We had a bit of a sleep in at our Amsterdam Hotel, before repacking our backpacks, descending from our fourth floor room and heading back to Amsterdam Centraal Station.
First point of call was the service desk in order to get our Eurail passes activated with a stamp. We had about an hour until our train to Eindhoven, so we had breakfast at the station. I had a three cheese toasted sandwich and freshly squeezed orange juice. Ulick had grilled cheese sandwich and a latte.
We then headed to the platform to catch our train to Eindhoven. Our Eurail passes are 1st class, but it looked that the 2nd class seats on NS rail looked very good also.
The train we traveled on had free wifi too. We travelled from about an hour and twenty minutes to Eindhoven, then disembarked the train, walked across the platform and boarded our next train to Deurne. This was a short 20 train ride.
We were met at Deurne by Ria. Ria’s aunt Nel is also my mother’s aunt (by marriage). I met Ria when she travelled to Australia with Nel on the occasion of my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary in 1998.
Ria drove us from Deurne to her home in Asten. We enjoyed lunch with Ria and her husband Frans before heading to the Klok and Peel Museum.
Wow! I had no idea that Asten had such a large museum devoted to bells! Turns out, Asten has one of the largest existing bell foundry’s in the world! And the museum is a collection not only of bells created in Asten, but also from around the world, with many specimens over 2000 years old. We were met at the museum by Frans brother, who is a guide at the museum.
The museum has around 150 volunteers, with only 2FTE staff. We had a guided tour of the museum, played some bells, and I played a carillon organ!
A second part of the museum is devoted to The Peel (De Groote Peel National Park). De Groote Peel is a National Park in the Peel, a region in the Southeast of the Netherlands on the border between the provinces of Limburg and North Brabant. It has a size of 13,4 km² and preserves a peat bog that has remained partly untouched by peat cutting, which used to be extensive in the area.
For dinner we were treated to a traditional Dutch meal – Erwtensoep and Stamppot. Lekker!
