Bert’s parents take regular 2-3 day trips to Zeeland, an area in the Netherlands (quite a big one at that) to the point where Bert got so intrigued, he wanted to go there himself. So we decided on Middelburg, one of the larger historical towns of Zeeland, that was easy to reach by car.
This post is about of first day of the trip: Wednesday, August 8.
I know, nearly two months ago, hence the catch-up (there’s three more of those coming, but at least I’ll be caught up! ^^). Of course, after weeks and weeks of heatwave, we went on holiday the THREE days where it was chilly, so that sucked! Nevertheless, the weather on the first day was at least still ok, just chilly. Our hotel, ‘t Oude Bierhuys, did not have it’s own parking space, but it was within a 5 minute walking distance of a very affordable parking lot (I believe we paid less than €20 for about 50 hours of parking, which is super cheap. Especially considering that a lot of Belgian parking lots charge that amount for about 6 hours!). We couldn’t check in yet when we arrived, so we left the luggage in the car and went for a wander.
There was a fun faire going on, and we had fish sandwiches and kibbeling for lunch. With vile Monsanto juice, because that was sadly the best tasting drink on offer, bah.
At about 3PM, we went and checked in, put the luggage in our room, and went back down to Café St-John for a welcome drink. I had a strawberry milkshake and Bert had a local beer. I will explain more about the hotel at the end of this post.
After the welcome drink, we wandered some more, so have a bunch of photos of Middelburg…
Organic elderflower drink I had in the Museum Café on the square just outside the museum. Much better than Monsanto juice!
The streets were full of these beautiful rose bushes. They looked and smelled just like cherry blossoms. So if anyone knows what they’re called, please leave a comment and let me know because I would LOVE to plant a bush of these!
I wouldn't mind living on the water like this!
Near 5PM we walked to where the canal tours started. The lady at the ticket/info desk told us there was one more boat going that day, and as the weather was nice we’d better take that because the forecast predicted a lot of rain for the next day, and they wouldn’t go out in the rain. So we took the tour.
The tour was kinda nice. It was cool to see Middelburg from the water, and the guide was really good at telling people about history and what not. But having to duck down for a bunch of bridges didn’t seem particularly safe to me. Oh well.
Getting off the boat we noticed an Albert Heijn supermarket, so we decided to get dinner there. They had plenty of pastries, salads and other stuff that was easy to eat in a hotel room, so bonus! We also walked past Indistrieel, a really cool shop full of steampunk stuff, but as that was closed, that was something for the next day.
And now about the hotel.
‘t Oude Bierhuys is not your traditional hotel. It’s pretty much a remodelled town house attached to a café, St-John.
The Café is where you check in, and where you go for breakfast in the morning (if breakfast is included in your stay. You can, of course, still opt to pay for breakfast there). They serve a wide variety of drinks, pastries and desserts and you can also get lunch and dinner there. Which we didn’t do, so I can’t say anything about the food or menus. But the strawberry milkshake I had the first day was alright. Not the best I ever had, but definitely ok (if you want _proper_ strawberry milkshake and you’re in Antwerp, go to Quetzal).
The rooms were all named after rooms in a house.
For instance, we were in the Studeerkamer, the study. It was actually a really large room, with a proper size two person bed, and a lounge area with desk, cabinets, table and sofas.
Aside from that there was plenty of closet space. The bathroom was also really spacious, and right at the back of it, there wasn’t a shower stall like you’d expect, but a walk in shower! And there were also plenty of towels provided as well as complimentary toiletries such as shampoo etc.
The hotel wasn’t even that expensive either, so I can really recommend it. We booked via booking.com but I’m sure you can book via their own site too.
All my Zeeland photos are here.
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