I'm sure that most people on holiday choose a place they want to visit and then look for somewhere to stay nearby. We do that sometimes (indeed, that will be our strategy tomorrow), but more often than not when just meandering around on a tour such as this one, we look for somewhere to stay that sounds reasonable and arrive there with no idea as to what awaits us.
And thus today we found ourselves in the town of Zutphen. Sometimes our gamble on arriving in a place with no prior knowledge of what it's like or what it has to offer doesn't pay off. And sometimes we find a very pleasant old town like this one.
Whilst the Tourist Office didn't seem to cater for English speakers (or French; or anything other than Dutch or German), we did stumble across a couple of tri-lingual information signs around the town so learnt that it was granted city rights in 1195 and became the richest town in the Duchy of Guelders. It opted to show off its wealth by building, amongst other things, lots of towers:
This one rings a long and pretty chime every quarter hour. I don't know whether it continues all night, but it's quiet enough from where we are that it won't bother us.
We could have gone up this one for €2.50 each, but didn't
Aside from the market, which was just in the untidy process of being taken down, it was all very pleasant, and they've cornered the market in cobbles and block paving, which adds to the old feel of the place but looked uncomfortable for all the cyclists.
Typical city centre side street
Lots of water courses
Day-old moorhen chicks - awwww
Having concluded our ambling we were just on our way to Lidl to rectify Mick's lack of beer, when the dark cloud that had long been above us, started to leak. We scurried back to Bertie, but it only amounted to a few drops.
I stayed put just long enough to do a bit of research on yarn shops then headed out again, thus saving Project Granny Square Blanket (crochet) from grinding to a halt:
I only went for a couple of balls, but couldn't choose!
As for where we are staying, it would be much nicer if we were parked the other way around, looking at the water and the town, but we have joined everyone else in facing the car park, for the sole reason that if we turned around then our open door would be looking into our neighbour's open door, which seems a bit impolite.
I'll finish, for your amusement, with a couple of occurrences of the last 24 hours:
1. Bertie's bed drops down from above the cab area and, when in use, sits about chest high. To enter/exit, one uses the adjacent seat as a step. That process went spectacularly awry for me at 2.30 this morning when I missed the seat and crashed to the floor, coming to rest right at the opposite end of Bertie. By some miracle, I was completely unhurt, but the crash and yelp didn't half give Mick (who had been sound asleep) a fright.
2. We demonstrated such incompetence in the control of taps and a hose pipe at the service point this morning that it was beginning to feel like swimming costumes would have been suitable attire. We did, of course, have an audience for this.
Bonus photo for Kay and Kev:
A wooden bungalow for sale for €23k!
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