After yesterday’s ‘fun’ watching the football, it was a battle to get out of bed and start to function in any sort of normal way. It was safe to say that ‘the drink’ won yesterday afternoon despite my best efforts.
We packed up and had a little wander around Aachen to try and clear our heads a little. It felt very similar to a British town on a Sunday morning. There was post big-night-out detritus lying all over the place and little piles of regurgitated takeaways near lampposts and the streets were very quiet apart from a few homeless guys and a few Sunday morning joggers putting us to shame.
We wandered around the cathedral and it was as sturdy as it was beautiful. We then walked around the corner to find a wonderfully vibrant bakery in full flow. For me, the main attraction was the Aachener Streuselbrötchen or, to us laymen, an Aachen streusel roll.
The bottom half of this slab of happiness was a sweet doughy mess with a thick buttery topping that was, essentially, a crumble lid. Imagine, if you can, an apple crumble but instead of apples it has a sweet pastry base. Then imagine being a big hungover mess. Then imagine how good you would feel with warm sunshine on your face, your two kids walking around chatting and being daft and smiling and having nothing in particular to do all day except to be happy. That was my morning in Aachen. Life was good.
We made our way back to parking bay 69 of the car park, packed up the trusty VW and headed North towards Holland. Our first stop, just a few miles up the road, was a petrol stop where I took the opportunity to buy a very exciting looking glass bottle of vanilla flavoured milkshake. Let me tell you, for all the good that the Aachener Streuselbrötchen did to improve my mood, this did the opposite! I think the moment the milkshake and the crumble touched, it curdled. It was a quiet morning from there.
Daughter child and I decided that we had had such a nice time in Kinderdijk (you can read about that below) that we would head back there to show boy child, you know how much 18-year-olds love to look around a UNESCO World Heritage Site… what could go wrong!
We parked up in the industrial zone car park just around the corner from the official car park that always seems to be full and wandered around to the main site, passing the same clog wearing locals pottering in their gardens. I am sure that they just do it for the tourists.
We walked for miles along the footpath and the further you walk the more tranquil and so more beautiful it becomes. It really is a wonderful place, those UNESCO guys know what they are talking about.
By the time we started to walk back, the kids were starting to get bored of the beauty that surrounded them and began to trip each other up, to trip me up, to trip themselves up to make the folks on the passing boats laugh. What a pair.
We paid to have a quick ‘comfort break’ in the visitors’ centre. It was just about the only thing I could afford in there to be honest. I was going to say that I ‘spent a penny’ but it was more like ‘Euro-nating’. That is about 64 pence by the way, a total scandal.
Bladder received, we made our way around to the cafe just down the road and blew the American waitress’s mind when we asked for chips with cheese on them. It was fun to watch a human mind completely freeze at the idea of cheesy chips. We ended up with a stroopwaffle instead, it was just easier that way.
We waddled back to the car park, full of coffee and cakes, and once again headed North. Despite all of the random destinations that we had picked over the last 8 days of our trip I knew that we were in the right place at the right time. As we crossed the Van Brienenoordbrug, the bridge taking us into Rotterdam, the playlist brought up ‘Rotterdam’ by The Beautiful South. I am not even sure if the kids noticed but, at that point, it felt like we had been guided by something bigger than Apple Maps.
Our target for the evening was Zaandam. It was only about 20 minutes North of Amsterdam but after a bit of a debate we thought we would try this place rather than its big brother, Amsterdam. I think it would be safe to say that Zaandam is the quieter and more respectful child, the one you wouldn’t be scared to introduce to your grandmother.
The hotel was picked as it was, of course, cheap….but it also offered free car parking. Winner. When we got there, there was no such free car park and I was foaming. We checked in and made our way up to the room which was large and modern…..so modern that the bathroom door was made of glass.
Not ideal for couples, very much worse for a father and two kids. We had to leave the room for each other to shower with any sort of dignity but at least it looked smart. One thing that did impress was the fact that they had gone the extra mile to impress daughter child, who made the booking in the car that afternoon. They had, rather stupidly if they knew my kids, asked if she had any special requests.
She accepted that challenge and asked for a photograph of Eliezer Mayenda, the Sunderland player, to be on my bedside table. They pulled this right out of the bag to be fair to them, but it is the little silly things that make a hotel stay!
I went for a run around the area to get a feel for the place and asked the kids to leave the room while I got showered! I caught up with them in the hotel bar and had a quick chat with reception about the local area. They suggested that I help myself to a pen from their little pot on reception as I was writing down some notes and that planted the seed for a great idea….more of that later!
The area was dominated by the Inntel Hotels complex where, well, I am not even sure how to explain it to be honest so you best look at the pictures below! It had the feel of Disneyland but without the stupid mouse or like an out of town shopping centre in America that was trying to be European. It was across three floors and there were all sorts of shops and restaurants dotted about. It was like a cheese dream, but as they wouldn’t let us have cheesy chips, it couldn’t be. It was weird.
If I was going to have a family trip to Amsterdam I would be using Zaandam as a base and get a train down to Amsterdam, this is a much cleaner, prettier and family-freindly spot to spend the night!
We made our way back to the supermarket and picked up some gifts for home and enough provisions to make three Scooby-Doo-style sandwiches back at the hotel bar. We played our last rounds of Uno of the trip and, wouldn’t you know it, I kept losing the pen for keeping score. Each time we ‘borrowed’ one from reception as I walked past and, in the end, I think I had about 15 of them.
Each pen that I took chipped away at the extra costs we had been hit with for the not-so-free parking.
Petty? Oh, you bet it was, but I could go to bed happy!
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