As we left the hotel, the expected market was setting up in the market square. This had figured in our breakfast plan, but it was not to be. The first four vendors were large fish sellers - no help there. Half of the remaining dealers were selling clothes, and then there was a florist and a spring bulb seller. That left only one, with fruits and veggies. We did not quite feel like breakfasting only on grapes and asparagus, so to speak, so we were off again to Albert Heijn.
Here I am in front of Albert Heijn again. Looking at the photo, here is what I see:
Because this is downtown in an old city, there are no giant window and sliding doors for the supermarket. Even so, it is quite big inside.
The blue tires on the bikes are front wheel only. I have no idea why.
Most of the parked bikes were totally basic, with no gears and coaster brakes.
The man in black was a beggar. He asked me for one euro, but like the Pope I actually have no coins, so I could truthfully tell him that I had nothing.
I noticed that the man was not walking all that well, and wondered what his life story was.
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretThank you. We, well Steve really, I didn't notice until I read the blog, wondered why there were two colours of tire on so many bikes. Reply to this comment 3 weeks ago
Here is Dodie now packing up the treasures she found inside. See all the parked bikes. If those had had to be cars, this grocery store service would not have worked well downtown. Someone had given the man in black five euros, and he departed with it at high speed - faster than I thought he was capable of. I hope he was not off to buy cigarettes!
Although Netherlands is generally flat, especially in the north where land was reclaimed from the sea, there are one or two hills. One is at Maastricht, where there is quite a significant one called Saint Petersburg. The Dutch built a fort there, to fend off the French. The French sacked the city in 1673, and consequently a stronger fort was built. The French attacked again in 1793, with 15,000 men, but the fort was impregnable, and 4,500 Dutch fended off the attack.
The fort atop the mountain. It is actually hexagonal.
The mountain also hosted the largest mine in Netherlands, and open pit for limestone. Chalk was also quarried there, resulting in a network of tunnels that can still be visited today.
The soft stone of the area, used for building, has been fertile territory for graffiti carvers. Patrick in Roermond told us about this, and suggested we could put Joni's name somewhere. In town, we didn't want to deface any buildings, but this was a good spot.
Somewhere before Liege a man ste3pped in front of us on the path and started up a conversation. We enjoyed talking to him, because it was a point of contact with a local person, but also he reminded us of Dodie's dad, Walter, and we could listen to Walter for hours. The man told us of his life working in the Maastricht mine and cement works, including how he was put on shipping, because he could speak German. And he described how his four bothers and one sister had all moved to Canada. One who had gone to Toronto came back, because of the harsh winter. We wondered later why he had not simply followed the sister, who was in Vancouver - land of rain, but not snow. After cautioning us to be careful around Liege, the man carried on with his walk. At 82, his daily circuit was about 4 km.
Shortly after our chat with the walker, it was time to cross a bridge. As bridges often do, this one rose to a peak in the middle before descending on the other side. I think Dodie pushed up the slope for a bit, before deciding to ride the rest. She mounted her bike and seemed to steer straight into the guard rail on the left. Over she went, on top of the bike but with one leg under it. Interestingly the night before we had been looking at the still bruised leg from the slow motion crash that happened just after the kids went home, on the Loire, and speculating how long it would take to totally clear up. Whatever that calculation was (I had been suggesting 6 months) it is not confounded by events today, because Dodie wrenched her left shoulder this time, leaving the leg to heal in peace.
Is Dodie blaming her bike for this steering malfunction? No, but we had to do some careful realignment of the bar, that had become twisted.
But thereafter it really was a mess. The path wound its way through varies kinds of industry, and fairly ugly brick row housing. There was often construction or other obstructions on the path, forcing us to find ways around, and there was an inordinate amount of dismounting and mounting the bikes.
You had to judge the safest moment to sneak beside this swinging arm.
As we drew abreast of central Liege, on the far bank from us, we searched for any heritage structures of interest. Here are our two photo attempts at that:
The next four shots depict the scene on the far side of Liege, before Flemalle. It was all fairly urban riding, with lots of traffic, and scouting around for the route.
Our chambre d'hote presented a very plain face to the street. But the door opened to a large garden area, and our room is in the attic of a house from 1720. The broad, cracked, and creaky floorboards are fun, as are the dark beams. And hey, there is a bathtub. That's where I'm going now!
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