Tongeren and Willy's

Well, after our 4 1/2 hour dinner last night, we got up early and headed to our favorite antique market in Belgium - Tongeren. 

For those of you that have not been to Tongeren in quite some time, they now have a parking garage (across the street from the building with the bathrooms and directly across from where there used to be a metal building...that is now a parking lot...) where sellers take up the whole first floor.  The first two things we bought, were in this garage.

Here is a view of the garage.

We went looking for a particular style of clock that I thought would look good over my antique desk that we got from Willy.  And we found it!

This is the one I wanted.

And we bought this cabinet to use as an end table next to our sofa.  It's only from about 1940 so it's not very old, but it only cost 70€ so we figured we couldn't really go wrong.

And who can forget the absolutely WONDERFUL waffles that you can only get here?

YUM, YUM, YUM!  There are just no words to describe how wonderful these things are!

Now some random pictures of the market.

And after Tongeren, we head to Willy and Lutgart's house.  I would say that about 95% of our antique furniture came from Willy's store.  Our youngest used to tease us that there was a problem when a store owner knew us well enough to send us cards for our birthdays and Christmas.  To us though, he may have started out as a store owner, but he and his whole family ended up being lifelong friends.  He's no longer in business, as you can see from the pictures below but we already knew that.  We just wanted to visit.

And by the way, this is the ONLY thing he still has for sale.  He made benches from old headboards and footboards. This one is 120€.  After it is gone, he is all done.

I'm sure the remainder of these pictures won't be of any interested to you, unless you knew what Willy's store was like before.  I remember it used to be so crowded, that we would take flashlights in, climb on top of furniture and point the flashlight beam at the piece of furniture we were interested in.  Most of the time I would have no idea what I was actually getting, until he delivered it.  But I knew I could ALWAYS trust his judgement.  If he said it was "special" I knew it was.


The empty store:

While we were there, Willy gave Ron 2 French clocks that he had been saving for him.

I went out back to take a walk around their beautiful garden.

And while I was taking pictures, Rika and Gaston showed up!  And we had some delicious lunch!

Last summer, Willy, Lutgart, Rika, Gaston and Kasper came to visit us.  We had a WONDERFUL time and maybe, when I have time I will blog about all the things they did when they came to visit.  The only thing that was a little sad was that Lutgart would get frustrated because she didn't feel like she could communicate in English as well as she wanted to.  I didn't give it another thought but she did.  When she got home, she enrolled in an English class (which almost brought me to tears when I found out).  The thought that she went through all of that work just to learn English so we could communicate made me feel so ashamed that I hadn't tried harder myself.  :(  Here is the book that she used:

And here I had been feeling so pleased with myself for learning some Norwegian.  She put me to shame!  She had to write a paper (all in English) for her exam and it was PERFECT.  Way to go Lutgart!


Now it is time to head back to David and Theresa's house.  Willy, having decided that Ron should stay in Belgium and he would come to Norway again, hopped into the driver's seat of our car!  

They are going to come and visit next year!  HOORAY!

Now, back to Bingelrade.  It's been another wonderful day!  One of the things I REALLY miss about the Netherlands is how cheap the flowers are.  So, once we got back to David and Theresa's, Ron and I took a walk to the local church and then spent some time looking at flowers along the way and in David and Theresa's garden.

This sign made me  laugh.

Tomorrow we see some old friends and neighbors and head up to Den Haag.  It's been another perfect day!

Hirtshals to Bingelrade

Day 2 – Hirtshals to Bingelrade

We got up at 05.00 and at 05.30 they started with announcements in the cabins to get up.  They wanted all of the rooms cleared by 06.00.  I wonder if they had any trouble getting the drunks out of their rooms.  Or maybe they were sleeping on the floors out in the lounge.  Anyway, we went to the café, had some coffee, yogurt and bread and then headed up on deck to watch our arrival into Hirtshals.

Now we go back in the cars, waiting to get off.

And by the time it’s our turn to get off and the TomTom finds itself, it is 07.29 and we have 987 km to go to get to our friends house where we are staying.  For those who don’t know much about the Netherlands, Bingelrade is down in the southernmost tip of The Netherlands in Limburg.  The NATO base JFC Brunssum (use to be AFCent, AFNorth) is there and Ron worked there for 7 years before we moved to Stavanger.  The picture shows we’ll get there around 16.35 but it was closer to 17.30 with the road construction in Hamburg and stopping for gas twice.

And now we are back in the Netherlands after a long day of driving (well, Ron was driving and I was reading).  It felt like we were coming home.

We had time for a quick catch up with Theresa and David and a quick shower and then we went off to dinner at our favorite restaurant.   And because I know you will LOVE it, here is the contact information:


Otmar Pregled
Restaurant Thull
Thull14
6365 AC Schinnen
Netherlands
+31 46 43 1768
Restaurant Thull

This gentleman has only a few tables in his place.  He does the cooking himself and dinner is a long drawn out affair. He is from Austria and all of the cooking is Austrian recipes.  There is no menu – the food is just whatever he finds fresh at the market and is different with each season of the year. He pairs a bottle of Austrian wine with each course.  Tonight we have a table for 4 and he brings us one bottle for each course …. But if we were big drinkers, he would have brought one bottle per 2 people.  As it is, we had almost a half a bottle left after each course.  We went through a lot more water than we did wine.  But if you love wine, it is all inclusive in the price of the menu.

Between courses, you are encouraged to get up, walk through the gardens, sit in the other room, talking with guests, relaxing. And he even remembered us!  He was so surprised that we had just arrived from Norway and headed straight to his place!  BTW … you need reservations and sometimes in the busy time of the year, you need to book months out.

We start off with spargel (white asparagus) with some vegetables.  He brought us a bottle of wine from a Monastery in Austria to go with it.

We had a huge basket of bread with butter and a garlic herb butter to go with it.

Cute napkins that we can wear around our neck if we are messy (he knows me so well!)

And there are only 2 tables of 4 tonight.  That may have been because the Netherlands was playing in the European Football Championships.

The second course was an oxtail soup with vegetables that had been simmering for over 48 hours.

And it was served with this bottle of wine.

This is the sitting room where we would go and relax between courses.

The next course has salmon that has had some grape seed oil drizzled on it.  He brought us out a small sample of the oil so we could dip our breads in it to get a taste.  He sells all of the oils and wines that he uses in his restaurant.  We ended up buying a bottle of this.  I’m not sure what I’ll use it for, but I love buying and trying different oils and vinegars.

He is very happy to let people watch him cook.  The kitchen is within view of the tables.  Here is the salmon that is the next course.

While we are waiting for the next course, he encourages us to look at his picture albums with include pictures of Austria and from here in the Netherlands.  He has many different CD’s.  If we find one that we are interested in, we can change the music.

He also had cigars that you can buy and smoke, if you are so inclined.  We are not at all interested in cigars, but I asked him some questions in case anyone else was interested. 

The prices are on the cigars and yes, he has Cuban cigars.  :)

He also sells Limburg Pralines and Bonbons.

Chocolates

He does wine tastings with Ambassadors, Governors, Mayors … and the common people like you and me.

And now it is time for our next course.  Which I must say, was my favorite!  The salmon was cooked with the grape seed oil, and herbs served with shrimp, spinach and under the spinach was a delicious risotto.  And do you see the sauce poured over it?  It was a white wine and white chocolate sauce!  It was YUMMY!!!!!  And below that, is the picture of the wine he served with it.

When he brings out each course, he spends about 5 minutes telling us how he prepared it and answers any questions that we have.

By now I am stuffed and we still have 3 courses to go.  So I take a stroll through his garden and he comes out and tells me about his flowers.

His pride and joy – some type of orchid.  This is picture of what they will look like.

And here they are now.

Then he tells me he needs to go in to finish the next course so I sneak a peek to see what it is.

Here is his wife, cooking the white asparagus that will be served with it.  Seriously?  That much spargel for only 8 people??

First he brings out the wine.  He said this course needs a white and a red.

And then the food.

And right in the middle of the table he delivers rack of lamb and some type of veal.

While that is digesting, I wander back out into the sitting room and he came over and asked me if I would like a digestive.  Which is basically just more alcohol.  I declined but I asked him if it was included in the price of the meal or extra (in case any of you go and are interested).  This costs more and he said it depends on what you get as to how much it costs.  Some are just a few € more but this one is 89€ for a shot.  YIKES!  That’s more than the cost of the entire meal!

And if you are so inclined, he has many things to choose from.

Now it is time for the next course.  I have a video where he describes each cheese, but I can't figure out how to download it here.  But .... you can check it out at this link.  Cheese Board

Which comes with this wine.

And finally dessert.  This is an apple strudel, fresh strawberries in an Eiswien glaze and chocolate brandy mousse.  With, of course, its own bottle of wine.

Hup Holland!  He gave us these cool souvenirs of the game, but he didn’t give them to the other table.  He loves us best!  I think they may have been too drunk to notice anyway.

All in all, a wonderful night with wonderful friends and wonderful food.  And yes, we had a designated driver.