November 2025 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

November 6, 2025 Amsterdam NE

Our fall trip ended as they all do when we dropped François off at the storage. We had plenty of time in the morning to wrap up a few things to prepare François. The place we stayed in Stein was nice, a lot of farmers in the Netherlands seem to have set up side businesses as campgrounds. This one is nice and very new. It made for a good place to spend the last few days.

The one issue with the small campgrounds is that in all three we have stayed at the final kilometer or two to get there are on dike roads. Netherlands is rightfully famous for its systems of pumps and dikes that have allowed it to reclaim a lot of land. This land makes for great farm land. The dikes are pretty tall and narrow and usually there is water on one side. The single lane on top is two way and there are pull outs to allow vehicles to pass. People manage to get around each other using the pull outs and driveways of the farms and homes .

As we were leaving google routed us on a dike road for about 7 kilometers. We were doing fine until I came to a point where there were road signs saying restricted to vehicles less than 2.2 meters wide. François is about 2.4 meters wide. I sat there contemplating what to do. The narrow road did get a slight bit narrower but I thought we would make it. At that point luck intervened and a tractor pulling farm equipment went by me that was wider than François. I took off after him figuring if he could make it we certainly could and I had the added benefit of having him clear other traffic out of the way as long as I stayed close.

Things were going well until I saw a line of cars going the same direction as us stopped on the dike ahead. After a few minutes of idling I saw the farmer get out of the tractor and go ahead to see what was going on. He came back in a few minutes and asked me to follow him into a drive way to get out of the road. We both had to back across a narrow bridge into someones driveway.

The source of our adventure today, a semi-truck on a one way dike road.

He then set off to help direct traffic while Ton and I talked to the owner of the home whose driveway we had occupied. After 20 minutes or so the farmer came back and asked if I could move further down the road to another farm. When we got to the farm we had to get a couple of cars to move so we could go back by the barn and turn around. With the help of the owner of the farm we turned François around and when we were pointed in the right direction the semi-truck had gone by and it was smooth sailing. This whole event took about an hour, and I was impressed about how nonchalant everyone was about the whole thing, the homeowner and farmer were totally nonplussed to have us show up on their property. I guess it happens enough that they are used to it.

The rest of the day was uneventful.

November 5, 2025 Stein NE

This is always my least favorite day of the trip. Ton spends most of the day packing our bags. I try to help where I can but am mostly useless except to occasionally lift something heavy. Tonight we will be our last night in François for this trip.

One unexpected complication for this trip that I realized today is the fact that we left the Schengen zone when we were in Morocco. This means our 180 day clock restarted when we reentered Spain on October 20, not when we arrived in Amsterdam on September 7. This means our spring trip will have to start later or be shorter than normal. I will be spending more time than normal over the winter using Schengen travel calculators to decide on flight dates. That is a bit of a bummer.

November 4, 2025 Stein NE

Well after procrastinating as long as we could we finally turned north and are now near Amsterdam. The two places we normally stay at around Amsterdam have both shortened their season and are closed, so I picked a place open year round at random. It is a nice small campground on a farm-and it turns out a historical site.

Nice field of flowers as we were leaving Belgium.

At the site of the campground there used to be a monastery that for a few years was the home of the philosopher and scholar Erasmus. In the mid-1400’s he was a leading philosopher within the Catholic Church. Before he got to that point he spent several years in Stein as a poor monk in a monastery that used to occupy the site our campground is on. He is a big enough deal in Europe that the program within the EU that allows students to attend any University in the EU no matter their nationality is called the Erasmus project.

If you are in the Netherlands you have to include a picture of a canal. This one is about 400 yards from our campground.

We arrived early and Ton spent a couple of hours sorting thru what is going to stay and what is going to get packed tomorrow. I contributed little except to explore the campground and the immediate surrounding areas where I learned about Erasmus.

The village of Stein. The building in the center was here when Erasmuss was here. It is now a restaurant.

After Ton had everything sorted we set off to find an ATM as we need some Euros to pay for François’ storage for next year. After accomplishing that we returned to François for a big supper. We have a lot of food to eat in the next day and a half before we head to the hotel at the airport.

November 3, 2025 Ypres BE

The trip is winding down but neither one of us is in a hurry to declare it over. This morning the conversation was about whether to head north today or tomorrow. Today is Monday and the tourist season is winding down in Belgium so most of the places we wanted to visit are closed. I offered Ton the opportunity to wrap things up and head to Amsterdam, but after a lot of searching she found a nice pub that was open in Ypres so around 11am we were off to Ypres.

The city of Ypres was literally on the front lines in WWI and was effectively leveled. So all of the nice old buildings you see on the square were built in the 1920’s and 30’s.

While Ton was researching what to do today, I took a quick walk to a British Military Cemetery about 500 yards from our campground. The Dozinghem Military Cemetery has the remains of over 3000 British and Commonwealth soldiers in it from WWI and 77 British soldiers from WWII buried in it. It is another sobering reminder that this beautiful countryside was a killing ground from 1914-1918.

Grave markers with some of the names of over 3000 soldiers buried here during WWI and WWII.

It was a quick drive into Ypres. We passed thru a couple of villages on the way and Ton was struck by how few businesses were open, and how few people were moving about. It’s a dreary day, but part of the dreariness comes from the lack of people about.

The main square in Ypres had a lot of cars, but very few people.

But today we were not looking at cities or architecture, we were out to sample good Belgian beer. We love Belgian beer and advocate for it in all of our travels over the more famous German beer. Belgian beer just feels more creative than German beer to us. The tastes are more pronounced and the varieties have more character in our opinion.

Trying to join the happy guys in the painting.

We found a very nice, modern pub near the main square and though it was around noon we were the first customers. We ordered two local beers and a light lunch and sat down to enjoy a quiet afternoon.

The pub was named after St. Arnoldus who is the patron saint of brewers.

After a few minutes we were joined by 9 British gentlemen who were touring the battlefields of WWI. We had a nice conversation with them once we figured out they were speaking English, it took our ears a couple of minutes to adjust to their accents. Some British accents are still difficult for us to decipher even after a couple of months of hearing much more British English than American English.

The Christmas beer is out, Ton sampled it and liked it.

We just hung out in the pub for about 2 hours stretching our beers and snacks out as long as we could. It was another fun but uneventful day. It’s days like this when we don’t feel so much like tourists, but someone who is living over here in a home that happens to move. I think it is a good thing.

24 very good beers on tap. It’s too bad I was driving.

After a while we headed back to the campground and spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy and trying to stay warm as the weather has definitely took a turn. The heater will be on tonight.

This region is famous for its hop production. This sculpture was a homage to hop farmers.

Tomorrow we have no choice, we will be on the road to Amsterdam to wrap things up for 2025.

November 2, 2025 Poperinge BE

Today was a laid back day that we really enjoyed. The morning was spent doing laundry including our sheets. Laundry day is always an important event and near the end of the trip we have to find a place to do our bedding. So getting that done made this a good day already.

The main treat for the day was a visit to the In de Vrede near our campground. It is a pub next to one of our favorite beers in the world Westvleteren Brewery. It is a Trappist Brewery, and unlike the bigger Belgian Trappist Breweries the beer is not intended for export.

I am happy contemplating the three beers brewed by the Monks at the St. Sixtus Abby in Westvlerteren.

We had discovered these beers on our first visit to Belgium in 2018 and had visited the In de Vrede then to sample the beers. At the time the strongest of the beers from Westvlerteren had been declared the best beer in the world by someone important in the beer world and the demand was through the roof.

We shared this fish stew between us. I liked it better than Ton did.

When we arrived at the Inn which sits in the middle of a lot of farms we were surprised to find the parking lot packed. But the restaurant is quite large and we were able to find a table right away. We immediately ordered a bottle of each of the three beers to get us started. The beer was as good as we remembered it and the blonde beer was better than we remembered it.

The road to the inn was a single track lane with pull outs.

Over the course of the meal we began a conversation with two young men about our sons age next to us. They began telling us about other breweries we should visit when we were in Belgium. They were quite proud of the beer heritage here and gave us some good tips for tomorrow and future trips.

Returning to the campground after a good afternoon at the In de Vrede.

Eventually the wife of one of the guys joined them with a cute Jack Russel Terrier who was used to being the center of attention. We ended up chatting with them for over an hour, and really enjoyed their company. We talked about travel, beer, jobs and life.

The goats thought Ton was going to feed them.

Today we didn’t visit anything “cultural” or “historical” but these three young people taught us more about Belgium and its people and culture than hours in a museum will. We also left with an arm full of Westvleteren Beer to take with us. It was an afternoon well spent and a very productive day and we only traveled 10 kilometers round trip to accomplish it.

November 1, 2025 Poperinge BE

Today we traveled another 350 kilometers north into Belgium. The last couple of days had been about setting us up to head to this part of Belgium. The area we are in is famous for Trappist beers, and good beer in general whether it is produced by monks or not. We originally visited this area in 2019 and are excited to give it another go.

A hop farm, the reason we are in Poperinge.

To get here though we had to navigate the traffic in Paris in a heavy downpour. It went remarkably well though it was a little intense for me. Just as we departed Paris the rain also lifted for most of the drive so most of the last 200 kilometers were relatively relaxing.

Cows in the field near our final destination.

Near the end of the drive we pulled into a grocery store in the last major town in France to get a few critical items such as paper towels, dish soap and wine. Then a few kilometers later we were in Belgium.

The campground we are staying at has a nice bar that is well stocked with local beers.

The last few kilometers to the campground were on very narrow country roads. They are one lane roads with pull outs every couple of hundred yards. Luckily the one time we came upon on coming traffic we were right at a handy pull out. Once we were set up in the campground we went into the on site bar and tried a small sample of the local beers. We are planning on being here a couple of days to do more sampling.