2018 Zomervakantie Day 1 – Den Haag to Reutlingen

This is post is part of our 2018 Zomervakantie – for an overview of the whole two weeks, visit: https://dutchaustralian.com/2018/08/15/2018-zomervakantie/

We’ve lived (back) in the Netherlands for 6 years now, and my husband has been dreaming of a European driving holiday. For various reasons, it’s not happened yet, but today, we are heading to a “camping” in Italy. It’s a very popular Dutch thing to do in the summer – to go to a campground either within the Netherlands or elsewhere in Europe.

As an Australian, I’ve always found it quite a novel idea that you can just DRIVE to another country! I was a little hesitant with the distances though as we have two children who complain about car trips even on a half hour drive. Because of this we are taking it easy and breaking up the driving. Day 1 of our holiday was from Den Haag to Reutlingen in Germany, leaving on 1 August 2018.

My husband did the planning and most of the packing! He enjoys it, whereas I find it a little overwhelming, despite the fact I used to be a travel agent. I now have a Dutch driver’s licence, but only for an automatic, and his car is a manual – so he’s also doing all the driving, which he also likes anyway. With the inbuilt navigation system I don’t need to read maps anymore either, so was free to nap! The girls did too…

We left just before 7am and headed for Germany. I was awake to cross the border though it’s a non-event these days, just a sign, blink and you’ll miss it. He remembers as a child that there were border checks. Now though, you just realise that the signs change language – and you’re in Germany!

Remagen was our stretch-and-lunch stop. Bas has always been interested in stories of World War II and earlier in the week had watched (part of) Remagen story, so could share with us about the key role this location played in ending WWII.

The musuem was nicely presented, with a focus on peace instead of war.

We arrived in Reutlingen late afternoon and checked into our apartment, a great value two bedroom place that was clean, spacious and close to the city centre.

It’s a pretty city, and was a lot of fun to have no idea what to expect. We discovered lovely fountains….

…beautiful buildings…….lots of flowers….

..and a sign of a guy who most likely doesn’t go to McDonalds and is boasting about his gut I think…..

We finished up with a huge schnitzel each for dinner at a local brewery. Of course we had to taste test the beer as well. Bas was excited that he could get half liter bottles “to go”.

I’m actually writing this blog post on day 2…because on day 1, I went straight to bed after dinner at about 8.30pm and slept through until almost 7am! Well I did wake briefly with strange local noises I wasn’t used to now and then, as well as when a big storm hit, but overall topped off a nice first day on holidays with a great long rest. Onto day two….

More information:

• Battle of Remagen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Remagen
• Accommodation in Reutlingen: Fewo Reutlingen Metzstrabe 
• Our photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/iprJeBrS2nYo1hux8