Depart: Oakland Airport, CA
Arrive: Schiphol Airport, Netherlands
Accommodations: Hotel Carillon, Haarlem, NL
(Lisa) Aboard Martinair en route to Amsterdam.
We are within 2 hours of arrival at Schiphol Airport! We can see dawn about to break over the Atlantic. According to the on board map that charts our flight on a TV screen, we are almost over Scotland.
We left home in our Avis rental car about 12 hours ago. Jacques made excellent time to Oakland and we returned the car within 10 or 15 minutes of driving into the airport.
Our wait in Oakland went pretty quickly. After checking in (we already were hearing more Dutch than English around us) we had a quick lunch and played with Natalie.
There was a nearly empty terminal not far from our crowded and poorly lit (can you say interrogation chamber lighting design?) Martinair waiting room, so we played with Natalie – chasing her around the seats. It was fun.
We boarded the plane early (pre-boarding with all the other families with kids). The plane is a Boeing 767 – long and narrow. We have two side seats, The seating is very civilized: 2 seats, aisle, 3 seats, aisle, 2 more seats. No huge rows in the middle (the “gulag” seats with 3 passengers on each side of you) and no odd (not even) passengers on the sides. This way Jacques and I don't have to struggle to keep Natalie off some hapless traveler's lap.
Overnight, 3 small kids took turns crying loudly and suddenly. One would start and set off another one. I'm happy to report that Natalie had a minimum of fuss. We gave her some Benadryl (antihistamine) part way through the flight to help her sleep. She has been sleeping at our feet, under the chairs in front of us for the past 3-4 hours. We had an enjoyable breakfast (no wigglers in our laps) and I have a few minutes to write this and prepare our bags for today's side trips.
We're over Scotland! 8:30am.
Depart: Haarlem (~11am) to Amsterdam
Arrive: Liège, Belgium (~6pm)
Accommodations: at the Louon home (rue des Vennes)
(Lisa) Haarlem to Amsterdam to Liège (by dinnertime).
(Lisa) Liège. Stroll “the Batte” market with Maman and Papa, lunch at a café, visit Walloon museum (showing Liègeois furniture), pay a call on Odette LeJeune, dinner at rue des Vennes with everyone.
Rue des Vennes
Liège, Belgium
(Lisa) I'm taking a rare quiet moment to catch up on this diary and enjoy the after effects of a large tasty lunch. Jacques and Hélène have gone “au magazin de camping”. Natalie is having a nap upstairs and I have commandeered the best comfy chair in the living room.
I like this house and I am enjoying the Louon family very much. I finally feel like family. I just wish my French were good enough to catch all the good natured banter over our shared meals. I'm impressed that I understand as much as I do, given how little time I devoted to studying the language. That they all speak English fairly well, gives me an unfair advantage.
Let me backtrack and account for the missing parts of our journey thus far...
After landing in Amsterdam on Friday morning, we had no trouble passing through customs, claiming our baggage (including the stroller which arrived clean and intact), and picking up our rental car (a Renault).
We then drove from Schipohl to Haarlem, as was recommended in our guidebook.
-- INTERMISSION --
(Lisa on September 1, 1994) Just as I finished writing the above, Jacques came back from his shopping. This is the first opportunity I've had since then to write!
Back to our story...
We arrived in Haarlem parked (illegally) along a canal and managed to locate the hotel Carillon (also recommended in our guidebook) across from the St. Bartholomu church. We discovered that night was to be the first of a four night jazz festival. Jazz in the town square, jazz in our hotel, jazz all over town. Well jazz is nice stuff we thought... That night we toured a few of the stages and discovered the definition of jazz was a very loose one. Most of what we heard was more like loud rock with a vaguely bluesy back beat. We felt and heard that booming back beat in our 3rd floor room at the back of the building for most of the night. Natalie, meanwhile, was definitely not on European time yet, nor was she still on California time. It was a long and somewhat sleepless night.
The town of Harlemm is quite nice. There are several canals crossing the central area. Most of the buildings are several hundred years old. There are brick bicycle lanes on almost every street and we saw many people riding battered sturdy 3-speed bikes. Not only young people, but well-dressed matrons and folks with one or two young babies on board as well. Motor scooters were fairly common as well and one had to look not only for cars but also for 2 wheeled vehicles before crossing a street.
We strolled through the pedestrian shopping area and ate pannakukin (sp?) for a late lunch. We bought cheese, bread and cookies for a picnic in our hotel room for dinner. We were pretty pooped (jet-lag) and tried to keep moving until bedtime (described above). Unfortunately we missed going into the big church (it has one of the biggest organs in Europe and Mozart played there). The next day it rained during our very excellent breakfast (at the hotel).
We had had trouble the day before with the child seat in our rental car. Natalie wasn't very safe in it. So we drove back to the airport and obtained a better seat for her. That done, we drove to Amsterdam for a few hours sight seeing. It rained on and off, but we managed to park across the street from the Rijk museum and walked to the Van Gogh museum arriving more or less dry. Natalie's stroller developed squeaky wheels from the rain, so it made some interesting maneuvering through the galleries. Jacques and I both enjoyed the Van Gogh collection and we also toured a temporary display of late and post-Impressionist paintings.
We fed the parking meter several more guilders and walked past the R to find something to eat. After touring several blocks of cafés, we realized there wasn't enough time to sit and eat. We found a grocery store and bought another picnic of bread, fruit, cheese and juice.
I almost ran back to the car to make sure we weren't cited for late parking (they attach a mechanical boot to one wheel if your paid parking has run out). We ate our lunch en route to Liège.
When we arrived rue des Vennes (a little late after missing the crucial turn-off the boulevard), Maman and Papa greeted us along with the Louon family. Luc had given up his room for us and Hélène had put the old baby bed in for Natalie, so we were quite comfy.
(Jacques) Liège. We were planning to go to Brussels today, but Natalie had a bad night and kept us awake through most of the night. So we postponed the trip and didn't do much on that day. Consider it a rest day. We had dinner with everyone at the Louon. We watched home movies that evening of Marc, Eric, and Luc when they were little. Dany's mom was there.
We went to FNAC to buy books and software.
(Jacques) Liège. Dany and Hélène took us to visit “les ramparts” part of the old fortress of Liège. We climbed down 374 steps, then went back up through very narrow streets (~3ft wide) with many steps as well... quite a challenge with a stroller. Got quite sweaty in the damp Liège weather. We also saw two small dead-end streets that were being renovated.
(Lisa, written on 9/26/94) Also on that day: we were to meet Maman and Papa at Simone Lamalle's house at 3pm. From our walk and then traffic we didn't arrive until 3:50pm! OOOPS! Maman was livid, but it was short lived. We had a brief visit and went home to the Louon's where everyone had a very pleasant time visiting and generally being silly prior to dinner. It was our last night there. We watched a silly French movie after Maman and Papa went home (to their hotel) and went to bed very late. It was a fun evening and everyone got a chance to relax and talk a lot.
Depart: Liège, Belgium
Arrive: Aachen, Germany
Accommodations: at the Melton hone (Lütticher Str).
(Lisa) We finally made our delayed visit to Brussels.
(Jacques) We went to the Tintin store.
Monday September 5, 1994
Depart: Aachen, Germany
Arrive: Nancy, France
Accommodations: Formule 1 hotel
Depart: Nancy, France
Arrive: Avignon, France (late ~11pm)
(Jacques) Ate in Brognon at LeClerc Food. Took the freeway to Orange, then Limas. Gassed up at Meurrault.
Depart: Avignon, France
Arrive: Remoulins, France (Pont du Gard)
Accomodations: S ... campground
(Lisa) Outside the Moulin de Daudet (near Arles).
So many days have passed and we've done so many things. Neither Jacques nor I have picked up this journal since my last entry (see August 29 entry). Very briefly to reconstruct our journey...
(Jacques) Ate in Hotel des Arenes in Arles.
(Jacques) Orange.
(Jacques) Stayed at Camping Sousta in Remoulins.
(Jacques) Ate at Relais Cezanne in Tholonet.
(Jacques) Ate at Brass Victoire in Vence. Bought dish at Potterie in Vente. Spent the night at Mas D' Azur in Cagnes.
(Jacques) Went to Ocean museum in Monaco. Had lunch and bought gift. Gassed up and ate at Total Relais Gorbio in Roquebrune.