bretzelitos

Today, my little summer holidays started. Two weeks of vacation that are creative in itself.

People ask me… where do you go?

I tell them… I don’t know! Quite strange, isn’t it?

I take my car – el Bretzelmobil – and will drive to nice locations that might be surprising, might be preselected, might be off-track, might lead to known places.

Rambouillet, the trip starts at 0 km – of course.

First stop: CDG airport. Southern runway, plane spotting. 80 km done. Not really a photo spot that I selected, but the planes who landed on runway 28L were well in sight. Everything from super big A380s to little Embrears E170. Nobody else there, all on my own, enjoying the landing planes without being pushed around in one way or the other. For me, just priceless.

After some time, I decided to continue.

At kilometer 185, the combination of present autoroute restaurant facilities in 1 km distance and my well elaborated hunger feeling met by coincidence. However, I mixed up the exit to the rest place with the official exit from the autoroute… So, no Autogrill food at all. I was forced out on the countryside roads and tried to find my way through the Somme valley. At 194 km, I found a lovely restaurant in Feuilleres called “Restaurant du Port” – next to some locks of the river, fish farms and some fly fishing semi-professionals. A three course meal for EUR 29 plus beverages including Foie Gras and veal medallions “aux cepes” – and Badoit. Lovely 1.5 hours later and with a stomach rather be willing to go to sleep than having to drive, I continued northbound. I joined the A1 again, went around Lille and arrived in Belgium. I passed it quickly at exact 120 kmh. Kortrijk and Antwerp with its city centres vanished quickly in the rear mirror.

Entering the Netherlands and traffic got suddenly much more dense and worse.

At km 456, Bretzelmobil passed Breda.

Then… the unexpected happened. While I had sunny and cloudy weather during the trip, north of Breda, torrendous rains started to fall. The whole autoroute participants slowed down to 50-60 kmh.

I had planned to go by the Holland beach area… but with that present weather, forget about it! On the beach I need some sun and not water from below and above!

So I have arrived for the first stop – after 558 km – in the Holiday Inn, close to the RAI exhibition center in Amsterdam. Just 10 km from the beach, let’s give tomorrow a chance 🙂

Good night

El Bretzelito