Doug and Kerry Hudson in the Netherlands

Following our stay in Belgium, our next destination was Soest, just outside Utrecht and half an hour from Amsterdam, capital city of the Netherlands. We arrived at the hostel in the middle of the afternoon, tired from our journey. Roadworks, diversions, and large lorries blocking our view of road signs had all conspired to try and get us lost again, but we still found our way safely. We wandered into Soest to get a bite to eat, and spent the rest of the day planning our attack on Amsterdam.

Up early the next morning we set off on the local train to Amsterdam. We had learned our lesson to never try to navigate by car in foreign cities, lesson we had unfortunately forgotten by the time we reached Italy...

Our train pulled in the Centraal Station, which was packed with tourists. Then coming outside, the Centraal plein was also packed. Oh no, we thought. However, Doug soon navigated our way to the Museumplein, which was much quieter and a pleasant change from the crush. We ate lunch just across the canal from the Rijksmuseum, in a lovely setting with willow trees draping into the water, and people walking their dogs. We only had time for one museum, so we plumped for the Van Gogh museum. This was incredible. We both thoroughly enjoyed the paintings, and could have spent hours gazing at them. Kerry's highlight of this museum was a man wearing no trousers, only underpants, t-shirt and trainers! She wants to point out here that she also enjoyed the art!

After the Van Gogh museum, we did a tour of the canals. This was very interesting, and we saw the smallest house and oldest house in Amsterdam. The smallest one was barely the width of a door! We then made our way back to the station, via the Red Light district. Kerry was shocked to see ladies parading themselves in the windows, and even more shocked when Doug explained to her why some windows had curtains drawn across them... Obviously we didn't linger here for ages!

The following day we took a break from cities, and spent the day walking around the small town of Soest. We walked to the nearby sand dunes first of all. It was very strange to see them there so far from any beach or desert. Then we walked to the cheese farm via the horse sanctuary, and then to the museum. We had lunch at Smickel pancake house. We sat in the delightful garden, and feasted on huge savoury pancakes containing spiced mince, onion, pepper and mushrooms. We gave thse full marks for quantity, but found them somewhat lacking in flavour. And Doug got a dodgy tummy from his...

We spent our last day in the Netherlands in Utrecht. This was a minor revelation, as it was such a beautiful city, yet almost devoid of tourists. It was therefore such a pleasure! There were sunken canals which used to support the cities trade as the hub of the Netherlands. Trendy shops, cafes and bars now line these canals. We followed a self-guided walking tour around the sights of interest, including the Dom tower and the cathedral. The cathedral had a very photogenic cloisters with garden and fountain. We also saw "Flora's Garden", a hidden garden entered through a small doorway...

We left Soest a day earlier than planned. The reason for this was that we hadn't had one good night's sleep since arriving, the hostel being full of noisy German children. So we packed up and headed towards Germany. We were aiming for Eisenach, but decided to camp in Vaals as the journey would have been too long for one day. Where is Vaals?, we hear you say. It lies on the border of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. We found a really cosy campsite and set up camp for the night.

It didn't take us long to set up camp, so we went to see the American Cemetary. This place was very sobering and yet very beautiful too. American Oak trees lined the driveway to the cemetary. There were grave stones for each American soldier to die in WWII and memorial walls for those soldiers who went missing and whose bodies were never found or identified.

We also drove through a quaint village called Vijlen, where we stopped off for a much needed refreshment. At this bar we tried a Bavaria beer. After dinner, we walked into the village of Vaals. This was particularly enjoyable because we walked to Germany and back. We considered walking to Belgium too, but this would have been too much for Doug's full bladder. However, it's not every day you can say you walked to Germany and back.

The next morning we left for Germany. On the way we stopped at Drielandespunt, the point where the three countries of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands all meet. We were surprised at just how developed this was as a tourist attraction. And it is pure coincidence that we were there only two weeks after Doug's Dad went there, honest!

World Trip >> Europe >> Netherlands

Last updated: Sunday August 27, 2006