Day 2 13/4/08 - Netherlands

Best -> S’Herb -> Veghel -> Boekel _> Gemert _> Venray -> Arcen -> Well -> Arcen

Highlight

• Tried to look around Best. Besides a semi interesting church, there was nothing around.
• S’Hersh, as usual, dead on a Sunday, but it’s a pretty town, so even window shopping was fun.
• Lovely market square with lots of beer house and café.
• Had to wait for all the museums to open.
• Highlight definitely St John’s church, but we couldn’t go in as there was a service on.
• Walked by the canal for the same funny houses.
• The Citadel was boring.
• Walked to because Slokky didn’t know the opening times.
• Walked back to the museum to learn a brief history.
• SM is a modern design museum, very cool.
• We couldn’t find any herrings or fries place that was open, so we just ate cake for lunch.
• Trip down the brown, flat countryside. There was a nice church and building at Veghel.
• Absolutely nothing at Boekel.
• Gemert was interesting. Very good location castle, even if not elaborately decorated.
• Venray for WWII cemetery. There were 3 Aussies buried there.
• Arcen to check in our hotel. It’s in the roof of the building and quite charming.
• Walked around the small town of Arcen, very popular with the tourists, who were all eating ice-cream!
• Kasteeltunen was more touristy but otherwise looked like the other castle.
• Dinner at the charming riverside restaurant. It was much more classic and much less English. People seem to be locals. A guy came to talk to us about his travels to China.
• The food was again quite slow, but there wasn’t a huge lull like the other place. We got to try two different menus.
• The chef greeted us as we parted, so that was very cool.

Food

• butter cake
• apple
• dinner at Brenin:
  • tuna with tomato and lobster salad
  • asparagus soup with shrimps
  • fish with prawn and asparagus
  • tuna and other fish 3 ways
  • smoked fish with truffle mash and asparagus
  • brioche, white rye, seed, tomato bread
  • duck breast and mash, beans and bok choy
  • lamb chop with pesto, lamb cutlet, sausage, cabbage
  • chocolate 4 ways: brownie, aero, terrain, mousse
  • mango terrain, vanilla ice-cream, cream and dried mango