An entry in the TFS Travel Journal.
Today was a day of meandering, and when I say “meandering”, I often mean “getting on the wrong road”. We tooled off after settling our bill with the guy who was our waiter the other night and looks and moves a lot like Alfred from Batman, the TV show. Got to La Roche to pick up breakfast and discovered their once-a-year city fair was beginning. Parking was a joke, but we were only staying briefly, so we parked illegally, but only modestly so.
They were setting up a stage for later performances, but to test the sound system, we were treated to mega-decibals of Beach Boys, ZZTop, and other American icons. Yet another flea market, street fair, etc., this one with a small marching band, though.
We went for a Belgian waffle made on the spot (yum!), fried shrimp (1/2 ended up in the garbage), some pastries and breads, and a rotisserie chicken for later. So many roads were closed off, that we drove out of town and meandered (see above) for a while among the pastoral rolling farms and mountainsides of the Ardenne.
Finally got on track toward tonight’s destination and pulled over in the forest to enjoy the chicken and bread. (this Mercedes has state-of-the-art engineering, but no cup holders) Meandered some more, while enjoying scenic vistas across large picturesque green valleys, then arrived at the Schloss Reinhard, supposedly one of the best preserved medieval forts in Europe.
The Schloss Reinhard was certainly beautifully nestled in the woods and looked perfectly preserved from the outside, but it was only open at 3:30 and we didn’t feel like waiting 45 minutes. Besides, the tour was in German and French. We walked around the surrounding public paths through the woods, enjoying the pine and forest smells so redolent of northern Arizona in the summer.
Got back in the car and meandered some more through somewhat depressing towns (or maybe it was the same town, they really all looked alike) and finally got to the vaunted Thermae 2000 spa in Valkenberg. We went in to book massages etc. for tomorrow and it took 45 minutes of dealing with the twit behind the counter. Suffice to say, they do things a bit differently here. (example: we asked to see the gym to decide whether we wanted to come early and work out, and were initially told No, but they finally relented)
We checked in to a beautiful suite and Milton went for a brief jog necessary after sitting in the car all day. Saw the town — fairly modern, really hopping, lots of crowded outdoor cafes and even an 8-piece band made up of guys with wacky outfits and painted faces. We went to dinner at the hotel (we had to or we couldn’t have gotten the room when making the reservation last month). One of the better restaurants in the Netherlands, they say. We started with a perfectly warm lobster appetizer and sliced salmon with a poached egg. Then a red-broth, but somehow rich, fish soup. Entrees were fillet of (Dutch) beef and duck, along with an adequate 1/2 bottle of ‘93 St. Emillion. Dessert was an excellent parfait of coffee-flavored vanilla ice cream followed by a (too) large plate of petit-fours. Tomorrow will be a shwarma day. Unfortunately, this being Europe, many of the people smoked, and the German guy at the table next to us must have smoked about a pack throughout his meal.
The amusing aspect to dinner was that at this place service is key, as many guests come at least yearly. Thus, the wait staff’s sentences started with “Mr. Lewin, would you like. . .”, and they automatically know whether to address you in French, Dutch, German or English when you first walk in; finally, when Milton made an innocuous comment about the perceived too-cold temperature of the wine, the manager/owner later came over and went into such a detailed explanation of storage, serving, ambient and drinking temperatures, that we thought he would make us go down to his cellar.
Then it was back home for some mail-reading and on-line chatting.