17 April ’05, Sunday.
Apparently jet-lag is still with us. We force ourselves to stay up until 10pm and then, 3am we are both awake. By 5am we have gotten ourselves back to sleep. When we do wake, we find we have slept to 10. Now this morning, it wasn’t much different, except that we had to be out to pick up our rental car by 10, so we forced ourselves out of bed and to the showers by 9. When we first got in, we picked up a car at the airport. Their rates were good until they tacked on the “airport” surcharge of $60 Euros. That car cost us $140 Euros for 2 days. Yesterday, we went into Delft and found a rental car for $25 Euros per day…we changed carriers… It’s not that we needed a rental car, but it has given us some freedom to see some sites we haven’t seen before. Yesterday we drove into Hoek van Holland, to see the town and the location for the ferry service that hooks us up with Great Britain. There are as many ferries that make the crossing from just about as many locations, but this one has been recommended to us, so we decided to take a look ourselves. We had a nice drive through some wonderful Dutch countryside, and enjoyed the day getting back on the road. Although it was raining pretty much the whole day, it was still a good day. When we got back to the campgrounds Louise found a restaurant right here on the grounds. I don’t know how I had missed that one, so we went up for a nice dinner and a glass of OK wine. Today we headed over to Rotterdam and then made a swing around to see the town of Gouda. Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands. We decided to stay in the car and see all that we could by driving. We did see the location were they boarded the Mayflower in making the first trip to the “New World” America. A little further down the road, we saw where they reconstructed a 18th Century windmill that had been destroyed during WWII. Rotterdam it’s self had almost total destruction during that time, so what you will find there is a lot of very new and very modern buildings and a little of the “Old Town” that dates back to the 15th Century. Most of these run along the canals and is close to the harbor. Gouda turned out to be a wonderful town, again with lots of canals, little bridges, narrow roadways throughout, a wonderful town “Markt” and beautiful old buildings that are dwarfed by the huge and stunning churches. We found a great outdoor restaurant for lunch. This sidewalk cafe sat right at the edge of the Markt. We not only could enjoy a real good “split” meal, we also had the company of interesting people to talk with.
Apparently jet-lag is still with us. We force ourselves to stay up until 10pm and then, 3am we are both awake. By 5am we have gotten ourselves back to sleep. When we do wake, we find we have slept to 10. Now this morning, it wasn’t much different, except that we had to be out to pick up our rental car by 10, so we forced ourselves out of bed and to the showers by 9. When we first got in, we picked up a car at the airport. Their rates were good until they tacked on the “airport” surcharge of $60 Euros. That car cost us $140 Euros for 2 days. Yesterday, we went into Delft and found a rental car for $25 Euros per day…we changed carriers… It’s not that we needed a rental car, but it has given us some freedom to see some sites we haven’t seen before. Yesterday we drove into Hoek van Holland, to see the town and the location for the ferry service that hooks us up with Great Britain. There are as many ferries that make the crossing from just about as many locations, but this one has been recommended to us, so we decided to take a look ourselves. We had a nice drive through some wonderful Dutch countryside, and enjoyed the day getting back on the road. Although it was raining pretty much the whole day, it was still a good day. When we got back to the campgrounds Louise found a restaurant right here on the grounds. I don’t know how I had missed that one, so we went up for a nice dinner and a glass of OK wine. Today we headed over to Rotterdam and then made a swing around to see the town of Gouda. Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands. We decided to stay in the car and see all that we could by driving. We did see the location were they boarded the Mayflower in making the first trip to the “New World” America. A little further down the road, we saw where they reconstructed a 18th Century windmill that had been destroyed during WWII. Rotterdam it’s self had almost total destruction during that time, so what you will find there is a lot of very new and very modern buildings and a little of the “Old Town” that dates back to the 15th Century. Most of these run along the canals and is close to the harbor. Gouda turned out to be a wonderful town, again with lots of canals, little bridges, narrow roadways throughout, a wonderful town “Markt” and beautiful old buildings that are dwarfed by the huge and stunning churches. We found a great outdoor restaurant for lunch. This sidewalk cafe sat right at the edge of the Markt. We not only could enjoy a real good “split” meal, we also had the company of interesting people to talk with.