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Monday, July 5, 2021

Back in the Netherlands

We headed out from the big motorhome camping area in Goch, Germany at just after 10:00am. We made our way across the Germany/Netherlands border and arrived a short time later at our overnight spot just outside the town of Grave, Netherlands.

As I had read, there is absolutely no security presence at the EU country borders so far. In fact at this crossing, there was very little indication you were even crossing into a different country, other than the difference in the road markings and language.

But before we left, we had to empty our holding tanks...

We had to wait for this guy to finish up.

So you drive in over a sewer grate, and simply pull the gate valve for your grey water tank. There is no hose involved, the contents just splash through the sewer grate. The guy in the photo is getting out his toilet cassette, and then he goes to the dump point on the left, empties the contents and rinses the tank. Then there is a coin operated fresh water fill station where you can fill your holding tank in various quantities and prices up to €1 for 100 liters (26.5 gallons).

We got that done, and then we were off to Netherlands, country #44 for us. Of course we had been here on a day trip a week and a half ago ago, but hadn't spent the night.

Yep, it looks like Netherlands. Windmills and cycling!

Notice the roads are shared with bike lanes.

Storks.

Scenery along the way.

It is typical that there is a cycle path beside the highway.

We found the free motorhome parking at the village of Velp, just outside the town of Grave. There are four dedicated sites, and a dump station. But it's a fairly big parking lot, and on a Sunday the lot was pretty much empty, so we chose a spot in the shade away from the others. 

We left Max there and walked the 3 kms (1.8 miles) into the town of Grave.

Scenery along the way.

The old town gate.

Notice the date at the top right... 1688.

There were originally three town gates, but this is the only one remaining.

Grave is a really pretty riverside town. It's been around for a long time, and many of the homes in the central area date back centuries. Once we got into the central area, I noticed some of the buildings had old black and white photos put up in the windows. I took a few "then and now" photos...

Then.

Now.

Then.

Now.

There were no dates on the black and white photos, but we're guessing late 1940's maybe?

A few cafes were open, but on Sundays everything else is closed.

Central plaza with big church.

Regarding Covid, the Netherlands is totally open with no restrictions. It's just business as usual. Officially, you are still required to stay away from anybody else by 1.5 meters (5 feet) and if you can't, you need to wear a mask. But in real life, we haven't seen anybody wearing a mask since we got here. 

We wandered around and then went down to the waterfront.

River cruise boats.

There were some pleasure boats out as well.

They have a fairly busy marina.

Lots of old buildings.




We thought this sign was funny.

We took a different route walking back, and it led us through a park area that had some penned in deer, and later a horse farm...

Mom and little one.

So cute.

Scenery along the way.

At the horse farm, there were lots of them with young ones.




We made it back to Max just as the rain started. And it rained a couple of times overnight. Looks like the next couple of days we are going to see some rain on and off.

We are going to spend some time trying to get vaccinated here in Netherlands. It looks like there is a procedure for non residents to follow, so we'll see if we can navigate our way through it. Canada has finally said that fully vaccinated individuals do not have to quarantine now when arriving in Canada, and Netherlands apparently has lots of single shot J&J vaccine available. If we can get that, we'd be happy just to avoid the house arrest when we go back next month.

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Nice price drop on this Inflatable Swimming Pool.

And in Canada...

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing these pictures of the Netherlands. I have a soft spot in my heart for that country. I spent about 6 months there on business and had a baby there. Their health care system was great at that time. Enjoy your stay.

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    1. You are welcome! I hope that we can show you more pictures that will rekindle good memories for you.

      We have heard good things about there health care system, hopefully other getting our vaccines here we won't have to put their system to the test. ;-)

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  2. Good luck with the J&J vaccine. Hope the language problem isn't too bad!

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    1. Thank you! Kevin will update you on today's post!

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  3. Hmmm Volkswagen must not have changed much over the years....I see one in the 'then' photo.

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    1. The Volkswagen Beetle hardly changed at all over the years. The first one was made in 1938, however the civilian Beetles only started being produced in large numbers by the end of the 1940's. They changed a lot when they brought the "new" Beetle back in 1997.

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  4. It looks so lovely there! Love all the bikes, and the baby animals, of course. Good luck getting your vaccines. That will make life much easier; not too mention how transmissable the Delta variant is; no need to put yourselves at risk as you travel.

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    1. It is lovely here! We love walking through the residential areas, the houses are well looked after with beautiful gardens and the fact that bikes are used so much it is relatively quite walking through those areas.

      Yes, getting the vaccines will make traveling much easier!

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  5. My home country, was born there, left for Canada with my family just before I turned 8. I'm excited to see more photos

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    1. So far other than being quite flat we are really enjoying what we have seen of the Netherlands. I hope that you will enjoy our pictures and posts over the coming days or weeks even, providing we stay here longer than we thought we might.

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  6. I don't want to hear about your poop! Hahaha! Just kidding. It's a part of living on the road! We are hoping we buy something used, that doesn't have many miles on it. That's our plan. Take care, Rawn Stone

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    1. We like to show how RVing in Europe is different that RVing back in North America and dumping both the black and grey tanks is quite different!

      Hopefully you will be able to find what you are looking for and be able to start doing some traveling yourselves. :-)

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  7. Like a surprising number of your readers, I also lived there as a child (an American child, however - my Dad worked for an international corporation which has its global HQ in The Hague). Looking forward to the pics if yall get over there. The ones you've posted so far have already triggered that old nostalgia button, though since the architecture & the quality of the light is quite distinctive. Too bad you missed tulip season!
    I got the J&J also about 3 months ago in TX, the day before it was put on temporary pause here. My mother had gotten it months before that. No ill effects for either of us except I had very minor soreness at the jab place for a while. J&J has just reported it looks to be effective against the Delta variant too. Best of luck that you can get it!

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    1. We are glad that our pictures have been able to rekindle some nice old memories for you. I am not sure that we will be going to The Hague or Amsterdam for that matter on this trip. We really want to come back to that area in the spring time so that we can see the tulips, it might not be next spring but perhaps the spring after that. No worries though, we will be checking out lots of other areas of the Netherlands. :-)

      Glad to hear that you didn't have any effects from the J&J shot. Kevin said that he was totally fine, he didn't even have a sore arm. I on the other hand, have a sore arm around the injection site and it is still sore this morning and I also had the chills last night. I seem fine this morning, not perfect but good. Hopefully it will only get better.

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  8. I've only visited Amsterdam on a flight layover, but I love the Netherlands! Looking forward to more of your pics.

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    1. Nice! I would like to go to Amsterdam but it won't be on this trip. We would like to come back again in the spring when we can see the tulips in bloom, plus we have had our fill of big cities for the moment and would rather get back into nature for a bit. Despite the Netherlands being flat, we think it is very pretty so far and look forward to doing some more exploring. :-)

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