In the hills
Way back in the summer, we had planned to go sailing or something else outdoors and healthy. This though never happened due to Astrid being busy with her thesis and me with work and such like. Instead, we went away at the beginning of this week, for a few days walking in the south east of the Netherlands. It is indeed a strange time of year for such a holiday, but provided that you are well wrapped and keep moving it is possible to enjoy the experience without freezing.
Our base was Groesbeek, a small town accessible by bus from Nijmegen. We were staying in a small hotel which may or not have been busy in the summer, but was now but for us deserted. Cheap enough, and I am sure they were glad of our custom.
After arriving on Sunday afternoon, we immediately set out so as to take advantage of the weather; I was quite worried that it would start raining as it has been doing for much of the last week and not stop for several days. In the end we were quite lucky, although of course at this time of year it gets dark very early.
So it was that we found ourselves wandering about in the dark, in the middle of the Reichswald. This is a forest, and as the name suggests is in fact in Germany; we could walk to the border in about half an hour from our hotel.
This for me was a strange and fascinating experience; I come of course from an island, and have never seen a land border up close before. What interested be is the arbitrariness of it; one step and you’re in Germany, another one back and you are once again in the Netherlands. You don’t feel any different, I can assure you, and it is only the little differences that start to give it away: the houses look a little different, the cars have “D” instead of “NL” on the number plates, and of course this is also a language border; on one side you’re walking along a straat, and on the other a straße. It seems cliché to mention it, but not so very long ago countless people died because people couldn’t keep to their side of this invisible line. Thanks be that these days are now gone.
Back to the woods. Having found our way out, we took a walk to the nearest village and got something to eat. It was quite nice to be able to practice some German as we ordered food, until it turned out that the woman serving us was in fact Dutch; we were not quite so far away from home as it might have seemed.
We spent the following two days doing some more wandering about in the countryside, which to my surprise is actually quite hilly; at times I could almost believe that I was back in the Highlands: heather, fir trees, and farmland everywhere, and on the last day something quite unbelievable; Highland cows!
Aye, the great muckle horned beasts indeed, grazing contentedly just as if they were back in Perthshire. Most unexpected.
Finally, it came time to head back to Amsterdam; although I would have to say that I was pretty tired after so much walking and country air, I was certainly feeling the better for it. Next time in the summer, though!
