Vintage Toys of the Universe is Belgium’s biggest vintage and retro toy show and has been going for a couple of years. I first became aware of the con in 2024 and actually attended last year, though unfortunately I caught the flu while there and was knocked out for more than two weeks, which is why I never got around to writing a con report for this blog.
I enjoyed the con last year, but because I got sick almost immediately afterwards, I was initially hesitant whether to go again. What persuaded to go was a combination of factors.
Escaping the Day of German Unity
First of all, Vintage Toys of the Universe always takes place on the first Saturday in October. This year, that happened to be October 3, which is also a public holiday in Germany, the Day of German Unity. The official national celebration of that holiday rotates between the sixteen German states. And this year, it was Bremen’s turn to host the official celebration. Which means that pretty much the entire city center would be closed for security reasons, because the President, the Chancellor, the Minister Presidents of the sixteen states and other dignitaries would be there. Furthermore, there is also a huge celebration for the people with the state mile, where the various states present themselves and what’s special about them, a ferris wheel, free concerts, a mass dance-off, a light show, etc…. This people’s festival would take place all weekend long. And since everything had to be set up several days in advance, the city center was already difficult to impossible to access all week. The state mile was set up along Osterdeich, a beautiful street along the river Weser that unfortunately also happens to be a major traffic route and was closed for several days. And then they started closing off the rest of the city center, too. I was out and about in the Walle and Überseestadt neighbourhoods on Thursday and already saw three police motorcades. Not sure if they were escorting dignitaries who had arrived early or were just practicing. And on Friday, Bremen apparently suffered a complete traffic collapse. The good thing is that public transport was free all weekend, but that doesn’t make busses go more often. So in short, I had a chance between utter chaos in Bremen and relative peace in the Netherlands and Belgium.
What is more, October 1 is the anniversary of my Dad’s death and I’m always a bit of a mess around that time. So getting away from it all would be good for me. Besides, Dad used to work in Rotterdam and Antwerp between 1983 and 1990 and I spent every school holiday there. To him, that was just one station among many in a very varied CV, though Dad spoke Dutch and always had an affinity for the Netherlands and Belgium. To me, on the other hand, Rotterdam and Antwerp and the Netherlands and Belgium in general were my happy place, the place where I would have stayed in a heartbeat, if Dad had wanted to move there for good. So the choice was now, “Stay at home and deal with grief, memories and utter chaos because of a holiday I have always had issues with or go to con in a country I love and where I feel close to my Dad.”
Finally, I had a very stressful final week of September, where I had to drive to Bremerhaven and back three times (80 kilometers one way) in one week for different court interpretation jobs. Now I actually enjoy interpreting in court, plus it’s important and pays well, but driving to Bremerhaven and back three times in a week is a bit much. So a change of scenery and just getting away from it all would be most welcome.
So the choice was obvious. I would go to Vintage Toys of the Universe. Now Lommel is 388 kilometers away – that’s too far to go there and back in a day. It’s also no fun, so I booked myself a hotel. I also decided to set out a day early to get some shopping done and just enjoy the trip and see what adventures awaited along the road.
A Foggy Drive on Autobahn A1
On Friday morning, I set my alarm for five AM and drove off at five thirty. Sunrise would be shortly before seven thirty, i.e. it was still pitch dark outside when I left. It was also a little foggy, but not nearly as bad as during my trip to Toyplosion three weeks before.
I drove onto my old friend Autobahn A1 at Groß Mackenstedt, headed south. In spite of the early hour, the Autobahn was busier than expected with both trucks and cars. But then it was a Friday and therefore a regular workday, whereas normally my roadtrips start on a Saturday.
The trip would mostly follow the same route that my Dad had taken back in the 1980s, when we would drive not to or back from Rotterdam, but directly from or to Antwerp, cutting through the Ruhrgebiet and the Limburg and North Brabant provinces of the Netherlands. Except that I wouldn’t go all the way to Antwerp this time.
The fog had initially been mild, but it became denser around exit Cloppenburg (which is not actually near Cloppenburg) and stayed that way until well beyond Osnabrück.
Around a quarter to seven, I made a brief pitstop at service station Dammer Berge to change the station on the radio, drink some water and eat some chocolate. By this point, the sky was starting to get light. It was still foggy, though not nearly as bad as it had been during the trip to Toyplosion.
Shortly thereafter, I reached Osnabrück and crossed the Teutoburg Forest, which is foggy and gloomy even on the best of days, and descended into the void that is the Münsterland, where exits and towns are few and far between.
Autobahn A43 and Breakfast in Dülmen
At intersection Münster-South, I changed onto Autobahn A43, which serves as a shortcut to the Ruhrgebiet, bypassing Dortmund and the busy Kamener Kreuz.
But before you get to the interesting bits, there’s first even more Münsterland to cross. The sun was up by now and the day looked to be nice and sunny, a stark contrast to the rain and strong winds the day and night before.
It was also coming up on eight o’clock, which meant time for breakfast. Normally, this would mean stopping at a roadside parking lot and check Google Maps for a nearby bakery. But even since I started doing more roadtrips, I have also developed a mental map of bakeries, cafés and other restaurants that make good pitstops.
One such place is Bakery Geiping in the town of Dülmen. Geiping is a bakery chain that is active in the Münsterland and northern Ruhrgebiet. They have a nice large bakery café in Dülmen only a few kilometers from the Autobahn, i.e. ideal for a pitstop.
I ordered scrambled eggs with vegetables, which also came with a choice of a roll and a slice of bread from Geiping‘s offerings, as well as a latte macchiato and an orange juice.
Adam, Teela and Cringer approve.
Breakfast of Champions of Grayskull
Into the Ruhrgebiet
After breakfast, I set off again, headed towards the Ruhrgebiet, which I reached shortly thereafter at the exit Haltern on the Lake.
Historically, Haltern on the Lake is part of the Münsterland, but the town had a mine, which operated until 2015 as one of the final coalmines in Germany, so Haltern on the Lake is considered part of the Ruhrgebiet. And indeed, you get the brown “Metropolitan Region Rhine Ruhr” sign, which marks the beginning of the Ruhrgebiet.
After Haltern on Lake, you reach Marl, which is unambiguously Ruhrgebiet. At intersection Marl-North I also changed onto Autobahn A52 and passed Chemiepark Marl, a huge chemical industrial estate directly by the Autobahn. Marl and indeed, I vividly remember driving past the Chemiepark with Dad back in the day, because it was always one of the more interesting sights on route.
After Marl, the A52 passes Dorsten. Up to now, the route was identical with my trips to Dorsten for the Marché Noir Retro Fair in 2025 and 2026. The next town on route – and remember that towns bleed into each other in the Ruhrgebiet – is Gelsenkirchen or rather the northern part of it. Here, the Autobahn passes another interesting industrial site, the Ruhr Oil Refinery. This is another site I clearly remember from driving this route with my Dad in the 1980s, since it was always beautifully lit up by night.
Shortly after Gelsenkirchen, the A52 just peters out and becomes Bundestraße B224 for a couple of kilometers, which you only notice, because suddenly there are traffic lights, which Autobahnen never have. You also pass that most hateful of Ruhrgebiet cities, Gladbeck. As for why I hate Gladbeck so much, see this post and this Wikipedia article about the so-called Gladbeck hostage crisis, most of which did not actually take place in Gladbeck, but right here in Bremen and the three people who were killed, Silke Bischoff, Emanuele di Giorgi and Ingo Hagen, all hailed from Bremen or – in Silke’s case – Heiligenrode. And yes, I’m totally aware that the city of Gladbeck is not to blame for what happened there in 1988 and would probably prefer not to be associated with this either, but I’m not rational about the Gladbeck hostage crisis and never will be. I have even considered driving to the location of the bank in Gladbeck, where it all began, but the bank and the strip mall that housed it were torn down in 2021 (they probably knew why). And besides, what would I do there? Curse at a Rewe supermarket and the remaining part of the strip mall. Pee on the parking lot? Ask older people, if they remember what happened here? It would change nothing and wouldn’t exorcise anything.
At Gladbeck, I drove onto Autobahn A2 at the exit Essen/Gladbeck, though Essen is further south and the next city on route is actually Bottrop. Like I said, all the Ruhrgebiet cities bleed into each other.
I only stayed on Autobahn A2 for two exits, before it ends at intersection Oberhausen. Coincidentally, I have been at both end points of Autobahn A2 this year, since I drove through the eastern terminus at junction Werder, where the A2 meets Autobahn A10, the so-called Berlin Ring (which is actually 50 kilometers from Berlin) during my trip to MetropolCon in early July, and now I hit the western terminus at intersection Oberhausen. I have also actually driven most of the A2 in the past twelve months, excluding only two brief parts of the Hannover – Dortmund leg between Hamm-Uentrop and Gütersloh as well as Porta Westfalica and Wunstorf-Kohlenfeld, though not all in one go. But then, I have no need to take the A2 to get from Hannover to the Ruhrgebiet, because Autobahn A1 or respectively Autobahn A27 and A7 get me there faster. Though I occasionally take the A2 from Porta Westfalica to Bielefeld and/or Gütersloh, since I have a friend in Bielefeld and a cousin in Gütersloh.
At intersection Oberhausen, I changed onto Autobahn A3. The A3, which cuts straight across Germany from the Dutch border to the Austrian border, is actually one of Germany’s longest Autobahnen, but I almost never drive it, because it doesn’t go anywhere where I need to go. And indeed, I only stayed on the A3 for three exits until Oberhausen-Lirich. Though I wasn’t going to Oberhausen at all, but to Duisburg, the next Ruhrgebiet city on route.
A Few Words on Gerhard Mercator and Higher Education in the Ruhrgebiet
The day before, I had seen online that Smyths Toys Germany had gotten some new Masters of the Universe figures in stock. Now the Ruhrgebiet has a lot of people, a lot of cities and a lot of Smyths Toys stores. So if there was a conveniently located Smyths store on route, I decided to stop there and pick them up.
The most conveniently located Smyths store along my route turned out to be the one in Duisburg, which is located in a mall called Mercator Center close to Autobahn A3. As for why the mall – and it turned out, several other things in Duisburg – is named Mercator Center, well, it turns out that the famous cartographer Gerhard Mercator, him of the Mercator projection, which is crucial for navagation, but unfortunately distorts the sizes of landmasses, lived and died in Duisburg, though he was born in Rupelmonde near Antwerp in Belgium. Mercator fled modern day Belgium, when he was accused of heresy, and settled in Duisburg, which was then part of the more liberal Duchy of Jülich-Kleve and also the site of a proposed university, though that university did not open after Mercator’s death. Here is the city of Duisburg paying a tribute to one of its most famous sons.
I knew of Gerhard Mercator of course, but until I found myself at a mall named after him, I had no idea that he lived in Duisburg of all places nor that Duisburg actually had a university from 1655 to 1818. Of course, Duisburg has a university these days, which was actually named after Gerhard Mercator, until it was combined with the university of nearby Essen to form the University Duisburg-Essen, but I had no idea they had a university in the 17th and 18th century.
Now the Ruhrgebiet, in spite of being very densely populated, did not actually have a general university until the Ruhr University in Bochum opened in 1962, followed by the Technical University in Dortmund in 1968. The reason for this is simple. For decades, the Ruhrgebiet was denied a university, because – quote – “the people there are supposed to work in the mines and steelworks, not waste time studying”. So in short, it was policy for decades to deliberately keep the working class people in the Ruhrgebiet uneducated, which always infuriated me. And indeed, the Ruhr University of Bochum and Technical University in Dortmund were only built, when it became clear that the coal mines would not last forever, though it took another thirty to forty years for that lesson to be fully learned. Nowadays, the Ruhrgebiet has a lot of higher education institutions, twenty-two colleges and universities altogether, but it’s still shocking how long it took for one of Germany’s most densely populated regions to get even one university.
There is one university in the Ruhrgebiet that predates the 1960s, namely Technische Hochschule Georg Agricola in Bochum, which was founded in 1816 to educate mining supervisors and engineers, i.e. people that were needed for the local mining and steel industries. However, Technische Hochschule Georg Agricola is a technical college, not a full university and it was only founded, because the powers that were realised that you need to educate some people to make sure your mines don’t collapse.
However, I had no idea that Duisburg, which even today is one of the most working class and also poor cities of the entire Ruhrgebiet, actually did have a full university in the 17th and 18th century and that it was also home to a world class scholar like Gerhard Mercator. Though his Duisburg would have been a very different place from the working class coal and steel town as which I always viewed the city. As for people who believe that Gerhard Mercator was racist and deliberately made Africa seem smaller than it actually is, kindly fuck off. The reason for the Mercator projection with all its drawbacks was that it makes navigation easier, which was and continues to be very important. And indeed Gerhard Mercator himself pointed out that his map was intended for navigation. The size distortion of several landmasses was a trade-of, because the Earth happens to be a sphere, while maps are flat. For more, see what the Duisburg citizen’s group Mercator’s Neighbours has to say about the whole non-controversy.
Pokemania in Duisburg
I’m not sure what Gerhard Mercator would have made of the rather unimpressive 1967 suburban mall – really just a Globus supermarket with some other stores and a gas station attached – that bears his name. But then I wasn’t here to admire the mall, but to pick up a new Masters of the Universe figure.
Before I headed to Smyths, I stopped at the gas station attached to the Mercator Center. I needed to refuel anyway and I definitely wanted to refuel before I reached the Netherlands, because fuel is more expensive there. And while fuel prices in Germany have dropped due to some fuel taxes being suspended for three months beginning October 1 (and guess who had to refuel on September 30 or risk not making it home from Bremerhaven?), unfortunately the stupid “Fuel prices may only be raised once per day at twelve o’clock” rule is still in force, even though it does nothing to lower fuel prices and everybody hates it. Before the twelve o’clock rule, my preferred time to refuel was around 8 PM, when prices dropped after the evening rush hour, but before they rose again during the night, because it was assumed that people refuelling at midnight have to be desperate. However, now fuel prices stay fairly high in the evening, because they can’t raise them for the desperate midnight refuellers or the morning rush hour and only fall after the morning rush hour is over. It’s just fucking annoying.
It was around ten AM, when I reached the Mercator Center, i.e. two hours before the daily price increase, and the gas price was reasonable or at least what counts as reasonable these days. Of course, the price might still drop by another cent or so, but I had no idea where I would be by eleven or eleven thirty and how far from a gas station I would be by then. So best to refuel now.
After refuelling, I headed for the parking lot of the Mercator Center. The lot was extremely busy – probably because Saturday would be public holiday, so people had to do their weekend grocery shopping on Friday. But the holiday shopping rush would affect only the supermarket, so Smyths should be perfectly empty. Except that it wasn’t.
For when I got to the Smyths store, there was a line of people waiting outside, while a security guard – yes, a uniformed security guard at a Smyths Toys store – was handing out tickets of some kind. So I asked one of the people waiting in line what precisely they were queueing for, which brought on flashbacks of pre-1989 East Germany, where I once passed a line of people queueing in front of a shop and innocently asked what they were queueing for and got the answer, “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s certainly going to be useful for something.” Luckily, the people queuing in front of the Smyths Toys store in Duisburg had a better answer. They were queuing for the 30th anniversary Pokémon card packs.
Now I do play Pokémon Go, because it’s a good way to get myself moving, but I have never collected Pokémon cards. So I approached the security guard and said, “Excuse me, but I’m not here for Pokémon cards. Do I still have to wait in line or can I just go in?” The security guard told me to go in and even opened the gate for me.
I found the Masters of the Universe part of the action figure aisle, picked up a 200X style Sy-Klone figure and headed for the cash register, where I ran into a line of Pokémon folks again. And this time, I had to queue up with the lot of them. The last pack of Pokémon cards was sold to someone two spots in line ahead of me. The couple that was directly ahead of me had to leave without Pokémon cards. Meanwhile, I paid for my Sy-Klone and left.
Autobahn A40, Duisburg-Ruhrort, Horst Schimanski and the Unexpected Difficulty of Crossing the Rhine
Duisburg is also the place where the river Ruhr meets the river Rhine and thus the place where I would have to cross the Rhine.
Normally, I would have crossed the Rhine via the Neuenkamp suspension bridge on Autobahn A40 which cuts straight through the heart of the Ruhrgebiet and then heads towards the Dutch border. In fact, I could also have taken the entire A40 from intersection Dortmund-Unna where it meets the A1 all the way to the Dutch border. However, the A40 is unpleasantly narrow – there are parts where there are tram tracks and a bus lane in the middle of the A40 – and extremely busy, one of Germany’s busiest Autobahnen, so I decided against this and would only change onto the A40 in Duisburg. Besides, taking the A43 is shorter.
However, there was a problem. For I had heard on the radio that a stretch of the A40 in Duisburg was closed to traffic the entire weekend. The radio said between which exits the Autobahn was closed, which didn’t help me at all, because I don’t know the route nearly well enough to know the names of the exists. So I had no idea where intersection Kaiserberg and intersection Duisburg even were. In fact, the radio recommended using Autobahn A42, which also crosses the Rhine somewhat further north, instead. However, Autobahn A42 peters out in Kamp-Lintfort well before the Dutch border and was no use to me. Besides, I really wanted to cross the Rhine via the Neuenkamp suspension bridge, because I remembered the suspension bridge as a highlight on the route when we came back from Antwerp. The Neuenkamp bridge also frequently pops up in the background of the 1980s Schimanski episodes of Tatort, which were set in Duisburg and which I dearly loved then and now. Indeed, if you asked me to picture Duisburg, the Neuenkamp bridge is the first thing that comes to mind.
So I fired up Google Maps to locate the two exits and determine where precisely the A40 was closed. However, the phone version of Google Maps does not list the names of Autobahn exits and intersections, which is bloody annoying. And while I was able to determine where intersection Kaiserberg, finding intersection Duisburg was impossible, because Google Maps immediately decided to point out all the Autobahn intersections in Duisburg, of which there are many. What Google Maps did not tell me is which of these many intersections is actually called intersection Duisburg.
Since Google Maps proved to be useless, I decided to ask a local instead. And since I was in a mall parking lot, there were thankfully lots of people, presumably local, around. I first approached a couple with a small child, who claimed they sort of knew their way around. “Oh yes, the A40 is closed at the moment.” – “Well, is the Rhine Bridge open?” – “I don’t know. Just take the A42.”
Okay, so much for that attempt. So I approached a couple in their fifties, who also claimed to sort of know their way around. “Yes, the A40 is closed.” – “Is the Rhine bridge open?” – “Didn’t you already cross the Rhine bridge?” – “No, I’m going to the Netherlands.” – “Oh yes, we’re on the right side of the Rhine. Yes, the Rhine bridge is open.” Okay, that was encouraging, though the fact that the couple didn’t know on which side of the Rhine they were was slightly worrying.
“But you won’t be able to get onto the A40 at intersection Kaiserberg, cause that’s closed,” the man said. “Yeah, that’s what they said on the radio,” I replied, “But where can I get onto the A40 before the bridge?” The man and the woman conferred. “Is the exit Ruhrort open?” I finally asked. The man raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t know your way around here?” – “I don’t, not really. But I remember that Ruhrort is the exit directly before you get to the bridge.” The man confirmed that yes, exit Ruhrort should be open, and also directed me back to Autobahn A3.
As for why I know Ruhrort, that’s entirely due to the Schimanski Tatorte of the 1980s, where the Ruhrort neighbourhood, which is home to Duisburg harbour, the biggest inland harbour in all of Europe, was frequently the site where bodies were pulled from the river or found dead in a pile of rubbish. In fact, “Duisburg-Ruhrort” was title of the first ever Schimanski Tatort back in 1981.
Horst Schimanski, Duisburg’s Other Famous Son
In general, it’s striking how much my mental image of the Ruhrgebiet in general and Duisburg in particular is influenced by the Schimanski Tatorte of the 1980s. The Schimanski Tatorte weren’t the first Tatorte to tackle the social issues of the day nor the first to turn their setting into a character – Hamburg in the Trimmel Tatorte and rural Schleswig-Holstein in the Finke Tatorte auf the 1970s are as much a character as any of the humans – nor the first to show industrial settings and working class life – the second ever Tatort “Saarbrücken an einem Montag” (Saarbrücken on a Monday) is partly set in the Völklinger Hütte steelwork in Saarbrücken, now a Unesco World Heritage site, and the fourth ever Tatort “Auf offener Straße” (On the open street) is set in the world of sailors on inland waterway barges and feels like a Schimanski Tatort without Schimanski – nor the first to show a diverse Germany. Horst Schimanski wasn’t even the first Tatort inspector to swear on screen – Paul Trimmel holds that honour when he uttered a heartfelt “Scheiße” back in 1971 in the stellar hijacking thriller “AE 612 ohne Landeerlaubnis” (AE 612 without a landing permit), a full ten years before Schimanski burst onto the screen.
But Schimanski took elements that already existed elsewhere, dialled them up to eleven and felt like a breath of fresh air among the older inspectors who mainly solved genteel crimes in genteel neighbourhoods, when he burst onto our screens in 1981. The first three and a half minutes of “Duisburg-Ruhrort” are still a masterpiece of characterisation and tell you exactly who Horst Schimanski is before he has even uttered a single word. I fell in love with Schimanski pretty much the moment I first saw him on TV – though I’m pretty sure I did not see “Duisburg-Ruhrort” upon first broadcast, because it was my Dad’s 43rd birthday (he was the same age as Horst Schimanski and Götz George, the man who played him) and we would have been celebrating rather than watching TV. And since Tatort was usually broadcast on Sunday evening and the episodes are ninety-minute TV movies, I could only watch during the school holidays anyway.
BTW, last year while on route to Vintage Toys of the Universe, I also took the A40 and crossed the Rhine at Duisburg and while I was driving along the Autobahn headed for the Rhine bridge, “Faust auf Faust” (Fist on Fist) by Klaus Lage, which was the title song of the Schimanski Tatort “Zahn um Zahn” (A Tooth for a Tooth), came on on the radio, just as I passed the exit Duisburg-Ruhrort and it was just fucking magical. Cause while there are certain songs that are permanently linked to certain places, it’s extremely rare that the car radio plays them at exactly the right moment in exactly the right place. But that one time it happened.
So I set off again and returned onto Autobahn A3. As expected, I was not able to change onto Autobahn A40 at the intersection Kaiserberg, so I continued on the A3 until the next exit, Duisburg-Wedau, to make my way through the city towards Duisburg-Ruhrort and the A40. This turned out to be surprisingly easy – no GPS needed – because there were plenty of street signs directing me towards Ruhrort and “the harbour”, so I just followed those signs through Duisburg and onto the A40 at exit Duisburg-Ruhrort/Duisburg Harbour.
I crossed the Rhine on the Neuenkamp Bridge, which is currently one big construction zone, so much of the view I had so enjoyed as a kid is now blocked. Though I did see the massive former warehouse by the harbour, which is now home to the state archive of Northrhine-Westfalia. I also caught a glimpse of a steelwork – most likely the Arcelor-Mittal steelwork, which is set to close next year. Back in the day, Duisburg had multiple steelworks, which you could see from the Autobahn and which also frequently popped up in the background of the Schimanski Tatorte. Most of them are gone now – the Rheinhausen steelwork, which closed in 1990 after a long and agonising death is probably the most famous one. There’s also the former Meiderich steelwork, which is now an industrial heritage monument set inside a city park that I really want to visit one day, as well as the Thyssen-Krupp steelwork in Duisburg-Marxloh, which is still in operation.
As for the Neuenkamp Bridge itself, the reason for the construction zone is that the bridge is currently being replaced, since the old bridge from 1970 could no longer handle the amount of traffic it got. In fact, the suspension bridge across which we always drove back in the 1980s is already gone, torn down in 2024. The bridge I crossed is the replacement, which is still a suspension bridge, but bigger than the old one. In fact, the new bridge looks so much like the original that I didn’t even notice it was a different bridge. I did notice that the colour was different, but I assumed they had just painted the bridge.
Towards the Dutch Border
After crossing the Rhine, you pass Duisburg-Rheinhausen – location of the steelwork hat finally closed in 1990 after years of agony – and then you reach Moers, which marks the western edge of the Ruhrgebiet along with Krefeld and Kamp-Lintfort.
There isn’t very much of interest between the western edge of the Ruhrgebiet and the Dutch border. The region is flat and mostly agricultural with a few towns, none of them particularly interesting.
The next town on route is Neunkirchen-Vluyn, which is not considered part of the Ruhrgebiet, even though Kamp-Lintfort is actually further west. I guess the reason is that Kamp-Lintfort used to have a mine – one of the last to close down in fact – and Neunkirchen-Vluyn did not. Personally, I always associate the town with bubble bath, because the bubble bath my parents used when I was a kid was made in Neunkirchen-Vluyn and the name of the city was prominently stamped onto the bottle.
It was coming up on twelve o’clock by now, so it was time to find somewhere to have lunch. So I drove onto the next Autobahn parking lot, Neufelder Heide North, and fired up Google Maps to check for lunch options.
Neunkirchen-Vluyn was already behind me and the other bigger towns were all quite a bit away from the Autobahn and would require taking a detour. Besides, I was only about thirty kilometers from the Dutch border and the next sizeable town on route was Venlo in the Netherlands. So I decided to have lunch there.
But that’s a story for the next post, cause this one is already getting long.
sending...