Etend en drinken

Day 3 – Monday - Aardenburg

Eating and drinking is not cheap in The Netherlands.

Stopped for lunch at Hotel Restaurant De Eenhoorn in the nice little town of Oostburg. Two salads and two beers for €36.50 (over $50). Another typical little town square where driving cars is discouraged by the inconvenience of not being able to park, and where bicyclists rule.

Spent the night in Aardenburg. There are Roman ruins nearby, dating to after 212 BC, so I think that means this area is above sea level. Out the window from the room, the wind rustles the leaves of an old Ginkgo, doves coo-coo, birds chirp, and church bell type chimes of ‘Frere Jacques’ float up from the little town square.




Later, across the square two beers at Lekens Café-Restaurant, Mossel-en Palinghuis, cost €7.00 ($10). Dinner at the Hotel Restaurant Rudanna Castra was €28.70 ($42), which was a deal compared to lunch, I guess. Once again, fresh flower arrangements abound.

Father & Son

Day 2 – Sunday - Middelburg

A short drive from Middelburg is the small coastal town of Veere, which means ‘ferry.’ Father and son pose with cannon on a cold windy autumn day. The sky is gray. It’s been around a year since they last saw each other. The son’s back is killing him.

There are lots of tourists. Crutching around is hard on the uneven cobblestones. My palms especially hurt. Haven’t seen any handicapped people. Everyone here is in good shape; slim and well dressed astride their bicycles.

Surprising to me, lots of people still smoke cigarettes though, especially at the outdoor cafes. Huge umbrellas with gas heaters underneath prolong the warmth while people watching. Big kettles of steamed mussels are the thing to have here. With beer, of course. And fried potatoes. The buildings are magical and unbelievably old and interesting.

Haven’t seen any homeless people or beggars.

When researching what the heck to say about Veere, I came across this youtube link on Veere’s official web site. It’s good. Watch it. Laugh. Toss your hair over your shoulder.

Only 6 Returned

Day 3 – Monday – Middelburg

So pissed off! Broke my glasses. Now I have crutches, das boot, AND a rubber band holding my glasses together.

Stumbled across an old Jewish cemetery yesterday. Crutched all the way around the black wrought-iron fence only to discover the gate locked. On one corner, along a very busy street, an old home and bathhouse stands ‘for sale.’


I have a goal to seek out old Yew trees in Europe, especially in cemeteries, since reading The Yew Tree: A Thousand Whispers by Hal Hartzell and Jerry Rust. The only Yew I see is a scraggly hedge along the fence. I collect a few seeds.

Today, on our way out of town, we pass the cemetery and discover the gate is open. Inside we find ourselves in a small under-story forest of man-size incredibly thin grey slabs leaning every which way. Scattered along a slightly inclined, bumpy hillside, dappled sunlight reveals monoliths with old Hebrew in fading black calligraphy on one side, and Dutch or English on the other. A few people are working to restore the old markers; setting them upright.

According to the web site Jewish Virtual Library, Middelburg has one of the oldest surviving synagogues in Holland, and two Jewish cemeteries that are recognized as national monuments. Of the 600 Jewish families that were transported during the Holocaust, only six of Middelburg's Jews returned to the city after the war.


Here's what I learned about those little yew tree seeds I collected: The seeds are very slow to germinate. It may take one, two or three years. Seeds must be given a warm and cold treatment in the proper sequence and at the optimum temperatures and lengths of time. Five to seven months of warm stratification (60-65 degrees F), followed by two to four months of cold stratification (34-40 degrees F).

Middelburg and Real Plates

Day Two – Sunday - Middelburg

Awoke late to a serenade of church bells. Ten minutes left for the hotel’s free/included breakfast at the restaurant downstairs. Threw on clothes and rushed down.

Beautiful vases of fresh flowers surround the diner. First along the breakfast buffet was the stainless steel industrial coffee-making machine (the size of a bathtub) with different buttons for coffee, espresso, café, mocha, or cappuccino. And naturally, there's six kinds of little cookies, and cream and sugar, and chocolate to go with the coffee. There’s croissants, assorted breads, eight kinds of chocolate sprinkle spreads in little boxes (stuff a few in your pocket for later), butter, little jars of jams, and eggs scrambled or hard-boiled, bacon, and soft slices of komijn (fennel seed cheese) round out the protein.

What was missing? Throwaway containers. Throughout Holland and Belgium, every order of coffee, tea, beer etc. comes with a full serving of set-the-table. Stainless steel utensils and glass glasses, ceramic plates, cups and bowls. Coffee always comes in a cup with a saucer, on a tray with chocolate, cookies, cream, sugar and sometimes even a little glass of water. All arranged artfully on a square or rectangular platter.

And on garbage day, in front of each house, a small bag (made from decomposable material, I’m told) sits out on the curb for collection.

Three Shoes to Amsterdam

I recently had the good fortune to visit Belgium and Holland for two weeks. Unfortunately, I broke my ankle three weeks before leaving. So, for the entire trip I wore the big, black velcro boot. I packed three shoes; one walking shoe (what a joke), one flip-flop, and one teva.

I departed my hometown on 9/11. Since the airport-supplied wheelchair won't go through the metal detector, the airport security personnel gave me the choice of "sit in the chair and get 'patted down,' or stand and be 'wanded.'" I stood.

Fifteen and a half hours of being crammed into airline sardine chair. Curtailing liquid intake to keep to a minimum trips hopping crutches crab-sideways down the isle to the lavatory. "Unusual Liesions and the Lessons They Teach," was playing on the man in the next seat's laptop. Mammograms. Ordered 'special' vegetarian meals when booking flight. Nothing special about them.


Landed Schiphol Amsterdam, rented car, headed into the city to visit tropical palm tree decorated coffee shops. There's no parking in Amsterdam and all the narrow, cobblestone streets are one-way in the opposite direction you want to go. There's no end to the bicycles. All shapes, sizes, colors, plain or decorated, fat tires, wide handlebars, big wooden tubs over the front tires, and upright perfect posture riders in family groups like a ballet troupe peddle effortlessly by with total right-of-way.

Unable to get a room in Amsterdam due to a convention, we head southwest to Zeeland, the area where New Zealanders originally came from, aka Middelburg.