Van Life Diaries: Europe 1985 – Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands – Episode 359 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

This is the fourth part of a monthly, six-episode series celebrating the fact that exactly 40 years ago this year, my family and I spent six months in a striped motorhome travelling around Europe. I was nine years old and yes, this trip had an enormous impact on my life – I’m sure you wouldn’t be listening to this podcast today if Van Life 1985 hadn’t taken place! Throughout the series, I’ll include chats recorded with my Dad this year, extracts from my late Mum’s travel diary from 1985, and of course my own memories and thoughts. 

In this episode, we move on to spend time in Germany, a country that would become very important in my future life. We bypassed Munich, visited the Black Forest, Baden Baden and Heidelberg, and spent guilty done exhale deeply slowly her chest rising and falling contenttime staying with friends near Frankfurt, where my sister and I especially enjoyed the flying fox play equipment in a local path. Belgium featured very briefly in our trip and we then carried on to the Netherlands, enjoying a cheese market in Alkmaar and a canal cruise in Amsterdam.

A big thanks to Context Travel for sponsoring this series, and an even bigger thanks to my Dad for agreeing to be part of it.

Links:

• Context Travel – use the code THOUGHTFULTRAVEL to get 15% off any online booking
• See Part 1 of Van Life Diaries: Hong Kong, England and France
• And Part 2 of Van Life Diaries: Spain, Italy and Greece
• And Part 3 of Van Life Diaries: Austria and Switzerland
• Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Join our LinkedIn group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Sign up for the Thoughtful Travellers newsletter at Substack.com 

As promised, some photos from our albums …

Episode Transcript

Amanda Kendle 0:00
Hello and welcome to Episode 359 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. This is the Van Life Diaries Part 4, Europe, 1985 covering Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. This is part of our super special monthly series during 2025 these episodes are traveling us back in time to the most important trip of my life. Because, yes, it happened 40 years ago this year, way back in the 80s!

During the van life diaries Europe, 1985 series, I’m reliving a six month budget motor home trip my family took around Western Europe when I was just nine years old. I have interviewed my dad to help me with this, and I’m lucky also to have my late mum’s travel diaries from the time, plus our family photo albums and my own childhood memories. So as well as reliving memories of a life changing trip. I also want to talk about how travel memories impact us, what’s changed and what hasn’t in the world of travel over these four decades, and also why taking your kids traveling is always a good idea. Two things before we really dive in, I’d like to pay my respects to the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation where I’m recording this podcast, and I want to say huge thanks to the sponsor of this series, Context Travel. They’ve been operating walking tours in cities around the world since 2003 they’ve been a certified B Corp since 2011 and they find incredibly interesting and qualified subject matter experts, very cool people to take you on a special tour. More from Context Travel during the episode.

Let’s start this episode in Germany. Germany would become a recurring feature in my life, even at this age. I was in year five of primary school on this trip, I had actually already started learning German in school a couple of years earlier. And I think if my first experience of Germany had been less good, perhaps my whole life course would have been entirely different. I ended up living there. Married a German have now German ex husband, but have a half German kid. So yeah, Germany’s been pretty important. So, funnily enough, back in 1985 my mum’s first impressions of Germany were mixed, let’s say, in her diary, on our first day in Germany, she described it thus, on to Munich and on altarbahn. So did not stop. Country flat, large acreages saw farmers putting on fertilizer, liquid from barns, most of the paddocks smell onto a small village, pretty place, Blauer boyeren and camped outside fire station, helpful people. One spoke English well and visited us after they had put up a tent for a beer festival. Spoke very well and proud of his country. Gave us advice on where to go. Would like East and West Germany to be friendly. It was interesting to hear him talk, but I was tired. Oops, sorry, Munich for not stopping. I have been back since, and it’s definitely worth the stop. I have to say, when I read this in my mum’s diary and I saw Blau boyeren, I thought, oh, surely that’s not a town name. She’s just got the German word for blueberries, blaubeiren. But I have double checked and Blau beauren is indeed a small village just outside of Ulm and actually not really all that far from where I ended up living a couple of decades later. Interestingly, of course, this was still four years before the Berlin Wall fell, so it was interesting to hear that we had been discussing that concept of East and West Germany being friendlier. Apparently, though my mum didn’t know the name of this guy. Usually people are named in her diary, so perhaps he had a tricky one that she didn’t remember, but we did, apparently follow his suggested route for several days of our travels, following our friends planned route. Big acreages, most farmers here in villages, lots of mercs on road, lunch at sigmaringen village, market too. Pretty place and visit to Castle, lovely, old castle, and beautifully maintained with furniture etc, on to start of black forest around tittersee. Really cold lake here, small one and lots of tourist shops came in to park and it hailed and on the following day, this is mid June by now, so you’d think we’d be going into summer, but I guess it is the German summer I came to know later in life, had a walk in the Black Forest before going on to Freiburg forest. Interesting to drive through and windy road. To oberkirk, where we stayed in car park, rained most of night. Farms pretty around hills on drive in and still in Germany, one of my favorite diary entries from my mum, purely because of the priority listing of one of her favorite vegetables. Shopped broccoli first we have seen in Europe on to Baden. Baden, where we lunched, tourist town with baths and springs, very touristy. Rode on towards Heidelberg near Rhine, not interesting, so crossed over to other side of Rhine and on to Heidelberg and camped at Park on Neckar river. So although my mum always said that one of the reasons she wanted to take my sister and I on this trip at all is because she had this feeling that one day we would live in Europe, and she wanted to know what it was like. I don’t think she would have predicted back in 1985 that this spot on the Neckar river where we camped was a very short drive from where I would spend three years in my late 20s, who knew, besides, she was also more interested in the broccoli very on brand of her it actually warranted a couple of exclamation marks, and they are infrequent in her diary, my dad and I, of course, discussed our memories of Germany while looking at our photos, which included several typical fachwerk houses. If you listened to our chat on Switzerland last episode, you also might remember we were constantly in the snow wearing only shorts and T shirts. So we mentioned how we’ve improved on this and then we started in Germany, which became much more important to me later when I lived there for a few years. So this is my first experience. Well,

Barry Kendle 6:39
notice from this photograph that we’re all rugged up here. We

Amanda Kendle 6:43
have learned how to wear clothes now, I don’t remember going to Heidelberg as a kid, but I then lived right nearby. You’re familiar with it now. I’m very familiar with it now, but I do vaguely remember mum had her hair cut there.

Speaker 1 6:56
I don’t know why, but maybe she told me when I moved there that that’s what she remembered about it so. But we, I assume she cut your hair in the in the grounds of caravan parks, the way she cut our

Barry Kendle 7:08
hair, I’m sure that, yes, I certainly wouldn’t have been wandering around looking for a bar.

Speaker 1 7:14
That’s right, it must have been. Yeah, I remember that she would cut my hair and Zoe’s hair just in the sitting out in the grass somewhere in a caravan park. I don’t know if that was weird or normal for other campervannas, or was normal for us, apparently. Apparently

Amanda Kendle 7:29
still looks, I mean, I feel like Germany still looks the same no matter what.

Barry Kendle 7:33
There’s timber planks on the outside. Yes, I’ve never got accustomed to that in any way. I’ve never understood it. Why is it? Is it just a question of covering and joins? Because this is a bit haphazard, but apparently this is a panel. There’s a process.

Amanda Kendle 7:49
It’s very distinctive. I love that snippet of caravan park life, getting our hair cut sitting on the lawn outside the van. We had some pictures of that. Funnily enough, my mum also reported on her Heidelberg haircut, including a perm. Remembering, of course, getting a perm was very common back in the 80s, into town and had hair permed, very little English spoken, very jazzy salon, Willy Wolf, Deutschmark. 8350 walked through old town really lovely. Girls enjoyed monkey on building blowing bubbles back for an early park and a shower always best in afternoon, as not many people about and showers cleaner by this stage, we I guess we were becoming pretty expert at caravan park life. From here, we actually had one of those really cool staying with friends experiences, catching up with a bank colleague of my dad’s who was working for the bank in Germany based near Frankfurt, with kids similar age to us. His name was Trevor McDonald, and he also helped us to cash a check. Honestly, getting money back then, obviously, was just such a huge hassle compared to these days, that’s one thing I’m not sorry, has changed. Did

Unknown Speaker 9:00
you know him before, or he was just a no,

Barry Kendle 9:02
I knew him from Perth. Perth. Oh, they were from Perth. Yeah. Well, now he was from Sydney, but he had worked in Perth and went back to Sydney, and then they grabbed him to go to Germany.

Amanda Kendle 9:12
Wow, that’s so cool. Why didn’t grab us to go to Germany? Wasn’t my field, but I do remember this and going. We were there for one of the kids birthday parties. Yeah, as a kid, these are the things I remember. I remember the birthday party, and I remember the flying fox.

Barry Kendle 9:29
I think we must have gone to that park a couple of times.

Speaker 1 9:31
I think so too, because we really liked it. Did we stay there a few days? Do you think

Barry Kendle 9:36
yes, we put the van, parked the van over there in the front yard. It was quite a big house. We stayed in a van. It worked out well for us. Gave us a chance to have a look around and go to the park couple of times. Yes, exactly.

Amanda Kendle 9:49
Nice to have a little longer stint somewhere. So yeah, we actually stayed several nights here and even got invited to their daughter, Pamela’s seventh birthday party, which was such a nice dose of normality. For us now, my mum’s perspective on our stay here is also interesting. I love to see the things that she noticed. Trevor, very helpful, organized money and invited us for the evening. So out to their place at Kronberg. Interesting home with boiler room and Marilyn and Trevor, very pleasant, good evening. Marilyn out to a dinner with the American Association. So I cooked dinner next day, little tired, bathed and showered coffee with Marilyn, shopped and looked at Schloss hotel in Kronberg. Was castle and lovely. Back for party and out evening for pizza, walk and on way home through park where kids all played on flying fox, all tired today, 12 weeks away, halfway said goodbye to McDonald’s pleasant break. We had enjoyed ourselves. We continued westward from here and on to Belgium, but we will return to Germany at the end of this episode, as we wind our way up towards Scandinavia. So Germany is not quite over yet. Context, travel offers walking tours in all the countries we’re chatting about today, including in Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich and Berlin, one of my favorite cities of all, obviously, back in 1985 it was a bit trickier to cross the Iron Curtain. But I did, by chance, get to be in Berlin for reunification in 1990 as a teenager on that school trip, my host father in Berlin was a teacher in Kreuzberg, and I got to meet some of his students back then that included a lot of Turkish immigrants. So today, context actually offers a tour of this neighborhood, and it sounds like it’s still a real melting pot and a really fascinating place to wander, and plus, it’s actually my, you know, favorite kind of walking tour. You won’t see major sights, but you’ll get really interesting, like local insights instead. So if Berlin is on your travel list, explore with context. On a Nazi history tour with a historian, a Berlin contemporary art tour with a local art historian or curator, or take my recommended Kreuzberg hipster neighborhood tour. And don’t forget, you can get a 15% discount on any context travel tour using the code thoughtful travel at context travel.com so on to Belgium. Now I’m sorry in advance to any Belgian listeners, and of course, as luck would have it, literally just yesterday, knowing I was going to record this today, I started teaching my new semester here, and I have two Belgian study abroad students in my class. So sincere apologies to you. We spent only one night in Belgium and didn’t see much at all. My mum reports it thus late start and on to Belgium, countries similar to before, Rhine crops, etc, into Belgium for lunch. More most we have seen cows in paddocks and fences. Pleasant country, few hills and more trees, hard to find anywhere to camp free or campsite. Town’s quite busy, and roads also not much for tourists. We’ll go on to Holland. And to add insult to injury, there is literally just one photo in our huge photo album from Belgium, which my dad and I discuss. So in our album here, there’s one picture of Belgium, but you seem to remember more well.

Barry Kendle 13:24
I do remember that I was impressed by the amount of fruit that was around Belgium. But I can’t remember where in Belgium, but I do have an impression that there was plenty of fruit. It’s

Amanda Kendle 13:36
funny because I always think of Belgium is responsible for chocolate, so not for I’m glad to hear it. Sorry, sorry, Belgium. I have returned briefly as an adult, but actually, I need to go again. I really, sincerely love Belgian chocolate, so that’s a good enough reason to go and find out more about what I can love about Belgium. Anyway, from here, we continued north into the Netherlands, and my mum describes our first days there, on to Delta barrier, very flat countryside, lots of crop and beat millions of bikes around on way bridge opened up to allow boats through to a Delta project by bus. Interesting Delta barrier built to stop Holland being flooded. Can understand as it is really so flat on to Gouda, to be there for cheese market, camped in car park, bit noisy in center of town and the next day up early in anticipation of cheese market. Tourist Bureau, very well organized and helpful, but unfortunately, Gouda cheese market starts next week later this year. Interesting town, church, etc, which we visited, canals and houseboats, lots of cheese and clog shops. So it seems like we did see all of the stereotypes in the Netherlands. And you’ll be glad to learn we did manage to move on to see a cheese market in the town of Alkmaar, and that’s where we went to the next day. And we’ve got. Lots of photos of it, which my dad and I chatted about.

Barry Kendle 15:02
I remember the Cheese Rolling business, that funny act that was carried on. It was all interesting and historical sort of stuff. So

Amanda Kendle 15:11
was it kind of like, Was it real in any way, or was it mostly a tourist performance?

Barry Kendle 15:15
I was a tourist performance, definitely a tourist performance, but it was a replica of what used to happen in times past. That was good. It was quite interesting. There’s a lot of cheese there, yeah, and they use the same rolls of cheese time and time again because they rolled around in the street.

Speaker 1 15:33
That’s true. Yeah, no one wants to eat that after do they? I certainly look

Amanda Kendle 15:37
it. My dad’s sharp memory also recognized another caravan park here as a location for our public haircuts.

Barry Kendle 15:44
I remember also having haircuts at the caravan park. We were staying, myself included. And is that a glass of wine? That’s no I don’t think,

Amanda Kendle 15:57
oh, hard to know. It could be, I hope

Speaker 1 16:00
not, if mum’s drinking wine and then cutting our hair, I don’t want to be the third, the third in line, or you get crooked hair. No, I don’t think, no, I don’t

Barry Kendle 16:08
know what it was a problem.

Speaker 1 16:10
Now, she was a good haircutter for that circumstance.

Amanda Kendle 16:13
Anyway, after our cheesy experiences, we moved on to Amsterdam, a city I have returned to several times since and really, really enjoyed. But it seems that back in 1985 we found it a bit so, so my mum reported on it this way into Amsterdam, on tram, Zoe happy. All got wet, but fortunately, rain eased for a few hours. Trip on canals, interesting, very soupy buildings, all narrow in width as taxes are paid on width. All About four stories, one house, only 40 inches width frontage. Most buildings, old, Amsterdam, very cosmopolitan. Lots of young people, some weird in dress, drug problem here, shops not as interesting as I had hoped, bit touristy. So, yeah, my mum had a lot of opinions about Amsterdam, and, you know, probably back then, some of them were not exactly wrong. Anyway. We then continued on driving back across the Netherlands towards Germany.

Barry Kendle 17:13
My other impression was how flat it really was all around the place. So flat,

Amanda Kendle 17:19
yeah, because I kind of thought you think it’s flat here, but that was a whole other level, wasn’t

Barry Kendle 17:24
it? Well, you can see for miles, and there was traffic going each each different way, paddock after paddock. There are these cars going backwards and forwards, and you can see them from miles away. It was incredible, really, was

Amanda Kendle 17:38
it really is a very flat place. So finally, before we headed on north to Scandinavia, we crossed back into Germany and made a beeline for Hamburg. By that stage, we actually did have a good family friend who was from Hamburg, so it was of extra interest to us. But these other things my parents recalled starting with my mum into Hamburg, looked at Lake Ulster, lovely white swans on Lake. Had lunch, vegetarian, overlooking Rathaus and Lake. Lots of people and shopping. Cleaner town than some nice feel. Sun shone some of the day, but still cool. On to Denmark tomorrow, after washing and on brand for my dad. We found a photograph of fish in a fish shop in our Hamburg collection. It’s definitely not the first or last fish picture in our albums. We moved back into Germany briefly, to Hamburg.

Barry Kendle 18:32
Hamburg, yes, I remember taking that photograph of the fish. It was so expensive, too. Oh, really, really expensive.

Amanda Kendle 18:40
As I was putting this episode together, it struck me quite vividly that whether it was from the memories at the time, like my mom was diary and my dad’s photos, or our memories 40 years later, heaps of them are just based around the people we spent time with, and the everyday things we did and saw, the haircuts, the fish, and a lot less about the particular tourist attractions we visited. And they were interesting too, but seeing the food in a supermarket in Germany or the Netherlands or chatting with people in caravan parks, just living in different places, that’s really what was memorable and of interest even then. So I guess it’s no surprise that later on, I would start to think about how to be a thoughtful traveler, rather than a box ticking sightseeing focused kind of traveler. Next month, we’re moving on to Scandinavia, a part of Europe I still really love so it’d be interesting to revisit what it was like back in 1985 so thank you again to Context Travel, the series sponsor, for their support in creating these special podcast episodes. You can find out more about their [email protected] or find them under Context Travel on your social media platform of choice and remember to use the code thoughtful travel for a 15% discount if you book online. Thank you so much everyone for listening to Episode 359 A big thanks to my dad for sitting down with me to chat. About our long ago trip. As always, I’ll include a bunch of our photos, or my dad’s photos, particularly in the show notes.