Monday, 7th April
We showered, emptied things on the van that needed emptying, filled things that needed filling, and set out for Dordrecht. At some point in the last few days, the voice on the TomTom had become enabled, so we gave her a chance to impress us as we navigated our way around the Rotterdam ring road. Kate has been our voice for a while, although she prattles on a bit too much for my liking. She will religiously read out all the road numbers on your route, but her efforts at pronunciation always amuse. She judiciously refused to attempt most of the towns we passed, and “Rotterdam” had us foxed for a while, so oblique was her rendition of it.
The way in to Camping ‘t Vissertje is narrow, and passes along a single track (although tarmac) along the top of a dyke. The TomTom was unwavering, and we saw the site down an even narrower track, so I opted to park in the car park whilst we checked availability. Everything was fine, so I trotted back and fetched the van, which was okay apart from the bit where I scraped the awning cover along a road sign. Well, I was backing into an entrance, to give me more room to swing around to get to the track, and my mirror didn’t quite cover the area at risk. Still, no damage (or at least, not much damage) done.
The campsite is quite small – only 30 touring pitches, with the usual mix of wooden shacks and touring-caravans-made-static that we saw a lot of in Italy. The manager was very friendly and helpful, and gave us probably the only hardstanding pitch, which was good considering the very soft nature of the ground.
We were also the first subscribers to the WiFi on the site, although the owner knew little about it, but at a euro an hour (time only being counted when you were actually online), it was worth a punt.
After lunch, and a funny half-chat to our neighbour in a wooden shack no bigger than our beach hut (who said we had a “very beautiful car”, and seemed to spend his afternoon with a couple of mates alternating between drinking, smoking, and sleeping), we donned our bike gear again, and headed into the town.
Dordricht is a very interesting town, a blend of very old and precariously-tilted houses from the seventeenth century (and before) and new and stylish apartments. Much of the town was shut on Monday, but there were a good selection of museums and galleries to whet our appetite for tomorrow when we spend a little more time here.
We followed a ‘guided walk’ from the Lonely Plant guide, which was very good and interesting, although towards the end, it got a bit confusing, and we were sure that there was a mistake in either the text or the map – nothing from the book at that stage matched what we were seeing on the ground. There was a huge amount of heavy water traffic on the Oude Maas (Old Meuse) river that passes by.
The history of Dordrecht is fascinating, even for a history duffer like me, and the excellent local city guide makes very interesting and worthwhile reading.
The ride back from the city was cold, and with rain threatening at any moment, we were glad to get back to the van, where the skies cleared, and Annie attempted to get two local ducks to paddle in a bucket of water by the side of the van.
