Where's Bertie? He's in a free Aire in Puur-Sint-Amands, which sits in between(ish) Antwerp and Brussels. Exact location: 51.07473, 4.28425
Weather: Sunny intervals and 19 degrees, with just a couple or three showers whilst driving.
It wasn't a quiet night last night. The first group of yoofs arrived at around 11pm and only stayed for an hour. The second arrived soon after and stayed until 4am. Neither made huge amounts of noise, but the first group kept guffawing at intervals, and the second would go quiet for long enough to allow me to fall back to sleep, only then to sound their horn, start playing some music (inoffensive music, as it went, I just didn't want to listen to it at that time of night), or shout a few words, before going quiet again. Their staying power impressed me, considering it got down to 9 degrees last night and they weren't running car engines for warmth. I also had plenty of time to ponder: do these people have jobs? If they do, why aren't they going home to sleep? If they don't, why don't they do all this socialising during the day? Perhaps the answer is that they worker the 2-10 shift?
We finally got three hours of solid sleep before being woken by the heating firing up just before the alarm went off.
Perusing Park4Night over breakfast, I announced that we were coming to Puur-Sint-Amands today, a two and a half hour drive away. It took us much longer than that with a detour to a Lidl to reclaim the deposits on a bagful of bottles before leaving Germany, and to top up the fridge, with groceries being cheaper in Germany than in Belgium. The drive was then only broken with elevenses at a Dutch motorway rest area. Surprisingly, nay incredibly, we got past Antwerp without hitting any stationary traffic.
As is my usual way, I hadn't made any effort to see what Puur has to offer before arriving here, but over lunch I discovered that it has a fort, housing a museum (unfortunately closed until 2023), and a big church. After lunch we set out to see the former.
Big chunk of parkland in which the fort is sited
Attractive moat, even if the concrete structure isn't as aesthetically pleasing as some forts we've seen. This one was only built in 1908-1914, and subsequently modified when taken over by the Germans later the same year.
Hmmmm. Not sculpture of the day
We might have wandered more about the park, but having decided that it's a good location for tomorrow's run, we headed off to find the church instead. We managed to avoid the entirety of the town centre in doing that, but the residential streets held our interest, with their terraces of no-two-the-same houses.
St Peter's Church. Would have liked to have seen inside as it looked to have some fine stained glass, but it was closed.
From there we located the town centre, where it became apparent that some event has gone on this weekend. It turns out that this is the 730th birthday of the town and they're celebrating with a year of events (strikes me as an odd number to celebrate, unless they use it as the basis for a big party year once a decade). This weekend saw all sorts of entertainment in the town, and today is the clean-up operation. That also explains why three bays of this 5-bay Aire are closed due to being full of wheelie bins and barriers (fortunately one of the two other spots was free when we arrived, the other being taken up by the first British van we've seen since Day 3 of this trip).
We're hoping for a quiet night tonight. Not sure if it's a bad omen that someone opened Bertie's door this afternoon whilst we were sitting here, presumably having failed to notice that we were inside. As it was only a school boy, and he seemed appropriately cowed to suddenly find himself with two foreigners standing over him shouting, hopefully he'll have learned a valuable lesson about touching other people's property (or, if he was genuinely trying his luck with a mind to stealing stuff, hopefully he'll not be back again later to indulge in more mischief).
Sculpture of the Day. I feel there's a story/legend behind this one.
Not sure what I can say about this...
Weather: Sunny intervals and 19 degrees, with just a couple or three showers whilst driving.
It wasn't a quiet night last night. The first group of yoofs arrived at around 11pm and only stayed for an hour. The second arrived soon after and stayed until 4am. Neither made huge amounts of noise, but the first group kept guffawing at intervals, and the second would go quiet for long enough to allow me to fall back to sleep, only then to sound their horn, start playing some music (inoffensive music, as it went, I just didn't want to listen to it at that time of night), or shout a few words, before going quiet again. Their staying power impressed me, considering it got down to 9 degrees last night and they weren't running car engines for warmth. I also had plenty of time to ponder: do these people have jobs? If they do, why aren't they going home to sleep? If they don't, why don't they do all this socialising during the day? Perhaps the answer is that they worker the 2-10 shift?
We finally got three hours of solid sleep before being woken by the heating firing up just before the alarm went off.
Perusing Park4Night over breakfast, I announced that we were coming to Puur-Sint-Amands today, a two and a half hour drive away. It took us much longer than that with a detour to a Lidl to reclaim the deposits on a bagful of bottles before leaving Germany, and to top up the fridge, with groceries being cheaper in Germany than in Belgium. The drive was then only broken with elevenses at a Dutch motorway rest area. Surprisingly, nay incredibly, we got past Antwerp without hitting any stationary traffic.
As is my usual way, I hadn't made any effort to see what Puur has to offer before arriving here, but over lunch I discovered that it has a fort, housing a museum (unfortunately closed until 2023), and a big church. After lunch we set out to see the former.
We might have wandered more about the park, but having decided that it's a good location for tomorrow's run, we headed off to find the church instead. We managed to avoid the entirety of the town centre in doing that, but the residential streets held our interest, with their terraces of no-two-the-same houses.
From there we located the town centre, where it became apparent that some event has gone on this weekend. It turns out that this is the 730th birthday of the town and they're celebrating with a year of events (strikes me as an odd number to celebrate, unless they use it as the basis for a big party year once a decade). This weekend saw all sorts of entertainment in the town, and today is the clean-up operation. That also explains why three bays of this 5-bay Aire are closed due to being full of wheelie bins and barriers (fortunately one of the two other spots was free when we arrived, the other being taken up by the first British van we've seen since Day 3 of this trip).
We're hoping for a quiet night tonight. Not sure if it's a bad omen that someone opened Bertie's door this afternoon whilst we were sitting here, presumably having failed to notice that we were inside. As it was only a school boy, and he seemed appropriately cowed to suddenly find himself with two foreigners standing over him shouting, hopefully he'll have learned a valuable lesson about touching other people's property (or, if he was genuinely trying his luck with a mind to stealing stuff, hopefully he'll not be back again later to indulge in more mischief).
That church looks like an inflatable.
ReplyDeleteA huge inflatable pink church. But why?!
DeleteFor passing worshippers?
ReplyDeleteSt Peter's Church (as also photographed) was only just around the corner and would seem the more obvious worshipping location. But, who knows? Maybe inflatable pink churches draw in more new worshippers than established stone buildings?
Delete