Hotel Ons Krijtland Epen

Well, I'm back again and so much has happened since I last wrote - enough to turn my trip very nearly on its head...<br><br>I'm in Belgium now and back on an AZERTY keyboard, so this is difficult to type, but here goes: After leaving Sara's place in Aarhus, Denmark, last Wednesday, Claus and I spent the morning wandering through Aarhus in the rain, looking at a church and hunting for the town hall. We then headed to Odense, also in Denmark. On the way, we stopped for a traditional ...

... into Maastricht to look around. We caught the train and then walked over the bridge to the old city centre. There were heaps of shops and a few beautiful squares. We managed to stay out of the rain by ducking into a little pub for a warm lunch.<br>We were sad to say goodbye but school break for the kids was over and we had to continue on our journey with lots more still to see. We had a great time with the Strous family and hope they will come and visit us soon!<br>

During our stay in Spa we had the most scary, horrible, unpleasant experience ever in a restaurant.<br><br>The restaurant to avoid is "Le Bouchon Gourmand", the owner does not hesitate to insult customers, lock them into the restaurant if there is a dispute on the bill, and claim more money than is due. <br><br>See more on www.bouchon-gourmand.blogspot.com

... bad, but considering everything I did today, it was a long day.<br><br>Coming up the stairs I met our neighbor lady, Rosvitta. She is a talker, but very nice. She's the lady that cooked that traditional German dinner a couple weeks ago. I told her all about my day, and she was happy for me and kept telling me how my time here is just going to fly. She also said that if I ever get homesick I can always come back here to my family. That was ...

... space isn't exactly the safest place to be. With the German national elections coming up, tensions are high. <br><br>At least the weather is nice here, though! We are having a little Indian summer, about 70 degrees and sunny outside. I better take advantage of this now, because I hear the winter can be really terrible: sunrise at 10am and sunset at 4pm.. we shall see how that goes.<br><br>Ok well Nil should be here any minute, more later!

After popping into and out of Germany, we were now back in Belgium. It was beginning to get a bit dark, and we still had at least 200 miles left to drive.<br><br>Gaz's motor was struggling, and threatening to overheat, so we stopped to let it cool down.<br><br>With the vehicles all decorated with stickers, we attracted a bit of attention, and a Belgian couple took our ...

Once in Elsloo, we stopped to find postcards (having completely missed the observations again), only to find that the only card shop was closed that afternoon.<br><br>Up the road a bit, and Kieran was dropping a card into the door of a Landy enthusiast they had met on the recce. The guy turned up at that moment, and so we were invited in for a refreshing cold drink. The Landyprikkers overtook us at that point, and went on their way. We then ...

... following a cycle route which, in daylight, leads through open countryside, farmland, quaint little hamlets and traffic-free footpaths. At night it was a treacherous, pot-holed, unpredictable death-trap and at irregular intervals the devilish, iridescent gaze of satan´s bovine sentinals would flash from the dark and a flap of bats rush past my face. When, after about an hour, I saw a small local pub with it´s front door open and heard chatter and laughter from ...

... Belgium&#8217;s two greatest commodities. After we picked our lunch items from the one-third of the supermarket aisles dedicated to groceries, Amber got side-tracked admiring the second third of the aisles, all dedicated to chocolate, while I went AWOL in the last third of the supermarket, eyeing off all the shelves stocked with beer. <br><br>We cycled back the way we came to return once again to The Netherlands ...

After two days of clouds and light rain, the sun finally showed up and gave us one of the most pretty days to visit the gorgeous cathedral of Cologne. They told us we were the only group to visit the cathedral that day, but there was a great lack of organization all week long, so we found again the entire world trying to enter the cathedral... <br><br><br ...