Another Day Much Like the Other Day

Thursday was much like Wednesday.  Wake up late and be presented with a wonderful breakfast of bread, cheese, jam, coffee, and juice.  Then, since today was market day, we were off to the market.  It was a town market much like any other, but it was Rita and Els's town market, so that made it special.  

 For those of you of Dutch extraction, here's the banket.  Turns out the kind we grew up with, the kind on the right, is actually the "Christmas" banket, although here it is and it's not yet October.

We got to see Rita and Els's church.  It's a Reformed Church, but in the Netherlands, Rita and Els told us, the Reformed and Christian Reformed and Lutheran Churches have combined in a sort of reversal of the process by which they came to be in the first place.  It implies that in the Netherlands, at least, people of the Calvinist persuasion have a pragmatic interest in getting things done rather than an ideological interest in pursuing doctrinal fine points.  Crazy!

We stopped for coffee at a restaurant on the square and stayed for lunch.  Then it was time for drive in the country.   We looked at fields of heather, now brown but beautiful in season.  We talked about all the damage the wild pigs do and what good eating it is when they are in season for hunting.  We stopped by a little church which in the summer has services for campers.  They meet outside because you can only fit a very few people inside.

Then we walked to the local "castle".  This fine residence is named "Staverden".  I don't know who lived here, but clearly they were a major economic force in the area.

We wandered through the grounds and came, at last, to the inevitable restaurant where we stopped for tea and beer (they tea and we beer).

We walked though the garden

and past the pond

then worked our way back to the car and hence to Nunspeet.

I couldn't resist including a photo of this utterly gorgeous Aston Martin.  Rita and Els informed me that they could tell from the license plate that it was a used car so perhaps it cost the current owner less than $200,000.  In any event, it would appear to be yet another example of the devastating effect high taxes has had on the Dutch.

Night was falling and it was time for dinner.  We went here where I asked for a Martini and got some sweet vermouth in a glass.  I explained to the waitress that what I meant was a combination of gin with a little dry vermouth shaken (not stirred) with ice, like the guy who drove an earlier model Aston Martin liked.  So, she dutifully mixed some gin with Martini bianco (herbs and vanilla) vermouth, shook it with ice and proudly returned with it.  It was the oddest martini I've ever drunk, but hey, that's the travelin' life.

We had had a wonderful time in Nunspeet with Rita and Els.  Tomorrow we would be off to Maastricht.