The sun doesn't come up until about 7:45am, but as soon as it was light enough we set off to see a nearby castle. It's used as an event center and restaurant now, and unfortunately it was too early and we couldn't go inside.
But the outside was interesting enough!
Henkenshage Castle in Sint-Oedenrode, Netherlands.
With a moat and everything.
Really pretty castle!
Then it was a short drive to Belgium. But not the normal part of Belgium.
Scenery along theway.
We like taking the back roads.
This road wasn't paved for about 2 kms. But the bicycle path was!
Our next stop was the town of Baarle-Hertog.
This is a really odd place. The town is physically located in Netherlands, but parts of the town are Belgian enclaves. And the border between Belgium and Netherlands runs really randomly through the town so that sometimes you are in Belgium, and sometimes you are in Netherlands. And sometimes you are in both countries at the same time!
Ruth, with one foot in Belgium, and one foot in Netherlands.
The border runs right up through the middle of the road,
and then cuts randomly in between these two buildings.
Big church in Baarle-Hertog.
Kevin in both Netherlands and Belgium.
Another random part of the border.
Here's a map that shows how wacky the border is.
Ruth liked this painting on the wall.
Max has a steeple sticking up from his roof!
Had to stop and fill up Max's AdBlue tank. Finally found a place that has AdBlue at the pump. So much easier to fill up that way as opposed to buying a 10 liter jug of the stuff. AdBlue is diesel exhaust fluid to reduce the emissions in diesel powered vehicles. One tankful lasts about 8,000 kms (5,000 miles). It cost €18 ($25 CAD, $18 USD) to fill it up.
Then it was off to meet up with friends Bjorn and Freya.
We had met Bjorn and Freya at a campground in Bosnia a year ago. We've kept in touch and they always said that if we end up in Belgium to look them up. So we did!
Bjorn is a mechanic and he works at an interesting place called Retro City Dussolier Classc Cars just north of Antwerp. I was in the car business for a long time, so of course this place looked really interesting to me.
It looks like a museum, but every car is for sale!
Mostly European cars, but some American classics as well.
1995 Ferrari F355 Spider.
It can be yours for only €79,500 ($107,000 CAD).
Retro diner on the premises.
Yep!
Bjorn, showing off his personal toy... 1989 BMW Z1.
Triumph TR6.
Lots of fun seeing all the old cars. They also have full mechanic service for classics, so Bjorn gets to work on vehicles like this all the time.
We are also going to get to see where Freya works as well. She is at the big National Museum of History in Brussels. and we might even get a special behind the scenes tour! That will happen on Thursday though.
They had his fathers motorhome with them, so they led us to a nice overnight spot at a trailhead near the city. Ruth had made a big pot of stew, so we had them over for dinner.
My first Belgian beer!
Today, we are driving to a parking spot closer to Antwerp so that we can ride our bikes into the city. Weather is better than we thought it would be with a forecast high of 16C (62F) and possibility of an afternoon shower.
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6' x 9' RV Patio Mat. Record low deal.
And in Canada...
Loved what I saw of Netherlands and Belgium. I also loved the classic car tour :-)
ReplyDeleteThere will definitely be more of Belgium coming up! The classic car place was really great, we felt like we were in a museum and I guess in a sense we were.
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