Fourth (and final) Stop
This time, after an extended visit home of 5 nights (albeit with a European Conference and bowling tournament in the middle), I found myself in Amersfoort once again.
Last time I visited (April 2007) I stayed at the Lange Jan hotel, almost directly under a chiming clock tower. This time I moved slightly upmarket to the more popular Hof Square in Amersfoort to stay for my two nights (one of them shirtless) at the Logement de Gaaper:
Now this is a nice place! Very “Hurdy Gurdy” but nice. In common with my previous two billets it really only caters for B&B travellers but is situated in a square made up almost entirely of restaurants so the “Fat Lad” was able to cope.
My “good points” are:
- Easy to get to. You can comfortably walk from the station in about 20 minutes.
- Situated right in the centre of Amersfoort so loads of places to eat, including McDonalds and KFC!
- Breakfast is good and served in the cafe which occupies the ground floor.
- Room has internet connection via cable and it’s free!
- Bathroom is a wetroom – you know you just walk straight into the shower thingy.
- Posh lighting
- de-gaaper-posh-lights.jpg
- The hotelier insisted on carrying my case up the unfeasibly steep staircase
Not so good points:
- The dreaded mini-bar (incidentally I think I forgot to pay for a Mars bar)
- Vertigo sufferers should find somewhere else to stay, particularly if on the floor I was. You have to climb a very steep spiral staircase with a bannister which seems to be on wrong side. Difficult getting down with a suitcase which was 2 shirts (and the mandatory shampoo, shower gel and shower cap) heavier than when I arrived. Needless to say the case arrived at the bottom before I did.
- The cafe closed at 8.00pm. Might have been nice to have a beer there before retiring.
As stated earlier the location is typically Dutch. Check these out if you don’t believe me:
amersfoort1.jpg amersfoort2.jpg
Plenty of places to eat including “The Taste of India”.
I was having a look at the menu in the window of the “TOI” when a young “Indian” boy of about 9 or 10 came up to me saying something in “Hurdy Gurdy”. I shouted loudly and slowly and explained that I was English. The young hawker then started spouting at me in English “very good food, very good food!”
Impressed for a minute I dropped my guard until he blotted his copybook by saying “It schmeckt very nice”. Having scolded the upstart for dropping a German word into an English sentence we found some common ground in “Big Red”, had a quick discussion about Wayne Rooney and I moved on to McDonalds. Pity that, I really fancied a Ruby, but standards are standards!
The rest of my trip to Amersfoort has been pretty well documented elsewhere in this blog, so would I go back? “Yes!” I really have to know what the Beef Madras is like at the “Taste of India” although they probably don’t have it as I think that’s a uniquely British take on Indian cuisine.
Are you sure that you went to Amersfoort, cos the pictures really do bear nore than a passing resemblance for the Golden Square shopping centre in Warrington.
Did Easyjet do a lunar landing on you (You know where the flag is blowing on the Module, and if he was the first on the moon – Who took the picture of him him climbing out) and just pretend to go to Holland.
A couple of interesting questions there Mr Gray. The second one is easy. The photograph would have been taken by a “no win no fee” solicitors company – you know the ones that always get there before the emergency services.
As far as Amersfoort looking like Warrington, I am not sure who would be offended most by that. I think I’ll let them fight it out for themselves.
Great to see someone outside of my country enjoying my city
But why didn’t you drink a beer in the city if the cafe closed at 8?
Next time you’re in Amersfoort you should stop by cafe ‘hemels’, which is a quiet poshy cafe.
Just go left twice after you leave the Gaaper, and follow the green lights, again rather poshy lighting.