Today started with a quick trip into Nijmegan to find a travel adaptor. I failed, but I did find a bridge.

Holland is full of water, despite their best efforts. Today I’ve crossed the Waal twice (so I could drive across that bridge, but then I had to come back), the Maas WaalKanal at least twice and the Maas four times or so. On a glorious sunny day like this that makes the place extremely pretty but in September 1944 was something the Allies tried to bypass in order to shorten the war. The Bridge at Nijmegan was as far as they got.

Following the failure of that audacious brilliant insane plan a new initiative was launched, which led to the only big tank battle in Holland. Overloon village is a delightful little place, all green with pretty houses. It’s all a lie though, the original was flattened during the battle. Rather than clear everything away and rebuild though the Dutch did something awesome, and turned the battlefield into a museum.

Last time I went you could walk among the exhibits, as they were displayed outdoors on the hills and woodland of the battle. Apparently the weather was causing damage so 12 years ago they moved them all indoors, so today I joined around 70 Dutch school children of various ages in running around a very large hangar full of tanks, trucks and an example of the world’s first mass produced weaponised drone, aptly named the V1.

The grounds of the museum in Overloon are quite sombering, as they still have for instance an original pillbox, and details of the men that died in it.

By the time I left Overloon I had sunburn, and tomorrow I’ll be able to stand on tall buildings at night to warn off aircraft. Strangely this didn’t lead to me putting on my sunhat when I got to Venray, somewhere I hadn’t got on my itinerary but that I hoped might sell a travel adaptor. Venray is lovely, a small market town in which nobody has a job so they all sit in outdoor cafes and bars enjoying the sunshine and being sociable.

Lunch in Venray was a horsemeat sausage and chips. From quite possibly the very same cafe from which my last one came, 30 years ago. It tasted if anything better than I remembered! Venray also had a shop selling electrical items, so I now once more have power.

After that late lunch I decided to stop for Beers before driving on. Unsurprisingly this left me in Grave. No photograph of the bridge there until I process the ones on my camera, but I did get close ups of a pillbox overlooking it from a defensive position.

Interestingly the pillbox isn’t (originally) a German one, and it’s quite possible the battle damage it shows comes from the German invasion of Holland rather than the following liberation.

Yesterday in France and Belgium I saw a lot of wind turbines, incorrectly called windmills by poorly educated idiots such as myself. I like windmills though, and those can be nice at times. Holland however knows how to do proper windmills.

That one was in Nijmegan, in a residential area. The side of the hill it’s on has a small animal thing going on, with pens holding sheep, cows, pigs and donkeys, with geese and peacocks strolling around too. I don’t have photographs as the inmates of a small school nearby walked over to it while I was taking pictures of the windmill and I’m not sure of the Dutch law on photographing 3 year old children.

Realised at one point today that I was only around 10km from where I used to live, and saw a signpost for the village there. More of a surprise was finding a Roman aqueduct while walking to dinner. So I took a longer route back, had a gander. Walked somewhere around 13-14km today, mostly in the burning sun of the year’s hottest day.

Dinner was worth the walk though, even if at times it did feel like an episode of Masterchef. Couscous on a cracker with wild garlic, with a wild garlic and foam of couscous soup (which I didn’t order) as the appetiser. The starter I chose was a Russian Salad with remoulade of tongue of veal with celeriac and haricot vert, sorbet of pickles, gel of pickled onion, smoked mayonnaise, thin sliced smoked ribeye, crisp of potato and parsley.

My main felt undercooked and very under proportioned, but did taste excellent: Fillet of lamb, croute of chickpea, eggplant, falafel of chickpea, spicy yogurt, spring roll with lamb sweetbread, haricot vert in garlic oil, intense jus of lamb and kummel.

This may not be the cheapest meal I have during this trip, although it was almost very cheap. 27 Euro, and I handed the guy a fifty. He was so distressed at his lack of coins to give me the 3 EUR part of the change that when I said, “That’s ok, 30 will be fine” he handed me two notes: A twenty and a ten. I was kind and gave the ten back.

Today’s warscore, taken in historical order:
At Grave a resounding victory for the British against the Nazi scum, lets call that one 3-0.
Nijmegan was rather tougher. Ultimately a victory for the Allies but I think it was a close call. Had they won initially Market Garden and the war would’ve turned out very differently, so I’m going to give the first leg 2-1 to the Germans and the second leg 3-2 to the Allies, who go through on away goals.
Overloon was a straight loss for the US 7th Armor Corp, so 3-1 to the Germans on that. The Germans drew the Coldstream Guards in the next round though and lost 2-0.
The Guards moved on to Venray and found tougher German opposition there. They won eventually but it cost them dear. 5-4 and a long break before the next match.

Today’s drive (except that Google Maps only allows ten stops, so invariably much subtlety is lost, including the need to break the law to follow Google’s interpretation of today’s route):

Same hotel as last night, in the small village of Berg en Dal, a very unusual place for Holland. (Hint: Berg is Dutch for ‘hill’). What it does share with Overloon is the use of knee high bushes to line the roads, and sometimes (to slow the traffic) down the middle of them. It’s very pretty and much nicer than speed bumps.

Side note: by posting on here and not emailing I have no idea whether anybody’s actually reading this. Am I wasting my time?