The first steps are done

Unbelievable but true: the first 200 km of our journey lie behind us. Although the first two weeks also brought several blisters and painful periods of muscle soreness, it was an amazing time so far. It turned out to be a difficult job to present you a selection of the highlights from all the delightful incidences and encounters that we’ve experienced.


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But let’s start from the beginning. The first few days were characterized by a lot of questions and try-outs: how do we survive the coming six months with this 10 kg on our back? Did we forget anything important? Will we be able to find an accommodation every night? Should it really prove sufficient to ask friendly and show our recommendation letter? We’ve read and heard about others’ pilgrimages, but in particular this last point was never really addressed. “Everything will be alright”, this is the only advice we got.



Our first request for an accommodation was kindly accepted by Sister Klari of the JMJ order in Culemborg. She and her assistants turned everything upside down to prepare a room for us and to find places for the following days. Fortunately, they remembered the name of a friendly pilgrim from Zaltbommel, who asked for shelter in their guest house a couple of years ago, and asked him to accommodate us for the coming night.



To our surprise, the friendly man from Zaltbommel turned out to be a good acquiantance. We know him as the virtuous violin player who is accompanying the St Antonius choir on his instrument every once in a while. After a warm welcome, we talked a lot about music, literature, Marocco, and our pilgrimage. No wonder we found it hard to say good bye in the following morning. Joep joined us on our first meters to Den Bosch, easing our departure with a tune on his violin.



Our trip to Den Bosch was short and pleasant and our early arrival gave us time to explore this beautiful city. However, after five hours of searching for a place to stay for the night, the first admiration changed into irritation. At the end of this third day of our trip, the last resort seemed to be the parish of the city cathedral. It took a while before the reverend opened the two gates to his house and looked down on us from the top of his stairs. He did not seem to react at all on our humble request. His only advice was that we should try it at the local poorhouse. Even our expressed apprehensions about sleeping amongst the drug and alcohol addicts of the city could not soften his heart.
Hence, we had to face a difficult decision: either to go to the poorhouse or, as the ultimate resort, to go back to Utrecht and spend a night at home. “Just because we call ourselves pilgrims, we are not irrational”. These were our thoughts when we took the first-best train that brought us back to Utrecht. After a short but restful sleep, some laundries, and a hot shower, we were sitting on one of the first trains to Den Bosch in the early morning of the next day. From there, we pursued our march heading eastwards.

Our next destination was the Abbey of Berne in Heeswijk-Dinther. The coming night turned out to be our first one in a real monestary. The Norbertine brothers in their white cloaks, the chorals, the omnipresent silence, and the shown hospitality were all very impressive to us.



The following day, a Sunday, was supposed to be a day of rest. Still, we decided to move on for a couple of kilometers and hoped to find an accommodation in the close-by city of Veghel. We received a lot of helpful words during the first hours of our trip on this Sunday. An old lady broke out in a storm of enthusiasm after we told her of our plans. The local reverend greeted us from the other side of the road and told us of his own experiences as a pilgrim: “take your time and never push your limits!”
A moment later, a car stopped right beside us and out of the car came Joke from Zaltbommel, who was obviously as glad to see us as we were. She had some practical advice for the coming night, which we should greatfully remember.



Arriving in Veghel a couple of hours later, we still had too much energy to call it a day. Hence, we went further to a small village named Keldonk, where supposedly a lot of friendly people live. However, the friendly people apparently preferred to stay at home this afternoon, because we didn’t meet any of them on the street. Also in the neighbouring Erp, we could not find anybody to help us. Fortunately, we remembered Joke’s words that we could find a very hospitable American in a small village named Handel, who is running an organic farm. Despite of the distance from Erp, we decided to give him a visit with the effect that we were promptly rejected. It is needless to say that it seemed rather hopeless for us to find anything else in this hamlet at quarter past eight in the evening.
Fortunately, we met a nice and helpful woman who was sending us to Marlo from the “Vossenhol”. The fox-hole is a local pub with an empty rear building, which Marlo kindly gave us away for the night. Even though the place looked a little bit shabby, we had warm water, a shower, and even two camp beds, hence, it was as almost as cosy as a fox-hole.



The following morning showed that the previous day was a little bit too much for us. Eli caught a bad cold and we painfully got to know some of our muscles that we never thought were in existence. That was the day when some gloomy thougts came to our mind for the first time. The rejections of the past day were bothering us and we were asking ourselves why we should expect anybody to assist some pilgrims like us on this journey?
Certainly, there was no point in giving up. However, we should not walk very far on this Monday. Our next destination was Aarle-Rixtel, where we heard of a close-by monestary. Arriving there in the early afternoon and walking the endless alley that leads to the impressive building, a sister invited us to wait in a small entrance hall before she could let us in. Behind a heavy wooden door, we could hear her discussing with some other sisters about our whereabouts, before she came back into the entrance hall to cordially welcome us. The monestary is one of the three mother houses of the order of the Holy Blood in Europre, where the sisters retreat to after their retirement from the missionary work in Africa or Asia.



We departed from the monestary in the early morning of the next day and headed towards the city of Asten. Before we left, the sisters told us of two further monestaries in Asten, where we should try our luck. After two fruitless requests, we fortunately got to know Toya, the local reverend Jos, and his three lively Yorkshire terriers Daisy, Maya, and Ko. The five of them showed us warm hospitality and a long and a “gezellig” evening was awaiting us. While we were watching football, Toya and Bastian exchanged seafood- and salad recipes.



The following four days of our journey brought us from Asten to Weert, Maaseik, Geleen, and finally Maatricht. We planned walking distances of about 20 km per day, all of which turned out to be a couple of kilometers longer. Our stamina grew from day to day. Still, the past ten days were a very exciting time for us, and we were happy to hear that Melissa and Flo would welcome us to stay at their place during the coming weekend. We were looking forward to two days of sleeping late, good food, nice conversations, and probably a small city tour. How appropriate, because it was about to become Sunday and this means another day of rest.