Not All Picturesque

When we left the very fancy marina at Kortgene, we headed through Middleburg to Vlissingen (pronounced Fleshingen) to a much less fancy marina.  On the way we passed this empty looking hotel.  Although "bad" is the word for "bath" in Dutch and may be an appealing marketing strategy for nationals, we wondered if the name might be putting off the foreign tourists.


Overall, the Netherlands was beautiful and looks like a great place to live.  Not everything is picturesque, mind you.  At Vlissingen (pronounced Fleshingen) we had a bit of a hike to get to the grocery store and found ourselves walking through a neighborhood that might be described as a little rough around the edges.  Fortunately, this was more than compensated for by the clubhouse at the marina that served wine, beer and excellent French fries. 

From Vlissingen we had to cross an inlet of the North Sea.  This was eventful only for the first fifteen minutes or so, starting from the moment when the sea started rushing into the locks as we were motoring out.  We had timed our departure so that we would be riding with the incoming tide which eventually worked to our advantage but got us off to a bit of a rocky start.

From Vlissingen, we crossed to Terneuzen, another industrial town where we stayed just one night.  Then it was off down the Terneuzen-Ghent canal and into Belgium.  This is a very significant commercial canal for the city of Ghent, taking all their manufactured goods out to the North Sea and wherever they go after that.  As a result, our first impression of Belgium was not quite what you see in the tourist brochures!