Day 39: Straelen to Roermond

September 17, 2024

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Well, our one and only German breakfast for this trip turned out to be just normal - good, but not better than many we had already found in Netherlands. We did really like the hotel and we always enjoy Germany, but we had to admit that Straelen was dull compared to nearby Netherlands. In the photo below, we see relatively dull houses, a wide street, and less provision for bikes than we have come to expect!

However, just outside of town, there were great fields of vegetables. We are prone to looking at such fields and thinking of what food dishes will eventually come from them. My favourite is potatoes, so I can fantasize about fries. so here we started off with cabbage, for sauerkraut of course. Red cabbage would also have been nice, for sauerbraten.

This next photo shows the rather wide highway like road, but also a giant field of leeks.

I was "grousing" about the leeks, as to what good are they, and Dodie pointed out leek and potato soup. Sure enough, a giant potato field came up. But I was interested in the field of geese, below, which started me thinking about how long until Christmas dinner!

Wild Greylag geese - good for Christmas dinner?

Any further comparisons of Germany to Netherlands came to an end as we reached the border. We were pleased to see that on this road, anyway, there were no border controls. It's distressing to read that Germany is setting such controls back up. We think the EU and the Shengen passport-free arrangements are inspirational, and we would like to see it survive indefinitely.

Just across the border, on the way to Venlo, many lamp posts were wool bombed!

The road is a little narrower and the bike provisions are better.

By the river, at Venlo, we ran into a little selection of geese. The all white ones are Embden, which is the iconic white goose of Germany. There was also the Greylag style one, with the white nose -the Greater White Fronted goose.

Further along the river, at Steyl as we waited for the ferry, a Black Swan flew down the river, right in front of us. The Black Swan was not yet on our 2024 list of sightings, so this caused a lot of excitement. It took time to get out the camera, and all we got for a shot is the one below:

We were rather stewing about the mostly missed swan, when at Baarlo we ran into the pair below. Happy now!

We even got them to do this heart pose for us!

When we reached Kessel, we came upon (could not avoid) the Keverberg castle. This was built here in the 12th century. It of course changed hands several times and had various additions and destructions. For example, it burned during the 80 Year's War (16th century). In 1875 it became a convent and girls' boarding school, and it was renovated in 1927. However, in 1944 it was blown up by German troops. It had been a ruin, but we saw today that there has been renovation, and a cafe is there now.

Just down from the castle was this handsome building. The gate seemed to say private property, and there was a man sweeping leaves in the street in front. I naively asked him if this was his house, and he merely answered no. I later found that this is the "Kasteel Museum Villa Oeverberg". It seems to have a collection of kitchy objects, but I have found nothing about its history.

Viewed from the river, you can see the position of the castle and the museum.

We crossed the river at Kessel and proceeded to Beesel.

In Beesel we noticed various dragon themed statues or decorations, and thought little of them.

But in due course we came to an info panel, which in translation said this:

"The Drachenstich in Beesel is a seven-yearly historical open-air festival based on the legend of Saint George and the dragon. Originating around the middle of the 17th century in the circle of the Beeseler Schützenbruderschaft and guarded like a precious diamond, the game has grown into a mega spectacle in which the entire village is involved. For centuries, the Beesel Drachenstich has been a short, visual spectacle on fair Monday. Around 1880 it was turned into a play with actors such as the king, the princess, Saint George, the squire and the ladies-in-waiting. A narrator reads the verses of the dragon song to illustrate the drama. In 1883, the first act of this three-part play was performed for the first time here on the banks of the Meuse: the father brings the royal child, assigned by lot, to the place where the dragon is. When the dragon crawls out of the undergrowth on the Meuse to devour the princess, Saint George appears with his entourage to tame the monster."

The info panel had several photos of this festival from the distant past and from more recent times. Like this one (from 1927, I seem to recall):

We carried on toward Roermond, with our main excitement coming from another windmill, some nice houses, and some unique ponies:

Nice house - much smaller than in Germany.

We rolled into the centre of Roermond, which is on the river Roer, a tributary of the Maas. The pedestrian street looked very inviting, and we would soon find that there is a lot more to this place as well.

On that pedestrian street we easily found our stay for the night, which is called the Roermondse Beleving (Roermond Experience). We quickly learned that the "experience" is not exactly for us. Rather, the BnB is operated by a foundation like the "Childrens' Wish Foundation" back home. It tries to fulfil wishes of very sick children, often, it seems, with helicopter flights. Our host, Patrick, was in fact a volunteer. He helped to start the thing, following the deaths of his own twin children.

The building we are in has another distinction, in that it is the birth house of Pierre Cuypers (1827-1921). Cuypers is the most famous architect of Netherlands. Cuypers also had his studio in town, in a house that is now a museum for his work. He is most famous for the Amsterdam Central Station and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He also had a hand in the renovation of churches here in town.

Next door to our place we spotted some Hebrew up on a wall, plus a Star of David. This turned out to have been the synagogue of the town. The Hebrew on the wall is from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20),

"And God said to you, "Thou shalt not murder, I will not go, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not take them, thou shalt not steal."

All the jews of Roermond were murdered in WWII, and none have returned.

Our place (left) and the synagogue (right)

From our room, looking out back, we see the white building that was maybe the heart of the synagogue.

In the courtyard of the white building is this memorial:

The caption: "May their souls be bundled in the bundle of life"

A closeup of part of the memorial shows the birth dates of the victims. There is one listed from 1941, so at most a four or five year old.

Since we had arrived very early, we could set off for a tour of the town. The first part of that, since this is Netherlands, is to descend the stairs. Not so easy!

We had a map like the one below, showing (mercifully) only five major things of note in the town. It's a misleading measure, though, because the town has a lot of pleasant walking street, and at least one of the five things - the Saint Christopher Cathedral - boasts 40 important things to look at inside. (Fortunately we only looked at the pamphlet with the 40 things when we were safely back in our room!).

The Munsterkerk looks like the main thing, but the more impressive Cathedral did not even make it onto my snapshot of the map info board.

There as a nice, conservative, garden by the Munster.

We assumed the statue would be of a queen and king, and maybe it is, but the plaque reads: "Municipality of Roermond Where past and present touch, eternal love can awaken in gentleness..."

Also in the garden was a statue of Cuypers.

Inside the Munster, some pleasant arches and stained glass, but not mind boggling.

They did have these effigies in the middle.

Near the altar were some attractive mosaic floors

The crass economist in me speculated on whether you get more value from lighting five small candles at €1 each, or one large one at €5 . One long burning large, said Dodie.

All through Netherlands we have been seeing the sign shown below. Hyper sensitized by events in the States, and thinking that "buurt" probably meant "birth", we wondered if this were some kind of anti-birth control propaganda. Finally then, seeing another of these signs in the street at Roermond, I approached a nearby middle aged couple, meaning to ask what it meant. In response to my "Excuse me...", the man replied "No!" and when I said "No English?" he reiterated "No!". I was a bit shaken by this, because clearly the man thought I was a bum or had some agenda to harass or shake him down. "Do I look that shabby?" I asked myself. In my bedraggled yellow safety vest and yellow raincoat - maybe yes!

Anyway, even as a bum, I own a computer, and it (quite happily) told me that "buurt" actually means "neighbourhood" and that this sign signifies Neighbourhood Watch. Clearly that did not make the man feel any safer!

My self esteem rose a lot as we went in to a cheese store. The lady serving there happily answered my questions, and gave us samples of cheeses I was interested in. I settled on one pesto flavoured one, and one with pepper. She cut us slices from the big wheels with a sturdy slicer. I took a couple of photos of this happening, and she asked not to be in the photos. I deleted one in which I might agree the lady did not look that great, but I think she looks fine below and I left her in. Sorry, lady.

Between cutting the first and second cheese flavour, the phone rang, and the lady was on it for a bit of a long time. To compensate, she gave us the second package of cheese for free, and threw in a jar of tomato preserves. I left no longer feeling like a bum.

There were lots of cheese ages and flavours.

Next up was the Market square, with city hall and its carillon.

City hall is to the right, off screen in this photo.

The carillon atop city hall. We heard it play on the half hour, but we assume the figures move on the hour.

Now the cathedral - rather plain on the outside, but impressive on the inside.

The cathedral has had a lot of recovering to do. Since being built in 1410 it has endured fires, storms, earthquakes, and in 1945 the retreating German soldiers blew it up.

Just inside the church door is this re-creation of the Cruz de Ferro, on the Camino of Santiago. That is where pilgrims who have been carrying the weight of their cares or sins in the form of a rock, deposit it at the foot of the cross. We could proudly boast to people gawking at the display, that we had been to the real place, and done that!

The cathedral quite nicely then starts with a gift shop. I liked the statues below.

I have seen Santiago, San Diego, St Jacques, and St James, but this was my first San Giacomo.

The cathedral has some magnificent stained glass, and a fancy altar piece. Only one bit of glass survived the WWII demolition, a window from 1870. A lot of the new replacement glass is very flamboyant - nice.

A final stop was the bridge over the Roer. We thought it could possibly be a medieval bridge, something worth bagging with a photo. But while there has been a wooden bridge here since 1384, and a stone one since 1726, that was rebuilt in 1771. A 1771 bridge would have been something, but that was blown up in WWII. So what we have in this photo is from 1955. No so medieval!

Walking back, Dodie noticed this impressive building. Some research shows that it is from the 16th century, and is registered as a national monument.

Noty so old, but still a national treasure, is this standard Dutch bike. This one is by Batavus, a common brand. I rather like the faster sounding Gazelle.

Narrow buildings like these are a Dutch standard as well. You know their staircases will be ladders!

I did get ice cream I had been thinking about. This one was advertised as Dutch home made, and it was good. Also reasonably priced at €1.90. I was trying to show my cone in a photo with the other flavours in the background, but I smeared some on the glass. The boy who had scooped the ice cream had to come and clean up the display case, particularly after I made it worse with a napkin. This left Dodie having to apologize for me, a position I bet she feels she often finds herself in!

p.s. I think my flavour was Kinder Bueno!

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,864 km (1,158 miles)

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John FlecknerYes, much to see in an unsuspecting locale
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3 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo John FlecknerThis was such an unexpected pleasure. Now we can hardly wait for Maastricht tomorrow and the day after.
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3 months ago