Rocky Start

I met up with my co-worker named Peter Saturday morning for breakfast. We set up to meet at their big bookstore called Drvnkery…which I pronounce Drunkery…and they pronounce Dry-ker-eye. But it’s quite common for me to botch these words up this bad. I do find it funny that this whole time I thought it was a huge bar that is never open, rather than a bookstore.

We tried to have breakfast there, but we soon found out that they do not serve until 11:30am. So we had a drink and wandered off to the next eatery. The same thing happened at this place, so we had another drink. What kind of town doesn’t serve breakfast until 11:30 on Saturdays? That’s brunch. Peter kept apologizing and explaining that he’s never out at 10am on a Saturday morning, that must be why he never realized this.

We went to the tourist center to get the Walking guide to Art in Middelburg. They explained that it is being reprinted and is only a tour on the third Sunday of your mom’s birthday month or something cooky like that. So we just grabbed a general map and shot off on a walking tour of our own.
We went to the large Church (which has the clock tower that I use as a point of reference for everywhere I walk)…it was closed. This tour was off to a great start! I lowered my expectations and we strolled along the city for quite a while just fine! We did a lot of window shopping in different galleries we stumbled on. Peter grew up in the eastern part of Holland so his knowledge of the city was a little shaky, to say the least. I thoroughly enjoyed the buildings, and the harbor, and the people wandering around out on foot, bike, or moped.

We jumped back to breakfast spot number 2 and had a light lunch before heading off to the car to see the rest of the countryside. We were able to eat outside, as the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.

We headed out in the car in the direction of the north-west coastline…we headed to Domburg. Just before Domburg we spotted a castle and decided to stop and check it out. It was a huge nature preserve (walking trails, wildlife, and a route all the way to the beach). We read the history of the castle and then headed off down the trails to the beach. The beaches are very pretty here and this is one of the largest tourists town for German’s to flock to in the summers. As we drove on from the castle you found vacation home after vacation home. There is a good combination of vacation bungalow’s as well as huge Manors that are very wealthy families’ country homes.

If you look at the map below, we shot from middelburg to Domburg and then followed the coastline down to Vlissingen. There were a ton of beautiful windmills, lighthouses, beaches…I even saw old German bunkers left over from WWII.
From Vlissingen we went back to Middelburg and I did a little work at the hotel. I met back up with Peter at a Jazz Café for dinner that night. This was the very first place that had the menu translated in English! I was a happy girl. I’ve yet to find any sort of grilled chicken (or any sort of chicken, for that matter) dish. We ate at 7 instead of 8 and I was home at a great hour again.