A City, a Monastery, and a Castle

Believe it or not, I'm almost finished with the Vasse trip from that second week in December...all 4 days and 3 nights of it.  One more post to go after this.

Today's post is 3 places/visits that could be separate posts unto themselves but make more sense put together into a mish-mash of left-overs (?) from the main events of our trip.

For instance, on our way to Vasse, NL, we knew we'd be too early for checking into our hotel, and so decided to stop in Ootmarsum first, just 6 km outside of Vasse in the Twente region of the Overijssel province of eastern Netherlands...just before entering Germany.

Remember that Astrid and I prefer the back-roads and boonies of this wee country.

So the tiny towns we bump into along the way are the ones we most love to visit.

Look at the charm of this place of less than 5K in population.

Astrid loves to do the research on what we'll see when we travel.

What she found out about this town was that it had S T A T U E S.

Everywhere!  Even surrounding the church.

The statue it's probably most known for is the "Poaskearls" (Easter Men),

referring to an intriguing Easter ritual involving young, single men, which you can read here.

Another famous statue is of this girl who also tops the sign markers throughout the town.

I'm sure she has a name/title and story...which I'm still trying to find.

Surely we missed scads of other statues, but these were of our short walk around city center.

ADDENDUM:  Astrid did some research and found out that this is Sjalotje = Little Onion.
The onion is the symbol for the carnival in Ootmarsum, being pulled from the ground.

You know how I love to "collect" these things:

sundials, gable stones, niches, hanging signs, weathervanes...

And, oh yes, our koffie breaks!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

On the day that we visited the splendid watermill in Denekamp, we drove from there to visit the next two places of this post.  As you know, no moss grows under our feet!

First, we drove to Nordhorn, Germany, approx. 10 km away, to see the monastery there.

It was obvious we had crossed over the border into Germany by the German flag on the signs.

That's part of the fun of traveling out in the boonies!

The Frenswegen monastery was founded in 1394.

Nowadays it appears to be used as a place of study or retreat,

and is where I found my "star of wonder" for Christmas.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

By now, the afternoon shadows were lengthening, but we knew we could make it in time to the Bentheim castle in Bad Bentheim, Germany, 18 km from the monastery.

We parked across the street from the half-timbered structure...

...and on the way to the castle bumped into this delightful pyramid carousel,

so typical of German decorations during the Christmas season.

I couldn't resist taking a video of it.
(Did you spot Astrid in her red coat?)

But it was the Bentheim castle, from the 11th century, we were there to see,
(along with a fun group of men), right around the corner.

It was magnificent, even without paying to enter the buildings.

It was enough for us to see the architecture...the courtyards, walls, gates.

And as so often happens on such days after we've seen enough, we said to each other,
"It's time to go home," which in this case was back to our Vasse hotel, 36 km away.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

What's left of this Vasse trip is a side trip to Tecklenburg, Germany,
to meet up with dear friends Philine and Mechtild.

The Vasse, NL, Trip

You may find this strange but a week after we came back from our Koblenz, Germany, trip (last weekend of November), Astrid had a week off from work because of too many free days to take over into the new year.  So, rather than sit at home, we were off again...this time to Vasse, NL, right on the Dutch-German border, 177 km east of us.

We arrived on Monday, 7 December, and stayed till Thursday,

with the Tante Sien hotel as our home base, built in 1881.

Because we had trips planned for the following days,

we decided to take the suggested 5-km walk around the area that first afternoon.

The St. Joseph and Pancratius catholic church opposite our hotel became our point of reference 

all along the walk.  If we could see it, we knew we weren't lost!

Almost immediately, at the beginning of our walk away from city center,

we were greeted by these lovelies, who totally made my day.

Later, it was the horses in the distance, waiting for supper to be called.

At which point we left the main trails and entered the Ice Age, literally.

Actually, because of recent rain, it was muddy and scary.

We slapped ourselves upside the head about starting so late in the day as the sun was setting.

While it was one of the best sunsets we've ever seen progress,

while deep in the woods, we were almost panicking.  Would we ever find our way out?

Well, yes, of course, because we got back to the hotel in time for our early 5 p.m. dinner!

Looking out the window from my seat I tipped my glass to St. Joseph and Pancratius outside.

Yes, we were back safe-n-sound.

It so happens this hotel stay was a special deal that included breakfast AND dinner.

We started every meal with the same Pott's Weizen beer from Germany 

and farmer's bread with 3 different spreads.
[As an fyi, Astrid and I drink red wine with our dinners at home but love
trying new, good beers while we're out-n-about.  There are so many!]

And this was Dinner #1.

Dinner #2

And Dinner #3

All dinners were 3 courses and were delightful.

We were happy campers, even though as a rule we prefer choosing different restaurants

while traveling out-n-about.  This time we had to return "home" to get our money's worth.

We were NOT disappointed.

The next 3 days we drove all around the area and found lots of goodies.

I never tire of these weathervanes!

How is it possible so many variations on a theme exist!

But, not to be outdone, I quickly found a new collectible from the area.

The following are uilenborden (owls boards) from the Twente area of east Netherlands:

They come in all sizes and shapes...

but can be unusually tall and complex.

Who knew I'd come away at the end of 2015 with a new collectible!

Not as exciting to me as the weathervanes, but exciting enough.

(to be continued....)