2006: Road Trip, the Start

09 July

The past few days have been spent getting ready for the latest roadtrip and, by far, the longest. It all started Sunday morning, the 9th, at 0830. By the time the first day was done, just shy of 850 kilometres (about 510 miles, give or take) had gone by. Along the route:

# Mont Saint-Michel, which is viewable from the highway at several points along several miles

# It's not difficult to recognize it sure can rain a lot here. This from someone who lives in Seattle. Irony alert

# Pont-l'Eveque: a quaint town that has updated itself to keep in touch with its history, at least downtown

# An incredible church in the city of Rouen which, unfortunately, was subject to the rain, the wind, and the fact I was driving by at 70mph some two miles away and couldn't figure out how to reach it

# I didn't know Phillip Morris had an enormous plant of some fashion along the main road between Antwerp and Rotterdam on the Belgian/Netherlands border...

I'm staying in the B&B I discovered years ago in Lepelstraat, the Netherlands, a tiny little spot on the map just north of Bergen-op-Zoom. Everything is as I remembered, from the Moulin and the tiny TINY private chapel alongside the highway to the fantastic chinese food restaurant (Lau's Garden) just south of town to the proprieters and their establishment, "Somewhere Else", in the heart of town. George and Els Muskens have run this little piece of heaven for years now, and I've been privileged to visit several times. I don't normally advertise, but if you want a quiet place to relax, within day-trip distance of Brussels, Amsterdam, Bruges, Ghent, and (perhaps if you drive fast) Dunkerque/Calais, this should definitely be a choice in your itinerary.
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If you need a street sign to tell you where Lepelstraat is, just look at the photo.

Oh. [ 2009: The sign is located where the 'S' in Steenbergseweg is. The other side of the sign correctly displays the name (and direction) of Lepelstraat :) ]

Noted:

Just south of Ghent on the E17 highway is a rather large advertisement for an engineering / contracting company: "We Lift Almost Everything." Huh. Truth in advertising.