Mini break in Germany!
This weekend I went to visit a friend (Noëlle) in Goch, Germany. Friday after work, I loaded my things into the car and first went to pick up other friend Ilse. Together we drove to Goch, a fairly small town just on the other side of the border.
Goch, Frauenstrasse
When we arrived, it was already nearing 8PM, so the first thing we did was go out to dinner together. Behind the hedge that you can just make out at the end of the street is an Italian restaurant called La Grotta, where we ate a pretty good pizza.
Housewarming presents
We then drove on to Noëlle's apartment where we gave her our belated housewarming presents (she's been living there for about half a year now, but this was the first time we actually went over to visit). We then watched the sun set and moon rise while having a cup of tea on her balcony:
Me and Noëlle on her balcony
After that, we freshened up a bit and went out for drinks in Goch's city centre. In most of the pubs there, the folk were quite a bit older than us, but we eventually managed to find a place where the average age was probably around thirty rather than fifty :P
Goch by night
Ilse and Noëlle in the pub
We were back at Noëlle's apartment by about half past one. Ilse and I went to sleep on a double sized air mattress, which was fine in terms of quality and would've slept quite well, except that because it was the both of us on the single mattress, it would wobble around every time one of us turned over, jolting the other awake :P Noëlle didn't have such problems in her own bed, but then she had to get up at seven because the dog, used to getting up at 6AM, really wanted out by then :P
Ilse and I slept in until about 9AM, and then woke up to find Noëlle had also stopped by the bakery and gotten us a nice breakfast! Fresh croissants, strawberry cake... yummy! Once we had showered and eaten, we were ready to go out and drove to the nearby town of Xanten, a former Roman settlement. They have a large archeological park which we visited first.
Reconstructed temple
Foundations from the Roman camp
A reconstructed mill and bakery
To keep the younger kids entertained, they'd also built a large playground in the park, a great wooden structure with hanging bridges, slides, nets, monkey bars... and then, right next to it, a huge (like, 4-5 metres tall) inflated air mattress that was bouncy like a trampoline. Of course, we couldn't resist that...
The playground
Ilse and me on the trampoline
Once we'd had our fun with that, it was time to get a bit more cultural again and explore the rest of the park. There was a stone garden, a part where they'd recreated the walls/layout of old Roman houses with hedges, an old drain etc. And then there was the amphitheatre:
Old remains of the amphitheatre's walls
The reconstructed amphitheatre
Once we'd seen the amphitheatre, we were getting ready to leave and moving towards the exit when the rain began to pour down. We ran over to a nearby building -- which we thought was a cafe -- to stay dry, and it actually turned out to be the bath house that we'd previously missed completely!
Reconstructed bath house
Then we did leave the archeological park, and went into Xanten's centre to check out the church. This was a no photo zone, so no pictures there, but it was quite beautiful with stained glass windows, statues etc. By this time it was early afternoon and we were starting to get hungry and thirsty, so we sat down in the city square for some Kaffee mit Kuchen. Noëlle had strawberry cake, Ilse had Schwarzwalder Kirsch and I had raspberry cake with a rice pudding filling. Very yummy, and these weren't small pieces either :P
After we were satiated we walked around town some more and then went back to Noëlle's apartment. The original plan had been to go swimming for a few laps, as the apartment complex comes with its own swimming pool, but once we were seated on a the balcony for a drink first, we decided we liked that relaxing option better... After the either short or broken night, we could all use the rest and dozed in the sun for an hour or so. Then we went out again and took the dog for a walk.
Dazzle emerging from the river
Once we got back, we packed up and headed back over the Dutch border, to Malden, a town a little bit south of Nijmegen. We had dinner there and then went to the cinema next door, where we saw Shrek Forever After. And then it was already time for us to split up again, as Noëlle headed back home to Goch and Ilse and I drove on to Amersfoort. It was a very fun weekend! :)