As you can see, a beautiful day - sun, blue skies and me sweating in my bike gear big time, so its down to t shirts again and jacket vents open, and off we go to the airborne museum at the Hartenstein. This was really good and very informative with walk through dioramas of the street fighting as well as exhibits of equipment, uniforms etc. Well worth the entrance fee and time.
Amazing to see the pictures of this place when it was the heart of the battle of Oosterbeek - graphic pictures of slit trenches and mortar pits in the grounds.
Next on to the bridge itself - parked up next to what was signposted as the Jacob Groenewoud Park in the shadow of the bridge. This had a gun, a propellor, and various other artifacts, none more entertaining than an old chap called Samuel Rubens who took me around all the exhibits and talked about them and the battle claiming he had witnessed it all as a ten year old as his house was one of those at the bottom of the bridge ramp! He had a maroon jacket with all the badges and red para beret on and looked the part. This I took with pinch of salt, and even mentioned that I thought his name was Jewish sounding. He said it was because he is a jew, and his family had to claim to be italian when the Germans occupied Arnhem. Very interesting and entertaining and all done without a claim for any money as he is an official guide. I've since googled him and it seems he's 'kosher'! The people you meet eh.
Only 65 miles in total today - I do more on my round trip to work! My excuse is alot of time off the bike today, plus an early finish at 15:30.
The Pan's head bearings have loosened and are knocking and giving that low speed wobble when you take your hand off the bar, so thats a bit disconcerting. I blame those crappy Belgian roads. If I had the tools, then in 45 minutes I could have them tightened up. So popped into Beno scooter dealers to see if they could help out - the lads in there said they were scooter mechanics and didn't know about bikes, but one lad asked if I knew how to do it then I could show them what to do and get it done later that day. The two of them then lapsed into dutch and then said there was a bike dealer around the corner, try him and if no luck then come back as a last resort no problem - hows that for helping someone off the street at the drop of a hat?
Round to the bike dealers and its not a problem to do but he's all very apologetic that he can't do it that minute as theres a bit of a workload. This bike shop is quite a swanky independant - Jan van Dam. The guy I talked to was Jan himself and he was a bit miffed not to help asap. I said its not a problem, I can bring it in tomorrow morning as I'm staying in Elst. His faced beamed, and he said "o.k, 6 o'clock - joking, have a lie in, leasurely breakfast and bring it in at ten and we'll do it while you wait". Can't ask for more I guess.
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