The Victoria Shadow Association

Simoon IV on Gravelingenmeer

Update sent by e-mail on Sunday, 9th July 2010

Hi there,

We have been continuing our Grand Tour, not quite in the Victorian style, as we have been venturing on trams, buses and trains as we visit museums and art galleries. We've seen a lot of Rubens paintings and also van Eyck, Memling and Breugel as well as sculptures and discovered Rick Wauters work.

So far we've been to Gent, Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels. It took 11 hours to get to the latter as the Zemst lock was huge and there was a rise of 10 metres of water. As we were the only boat in the lock it took nearly an hour to fill up. Then the bridge at Vilvorde jammed and we had to wait for 2 hours before it eventually opened at 9.30 p.m. We had thought of waiting until the next day but when it opened we phoned the bridge and the man there said we should go in case it didn't work the next day! We just made it to Brussels before it got dark.

Since then we have left the big cities behind and have been pottering in the smaller Dutch canals, staying in Middelburg, Zierikzee and the Gravelingen, but visiting Veere, Breda, Goes, Bruinisse and Droischer by train or bus, but not without incident. Coming back the train stopped just before Middelburg and there was a long announcement which we didn't understand. Then the train went backwards to the previous station and everyone got off. It seemed something was wrong further along the line and there would be no more trains. We stood around bemused and then a girl called out that there were spaces in her father's car so we hurtled at 90 miles an hour to Middelburg with her and arrived only 40 minutes later than planned.

Not knowing any words of Dutch can be a problem. We decided to go to Droischer and, consulting the bus timetable, thought it said that you could phone and book a ticket an hour beforehand. What it actually said was that you had to phone to order the bus! Haven't heard of that in England. We waited in vain until a friendly bus driver explained.

We have learned a few words, though. A shandy is 'Snow White' and a cafe latte is 'coffee wrong'.

As we are on an extended cruise, we have been able to spend about a week in each place, unlike the sad workers who have a mere 2 weeks to get away from England and back again. We met a couple who had set their goal as Antwerp but only had 3 days there, having been stuck in Ostend in poor weather and were worried about getting home on time. For us, if we like somewhere we stay and explore. We have been very fortunate to chance on events - a brass band competition in Goes where the umpahs were gaily painted and then a 'nostalgia day' with people wearing their regional costumes, a sailing regatta and a harbour festival. Not to be forgotten is the enthusiasm for the World Cup. Orange banners everywhere (if you know your history about William of Orange). In the pub on Tuesday, for the semi-final, the fellow next to us was so excited at the 2nd goal that he threw his hands in the air, forgetting that he was holding a full glass of beer! We all had a beery shower. Hup Holland hup is the slogan. Strange that the word Netherlands is not used.

In the last 3 weeks it has been sunshine every day, with temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees. Wonderful. Before that the sun shone in all the cities except Brussels where we took shelter in the Atomium and then had long coffee stops in the magnificent main square.

We are currently at anchor near an uninhabited island, called Archipel, in the Gravelingenmeer, basking in the sunshine and having used the generator to do some washing. We have just blown up the dinghy ready to go ashore and investigate. It gets shallow quickly in places here, especially in the harbour entrances and we do not fancy going aground where there is no tide to get us off.

At the weekend we're off to Willemstad, going through the Krammersluizen lock which exchanges sea water for fresh water, so is rather slow. Then to Dordrecht and Rotterdam for the ICCY rally on 19th July.

Have a great weekend,

Simon and Janet