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...

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