Vanpark Action and Daytrip to the Netherlands

We’ve spent a few days at the van park which has been nice, it’s a nice spot with a pool, cafe and bar, swimming lake and loads of semi permanent residents over the other side of the lake in portable houses. On our side of the lake is a spot for all the tents and camper vans. There’s a real mix of different campers about the place, from 1950’s style caravans through to American GM V8 trucks/vans. We’ve seen more of these style of trucks here in Belgium and the Netherlands than anywhere else, a few bikers too. We headed out for a drive on Tuesday 18/8 to the Rijksmuseum in Maastricht and had lunch at the museum cafe before heading inside. The main exhibition was named Palazzo, after a group of Dutch collectors who were primarily interested in Italian paintings and some furniture for their private homes and whom amassed their collections between the World Wars. Most of the works on display were donated from these private collections and made up one floor of the museum, an impressive amount of works were featured. There was also a number of huge tapestries on display, chronicling the classical works relating to Diana. There will be some photos up soon to show just how massive in scale they are, it would have been amazing to see them when they were new as the faded colours you see now only give a hint of their past glory. On the top floor (the middle floor was closed as the exhibition had finished so we got a discount on admission) was some photography, mainly of oriental interior spaces. Peoples bedrooms, bathrooms, the inside of a yurt (tent thing) and a mortuary were the main topics. After spending most of the afternoon at the museum we returned to Belgium via a ‘shopping village’ full of discount stores, mainly specialising in European fashion and boutques. There was some interesting stuff there but not much caught our eye. We arrived a bit late and the places we would have most likely found something were closing so we headed back to the camp for dinner.