all a lot of people will ever associate with Holland.
• A day trip to the Zuider Zee Museum – this is basically Holland’s equivalent of  Victoria's Sovereign Hill. The Museum was really well put together and offered a great insight into what life would have been like several hundred years ago. 
• Finally, we finished our stay in Holland with some quality time with Monique’s Oma. It was great to spent some one on one time with Oma, and of course eat lots (and lots) of her fantastic food!

Next stop, Luxembourg...

Memory Lane

After not having been to Holland for 14 years, Monique was very keen to revisit her old stomping ground. Tanya joined us as went to the towns, schools, bike paths, play grounds and shops that Monique left behind as a 12-year-old. It was a bizarre experience for Monique as random and forgotten memories of her childhood started flooding back. It was strange how some things like the local shops had barely changed at all, while others such as her school being knocked down were obviously completely different.

On our way home in the evening, we visited Kinderdijk – a town that boasts the largest concentration of windmills in Holland, dating back to around 1740. It was a beautiful place to see, and another classically Dutch experience,

Unbelievably flat

We stayed with Tanya and Jennifer at a hostel in Scheveningen (the word that Monique always makes you say to test out your guttural ‘G’). We decided to have a classically Dutch day and hire bikes.

Holland is undoubtedly the bike capital of the world. There are people on bikes like flies around a BBQ on a hot summers night.  The extent to which un-helmeted cyclists buzz around is dizzying (especially when driving). They are the undisputed kings of the road, always having right of way over pedestrians, and often having right of way over cars. Seeing the thousands upon thousands of bikes piled up at train stations and tied to every lamppost, fence, gate and wall in every city is almost beyond belief. The great irony is that despite the popularity of cycling, they all seem to ride around on gearless, dilapidated and barely road worthy bikes. Go figure.

With this knowledge, we hired our bikes with great excitement, and a little trepidation. While we started cautiously, we were soon rolling along enjoying the beautiful Dutch countryside throughout the region of Delft. It was classically Dutch – beautifully green pastoral fields, countless canals, windmills, old villages and flat. Unbelievably flat.

In the five or so hours that we were cycling, we didn’t face even so much as the slightest of gentle inclines. Cycling through Holland almost feels like perpetual motion. It feels like you can just roll on forever as if following the curvature of the earth.

It was a sensational day seeing the Dutch countryside.    

Our brush with royalty

After the parade we continued to stroll through the streets of The Hague, and came across the Palace gardens. We saw quite a crowd of people gathered at the gates behind the palace, staring at an empty car in an empty courtyard. Jennifer kindly asked a Dutchwoman ‘Who are we waiting for?’, to which the lady responded ‘The Queen!’.

Well, how exciting! We joined in the throng of middle-aged women and paparazzi (not even joking) and stood poised, camera at the ready, with bated breath, now also staring at an empty car in an empty courtyard.

We were in quite a flutter.

Sure enough, out she came. Offering a polite wave to her adoring fans, she hopped in the car and began to drive off.

At this point, the throng of middle-aged women and paparazzi, by now in a complete flap, began running towards the driveway outside the palace gates. Caught up in the excitement and confusion, we too found ourselves running towards the driveway. Monique, like a crazed royal-watcher sprinted through the crowd with elbows out, almost knocking over some equally crazed middle-aged women, clamoring to be in the presence of royalty*.

As the Queen drove past, Monique was so close that the car literally brushed past her, and she was able to get a close up photo that we will be able to keep for ever and ever and ever.

It all happened so quickly. She came, she waved, she went. We were left standing in the palace driveway with the rest of the middle-aged women, with flushed cheeks, each of us recounting our brush with royalty.

*Daniel has a tendency to exaggerate adjectives when writing about things I do. I was not crazed, I did not elbow anyone, and I did not sprint – I merely power walked. I just wanted to get a good shot. Who wouldn’t? Don’t believe everything Daniel says…he becoming more theatrical with every blog he writes ;)

After 14 years...

Monique returned to her fatherland. Her return to Holland was greeted with a lovely family dinner at her Oma’s, which included her Dutch great Aunt and Uncle and South African Aunt and her friend. With Bert visiting the week before, Oma affectionately described September as being a ‘family tsunami’ due to all of her international visitors. After an incredible meal, we waddled down to the van and slept in the car park.

The next day we headed to The Hague where we again met up with Tanya, this time also with her sister Jennifer. We spent the morning at Madurodam – a miniature village replicating significant places, buildings and sights of The Netherlands.

From there, we made our way into the centre of town where the Dutch Queen, having heard about Monique’s homecoming, kindly decided to put on a parade to celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately, our VIP tickets must have got lost in the mail, so we had to line up with all the other commoners as the marching bands, horses and military brigades marched through the streets. The Queen, clearly recognizing her error with our tickets, gave us a wave as she went past in her magnificent golden carriage as a way of saying sorry.