...the musings of an Aussie in the Netherlands

24 September 2007

Our weekend "away"

Jeroen and I just spent a relaxed weekend at Piet's place in Grave, and during our time there we played "tourists" and managed to see a little bit of everything!


Friday evening we headed into the "centre" of Grave, to the market square, and watched the annual Taptoe (a sort of mini Edingburgh Tattoo, with brass military-style marching bands). The evening's activities began with a "ganzenfanfare" (goose parade). See above for the gaggle of very well trained geese being led through the village by a drummer and a tambourine player :-)) The Taptoe itself seemed very popular with the "older" generation, with the market square lined by dozens of camping stools and grey haired people enjoying the music and final singalong of the national anthem.

On Sunday we paid a visit to the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal. The third of the large "museums" in the local area, after the Museumpark Orientalis (the religion museum) and the Bevrijdingsmuseum (the liberation museum), and the last one to complete our check list of musuems visited in our local area ;-) It was a beautiful autumn day - just perfect to wander around in the sunshine through the reconstructions of some typical African villages from countries such as Lesotho, Mali and Ghana. I've never been to Africa so can't tell you how authentic they are, but it was funny to see re-creations of a hairdressing salon and an African "beer bar" in the middle of a Dutch forest! The indoor part of the museum is more like an art gallery and had an interesting collection of traditional and modern African art, including a display of wooden coffins from Ghana. These carefully carved and brightly painted coffins are designed to represent an important aspect of the deceased's life eg a fish for a fisherman, a car for a taxi driver, or a sewing machine for a dressmaker!

And on the way back to Piet's in Grave on Sunday afternoon, we noticed that one of the old WWII bunkers by the Grave bridge (over the river Maas) was open so paid a visit there too. It is around this time of the year that the liberation of Grave is commemorated (officially 17 September), and the old bunker is set up as a mini museum. The bunker was actually constructed by the Dutch in 1936 to protect the bridge from the invading German troops, but was taken over by the Germans, then eventually won back by the allies on 17 September 1944. It was a bit eerie standing in the cold little concrete bunker (over two levels - one of which is actually underground) thinking that over 60 years ago there was heavy fighting right outside, and artillery fire coming from that very concrete box!

Today the weather has turned cool and wet again, and tomorrow it's back to work.

Alli xxx

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