So Bergen Op Zoom - the only place in Holland apart from Amsterdam that Alex knows anything about (and that’s not much).
This is because 37 years ago during the infamous postal strike in GB Alex acted as a postal courier for an international firm which had its main branch in Newcastle and a subsidiary in Bergen op Zoom. Three times a week he lugged caseloads of outgoing mail by air, train and taxi to Bergen and swapped it for caseloads of incoming mail which had been sent to Bergen for onward delivery to Newcastle.
In real terms it was the best-paid job he ever had! And duty-free three times a week when duty-free really meant something!
But to get back to Bergen – one thing we had to do was have chips and mayo sauce at the station. Ah, memories of long ago. Alex reckons they still tasted special, crisp chips and a very different kind of mayonnaise.
Bergen surpassed all that we might have expected of it. When Alex was there all that time ago, he only ever saw the station and the company site somewhere on an industrial estate outside the city with no idea what a nice place it really was. (Incidentally we had also had fairly disparaging remarks from some young Dutch boaters we talked to – ‘not nearly as nice as …’. We can only assume Bergen didn’t give them what they were looking for – which presumably wasn’t architecture and the historical feel of the place.)
When we had acquired our prized bike in Bergen we had to walk it back to the boat mooring, and found ourselves fighting our way through the town centre where a bizarre carnival of some kind was going on - men dressed as pregnant women, Mad Max bikes and characters, wonderful one man band on a TRICYCLE!
The following morning – Sunday - the total lack of people and deserted streets meant we could ride in peace and really appreciate the architecture and unspoilt look of the whole centre. We sat and had coffee in the central square while the whole of the rest of the population (or so it seemed) sat listening to a no doubt boring sermon in the huge church on one side of the square. The other three sides were full of sleepily opening cafes and restaurants. At church ‘chuck out’ time, they all emerged from prayer and made a dash for the hundreds of empty chairs. We made a hasty retreat.
We trundled about 30 miles north from Bergen and found our way through a flood lock onto a nature reserve canal where we moored to a pair of marker posts which indicated the shallow water beyond. Bit of a tricky manoeuvre as the wind was strong and unrelenting but eventually we made it. We are in the depths of the countryside with only the sounds of nature, the occasional boat and tractor – the last driven by a farmer stark naked! (we only noticed this small fact when he got out of his cab to deal with his sheep!)
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