Veghel once more. We were moored at the north bank of a dead-end arm of the canal, hence the name: Noordkade (North-quay). It is a former industrial area, for the most part now refurbished and changed into an area containing shops, restaurants and a lot of out-of-use paraphernalia.

‘Wittern’ (German for ‘to smell’) restaurant and bar (Noordkade) was a delight to visit. See for more http://www.wittern.nl/ (only in Dutch). If ever the opportunity arises… don’t hesitate!

Loads of old machines and tools are still on display, scattered over the area. Like this caterpillared dragline…

…and this impressive tackle, with more old machines –all on a human scale in those days- in the background.

Among other luxury shops we found this paradise for the taste buds. We curtailed ourselves and bought just half a liter of raspberry flavoured balsamic vinegar. Delicious on a salad! By the way, they even made/sold homemade peanut butter.

Bavaria beer is ‘Gebrouwen in ons eigen Brabant’ (Brewed in our own (North-)Brabant) and in former times delivered in barrels by using a lovely little van. (Make?) Next to that in the past the ‘brood en banket’ (bread and pastry) was delivered at home by Van Leur using a motorized (Lely) carrier tricycle.

During the sixties of last century the Exota soft drink was hugely popular, at least in The Netherlands. That ended abruptly in the beginning of the 70ties, caused by a consumer-program on the telly when an exploding bottle was showed as a prove of the ‘danger’ of this soft drink. The sales plummeted 57% within a year leading to bankruptcy of the Exota factory. Later on it was proven that the ‘explosion’ was deliberately created by a bullet, on a laboratory fired at a sherry(!) bottle. It’s a long story, for more read https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exota and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exota-affaire (both only in Dutch). The trials that followed only ended in 2007(!). Anyway, Exota was re-introduced in 2015. Even the old swing-top bottle (Grolsch!) is available again.

We left Veghel on Wednesday the 17th of 2014 at 9:12AM. A day later than planned because on Tuesday we were visited by a representative of a firm that will deliver us made-to-measure covers for the wheelhouse, to be used during the winter. Besides, the lock we wanted to negotiate in ‘s-Hertogenbosch only operates on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Alternatively, one’s forced to make a detour by using the new Maxima Canal. Well, we used the lock at Schijndel, followed by the old lock (‘Sluis 0’ – Lock zero) in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and moored in the city’s marina at 3:42PM in the little river Dommel – as shown here.

A must when being in ‘s-Hertogenbosch is to consume (‘verorberen’) a ‘Bossche Bol’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bossche_bol). It’s quiet a venture because of its hugeness, so we felt lucky that a knife and fork came with it. The circumstances proved to be even worse than the picture suggests, as two mini Mars-bars were part of the ‘deal’ too! There was one mitigating factor though: we used sweeteners in our coffee and renounced using sugar – see left on the picture.

Our next goal of visiting was the Sint-Janskathedraal (St. Johns Cathedral). Later on we were able to make a picture from a tower and we thought is appropriate to use it here as an introduction to the cathedral as well as the city. For the city, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27s-Hertogenbosch and for its cathedral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Cathedral_(%27s-Hertogenbosch).

What can we say here that we haven’t said before? As always the interior of this kind of cathedrals is nothing less than overwhelming.

It was highly interesting, though busy, being a temporary citizen of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. The next step was a visit to the ‘Jheronimus Bosch Art Center’, to visit the ‘Bosch in Context’ exposition. Since 2007 the complete oeuvre of Jheronimus Bosch is on display here in the form of high-quality reproductions. As we all know JB was very capable of depicting human weaknesses; the seven deadly sins. (Movie ‘Seven’.)

One of JB’s triptychs. We honestly forgot to note more about it, as it was all too overwhelming. Therefore, just enjoy the pictures.

Our first mooring inside ‘s-Hertogenbosch was in the centre and cost over € 600,00 on a monthly basis. That’s a bit too much to put up with, especially since we’ve got a good, rather silent, generator. So we decided to move to the Diezekade on Friday the 19th – still in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, though not in its marina.