The scent of manure from the neighboring farm fields was so thick you could taste it as we pulled in to the CenterParcs resort village in De Haan, Belgium on Friday night. Fortunately, the olfactory malefaction passed by midday Saturday and was quickly forgotten as we enjoyed five relaxing days with little planned but exploring the resort and nearby beach on the North Sea, visiting Amsterdam for a day and meeting up with friends one last time.
Our roomy, three-bedroom cabin had a kitchen, two-stories and plenty of room to spread out; a welcome layout for the last accommodations we would call home on our trip. The park had a general store (with a great beer selection) and was packed with activities including an indoor kids' play area, a swim park with a wave pool and waterslides, an indoor sport park where we played a family round of badminton, a bowling alley (didn't), mini-golf (did) and more. Needless to say, along with Disneyland (Day 38) and our afternoon at Stardust park in Brussels (Day 31), DeHaan ranked as one of the kids' favorite destinations.
The town is quiet, picturesque and very European; there are flowers in every window box on the police station and signs exclusively in Dutch in the laundromats. We were pleased to once again find ourselves at a charming refuge favored by locals, even if English is an afterthought in De Haan. The only way I found out that one business was a small grocery/convenience store was by walking up and opening the door. Because their sign wasn't a helpful indicator:
After a breakfast buffet and our first visit to the water slides on Saturday morning, our friends Frank and Carlos made the drive up from Brussels with Frank's mom to explore the area with us.
While we endured some heavy winds and really the first plan-altering precipitation of our entire trip, we still rode a tram to the center of town and the kids hit a trampoline carnival ride before the rains drove us back to the resort. Fortunately our first order of business had been a stroll to the seashore to feel the waves, collect some shells and poke a dead jellyfish with a stick.
After a quiet day around the resort on Sunday, we made our last major sightseeing trip on Monday - Betsy's birthday! - when we got up early to make the three-hour drive to Amsterdam. The Netherlands struck us as being very clean, well-organized and healthy - at least the rest stops, vehicles and roadside fields, buildings and waterways we saw. We arrived in the city shortly before lunchtime and, after hunting down a parking spot, set out on foot to wander along the canals and see what we could find.
Amsterdam, the fourth world capital of our trip, was busy and alive on the crisp, sunny day of our visit. People were milling about everywhere, causing Betsy to wonder, "Don't any of these people have jobs?!"
Since we decided to forego the art scene and save the Van Gogh and Rembrandt museums for another time, the one place we really wanted to see was the Anne Frank House. A moderate queue and a look at some information in the museum's shop gave us time for a family history lesson on Anne Frank and WWII.
We saw the warehouse for Mr. Frank's former business and where the family's hideout was built in a secret rear annex. We walked through the offices where the refugees' only support worked by day and where Anne, her sister Margot, mother Edith, father Otto and four others would occasionally sneak by night. We walked past a reconstruction of the bookcase that hid the access panel to the annex and walked up the stairs to the tiny living space shared by eight people from July 6, 1942 until August 4, 1944 when the German police stormed in after an unidentified informer exposed them. It was difficult to place one's self in their shoes; terrified to cough, sneeze, flush a toilet or crack a window shade lest they be discovered and thrown to the Nazi devils; bored, trapped, alone, cramped and fearful for day upon day. While the annex is completely unfurnished, the walls and layout have remain unchanged and walking through Anne's bedroom with the pictures she pasted up on the wall still intact, seeing the map where Otto Frank marked the advancing Allied forces and the section of wallpaper where Anne and Margot's height was marked during their stay was very moving. The original diaries, handwritten in Dutch and spanning several books were also on display.
Anne Frank was important not only because she chronicled a chapter of world history from a viewpoint that usually goes unheard but more so because of the life, love, hopes and dreams for mankind she expressed so beautifully in spite of her dire circumstances.
No photography was allowed inside but here are the kids in front of the exterior of the warehouse right after our visit.
Next we took a relaxing one-hour boat tour through the canals and enjoyed learning about the grand buildings, beguiling houseboats and intricate bridges lining the channels.
Betsy slipped on her fabulous birthday gift, the shimmering Swarovski ring purchased that day from their Amsterdam retail store.
At one point, we consulted our GPS to determine which route we should take next to explore the city and decided on a corner that we hadn't reached previously. Three blocks later, we failed to notice the crimson light bulbs above the windows but we did see the woman in the window who was, as Vaughn put it, "pretending to be a mannequin but with no shirt on." As she pulled the curtain closed with a frown, we made a u-turn and made our way back towards more familiar territory.
The town is quiet, picturesque and very European; there are flowers in every window box on the police station and signs exclusively in Dutch in the laundromats. We were pleased to once again find ourselves at a charming refuge favored by locals, even if English is an afterthought in De Haan. The only way I found out that one business was a small grocery/convenience store was by walking up and opening the door. Because their sign wasn't a helpful indicator:
After a breakfast buffet and our first visit to the water slides on Saturday morning, our friends Frank and Carlos made the drive up from Brussels with Frank's mom to explore the area with us.
While we endured some heavy winds and really the first plan-altering precipitation of our entire trip, we still rode a tram to the center of town and the kids hit a trampoline carnival ride before the rains drove us back to the resort. Fortunately our first order of business had been a stroll to the seashore to feel the waves, collect some shells and poke a dead jellyfish with a stick.
After a quiet day around the resort on Sunday, we made our last major sightseeing trip on Monday - Betsy's birthday! - when we got up early to make the three-hour drive to Amsterdam. The Netherlands struck us as being very clean, well-organized and healthy - at least the rest stops, vehicles and roadside fields, buildings and waterways we saw. We arrived in the city shortly before lunchtime and, after hunting down a parking spot, set out on foot to wander along the canals and see what we could find.
Amsterdam, the fourth world capital of our trip, was busy and alive on the crisp, sunny day of our visit. People were milling about everywhere, causing Betsy to wonder, "Don't any of these people have jobs?!"
She left me to ponder that at one of the local coffeehouses while she and the kids took a little walk. It was some of the best coffee I've ever had (not pictured).
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The most watery city in the world gets its distinction from three main canals, dug in the 17th century, that form concentric belts through the old downtown, which boasts 1550 monumental buildings. We enjoyed weaving our way along the numerous connecting canals and seeing the houseboats and old crooked warehouses, many of them refurbished as cool living spaces.
Since we decided to forego the art scene and save the Van Gogh and Rembrandt museums for another time, the one place we really wanted to see was the Anne Frank House. A moderate queue and a look at some information in the museum's shop gave us time for a family history lesson on Anne Frank and WWII.
We saw the warehouse for Mr. Frank's former business and where the family's hideout was built in a secret rear annex. We walked through the offices where the refugees' only support worked by day and where Anne, her sister Margot, mother Edith, father Otto and four others would occasionally sneak by night. We walked past a reconstruction of the bookcase that hid the access panel to the annex and walked up the stairs to the tiny living space shared by eight people from July 6, 1942 until August 4, 1944 when the German police stormed in after an unidentified informer exposed them. It was difficult to place one's self in their shoes; terrified to cough, sneeze, flush a toilet or crack a window shade lest they be discovered and thrown to the Nazi devils; bored, trapped, alone, cramped and fearful for day upon day. While the annex is completely unfurnished, the walls and layout have remain unchanged and walking through Anne's bedroom with the pictures she pasted up on the wall still intact, seeing the map where Otto Frank marked the advancing Allied forces and the section of wallpaper where Anne and Margot's height was marked during their stay was very moving. The original diaries, handwritten in Dutch and spanning several books were also on display.
Anne Frank was important not only because she chronicled a chapter of world history from a viewpoint that usually goes unheard but more so because of the life, love, hopes and dreams for mankind she expressed so beautifully in spite of her dire circumstances.
No photography was allowed inside but here are the kids in front of the exterior of the warehouse right after our visit.
Next we took a relaxing one-hour boat tour through the canals and enjoyed learning about the grand buildings, beguiling houseboats and intricate bridges lining the channels.
Betsy slipped on her fabulous birthday gift, the shimmering Swarovski ring purchased that day from their Amsterdam retail store.
At one point, we consulted our GPS to determine which route we should take next to explore the city and decided on a corner that we hadn't reached previously. Three blocks later, we failed to notice the crimson light bulbs above the windows but we did see the woman in the window who was, as Vaughn put it, "pretending to be a mannequin but with no shirt on." As she pulled the curtain closed with a frown, we made a u-turn and made our way back towards more familiar territory.
Following our day in Amsterdam, two lazy days back at the De Haan resort with nowhere to be and nothing to do closed out our vacation. We bought a shovel for the beach and had a blast digging in the sand and leaping in the waves.
On Wednesday evening we enjoyed a visit from our friends Max, Els and daughters Jill and Anna -Paulina. A pizza feast, lots of laughs, and hopes for many reunions in the future preceded this beautiful sunset on the beach.
After the two-hour dinner, the kids were eager to stretch their legs as we began to stroll around De Haan. Shortly after leaving the restaurant at dusk, all three kids ran around a corner and were clotheslined by an almost-invisible cable strung up between pillars at the bike-rental store shown in the second picture of this post. Xander took the worst of it on his neck and the height of the wire was evident as Vaughn got it on the nose and Quinn on her right eyebrow.
We went to the floral police station and made a report so I'm sure the bike store got a stern reprimand in the morning. Of course, it took an some Americans sprinting blindly around a dark corner in an unfamiliar town to point out the problem, but we did our civic duty and - finally! - a Belgian cop wrote my information down in his little book.
Thursday morning started early as we made our way to the airport first thing in the morning. One of our strategies was to put a packed suitcase inside an otherwise empty larger suitcase to make our return trip a little easier. It was a great idea that made packing easy but cramming everything into our little Skoda Octavia a lot like playing Tetris. Here's us pulling everything out upon arrival at the Brussels airport for our flight back home. Vaughn has the print we bought during our visit to Monet's house and gardens.
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This is the last installment of the Hughes on the Loose: Europe 2012 blog after 27 posts covering 44 days. We've had over 1900 page views and we're delighted our friends and family could share the true joys of Europe right along with us:
Our trip ended with our return to the Twin Cities on August 30. We will have to find a local resource for some of the thirty new varieties of beer we've sampled during our travels (several of them way more than once). The true highlights were our stays in London (during the Olympics!) and Paris, living in Brussels, the day trips to Amsterdam, Dinant and Monschau, seeing all the castles, walls, cathedrals, palaces and boobs, just being together and the countless little joys and discoveries that happened every day.
goodbye laundromats,
hello dishwasher
goodbye museums,
hello classrooms
goodbye pigeons,
hello piano
goodbye great beer everywhere,
hello all English all the time
goodbye Bob l'eponge,
hello NFL
goodbye subways,
hello Hopkins
goodbye cigarette butts,
hello water fountains and trash cans
goodbye suitcases,
hello baseball gloves
goodbye new friends,
hello home
Ha ha ha ha ha! Weiner Circus!
