Wednesday, June 4, 2025
We woke up a little earlier today so that we could pack up and get checked out of our Airbnb. The owner of the house came by to take pictures of our passports and chat with Grandma for a while. We drove for about an hour to the city of Bonn where we visited the birth home of Beethoven. We took the tour for about 45 minutes and were able to see some of the artifacts from his life, as well as some early editions of his compositions.
"In this house, Ludwig von Beethoven was born on December 10th, 1770."
The most famous painting of Beethoven.
An original edition of piano sonata op. 27 no. 2.
Hand-written notes for piano sonata op. 101 and symphony no. 6.
A life mask of Beethoven from 1812.
This mirror had a quote on it that would change from English to German to musical notes.
This room played a recording of Moonlight Sonata while highlighting a rough draft on paper.
We drove through Cologne, but we were not able to visit the cathedral or the chocolate museum. Apparently, two days before, they discovered three bombs from World War II while excavating a shipyard. They closed down several roads and bridges and evacuated over 20,000 people. We kept driving past Cologne until we got to our Airbnb in Kevelaer. On the way, I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone—luckily, Grandma carries butter knives in her purse! After dropping off our luggage at the new airbnb house, we hopped back into the van and crossed the border into the Netherlands. We visited the Castle Gardens in Arcen. It was more of a mansion than a castle, but the gardens were really pretty and quite large.
The kids love taking these family pictures.
This piano had a sign that basically said, "if you know how to play, go ahead." So I did.
The upper floor had a weird display of hats that some art class had made.
Ian and Elisa were laughing at the silly pictures Ian took of me
Elisa ran away because she didn't want her picture taken. We got one anyway/
Ian ran behind Erik to be in this panoramic picture twice.
A nice picture of Gabe!
Oooh the backside of water!
We stopped by a playgroud while Ian and Elisa played
The kids liked these "Minecraft" trees.
A live peacock.
A flower peacock.
On our way back, we stopped at the grocery store called Netto for more water and candy. Then we went to a crêperie for dinner. I ordered the bacon, cheese, and mushroom crepe. Elisa and Ian both ordered the Nutella crepe with strawberries. Gabe ordered an apple crepe, and the rest ordered some form of schnitzel with hollandaise sauce and white asparagus. Everyone agreed that the food was good. I would have ordered something else besides bacon, because they didn’t cook their bacon well enough—who likes biting into big chunks of fat? The waitress was from Sri Lanka, and she was very friendly. Erik had to run to the Geldautomat (ATM) since the restaurant was unable to accept credit cards at that time. After dinner, we rushed the kids into the shower, got them to brush their teeth, and sent them to bed.
Elisa got a cup of hot chocolate.
My crepe
Erik's plate came with white asparagus. I've never had (or even seen) white asparagus before, but it was really good.
Ian and Elisa both ordered Nutella crepes. Gabe ordered either blueberry or apple crepes, I can't remember.
It was very nice that we were able to go to Beethoven's museum. I loved going to the Netherlands to see the castle there especially the gardens which were expansive and beautifully manicured. We spent lots of time seeing all the different gardens.
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