027/005.1
Netherlands - Belgium
Return Ticket Visé border - Liège
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Border Crossing No.
027/005.1 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 29 January 1972, c14.00 |
| Crossing point: | Maastricht - Visé |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from The Hague to Liège |
| Vehicle: | Train (Utrecht - Liège 11.42-14.24) |
| Ticket: |
General ticket Holland
Return Ticket Visé border - Liège |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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As I lived in The Hague and studied in Amsterdam, 60 kilometers away, I bought a rail pass which gave me free travel all over Holland. After lessons I explored the country from north to south. I decided to use that ticket also for going abroad. First I choose the Belgian town of Liège, close to the Dutch border, where people speak French. For a few guilders I bought a return ticket for the Belgian part of the journey and boarded a train which would go all the way to Italy. The Belgian part of the river Maas, Meuse in French, looked unpleasant because of the surrounding industry. In Liège I found food shops, abundant of delicatessen, much different from what I was accustomed to in Holland. I bought French cheese and visited a museum for Walloon (French-Belgian) art. |
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Border Crossing No.
028/005.2 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 29 January 1972, c19.15 |
| Crossing point: | Visé - Maastricht |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Liège to The Hague |
| Vehicle: | Train (Liège - Maastricht 18.52-19.25) |
| Ticket: |
Return Ticket Visé border - Liège
General ticket Holland |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
029/006.1 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 5 February 1972, early afternoon |
| Crossing point: | Simpelveld - Aachen |
| Passport check at: | In train between Valkenburg and Aachen |
| Travelling: | from The Hague to Aachen |
| Vehicle: | Train (Maastricht - Aachen) |
| Ticket: |
General ticket Holland
Return Ticket Aachen border - Aachen |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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The German town of Aachen, which had been the capital of Charles the Great, is so close to the Dutch border that it cost me almost nothing in addition to my Dutch rail pass to go there. In a train of one single car I crossed the border. Riding to Germany as well as returning, the same German and Dutch customs officers checked the passengers brotherly together. The Dutch wore a dark grey uniform, the German a green one. I had been in Aachen one time before, with a group of Germans. Them we saw the medieval church. Now I looked at the medieval paintings in the museum. |
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Border Crossing No.
030/006.2 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 5 February 1972, late afternoon |
| Crossing point: | Aachen - Simpelveld |
| Passport check at: | In train between Aachen and Valkenburg |
| Travelling: | from Aachen to The Hague |
| Vehicle: | Train (Aachen - Maastricht) |
| Ticket: |
Return Ticket Aachen border - Aachen
General ticket Holland |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
031/007.1 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 12 February 1972, morning |
| Crossing point: | Roosendaal - Essen |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from The Hague to Brussel |
| Vehicle: | Train (The Hague - Brussel) |
| Ticket: |
General ticket Holland
Return Ticket Roosendaal border - Brussels |
| In the company of: | My father |
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I convinced my Francophile father to join me on a trip to Brussels, the closest town where people speak French, two hours by train. His first trip there he made 15 years before by helicopter with my older brother, in the year of the World Exhibition. Later he went there a few times for international meetings about radio frequencies. Both of us smoked and we sat down in a smokers compartment. Coming back from the toilet I almost choked from the poisonous gazes from the many pipes, cigars and cigarettes. |
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Border Crossing No.
032/007.2 |
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| Date and time: | Saturday 12 February 1972, c19.45 |
| Crossing point: | Essen - Roosendaal |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Brussel to The Hague |
| Vehicle: | Train (Brussel - The Hague 18.31-20.43) |
| Ticket: |
Return Ticket Roosendaal border - Brussels
General ticket Holland |
| In the company of: | My father |
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On our way back from Brussels my and my father shared a single compartment with a nice young woman from Gent, who travelled to Amsterdam for a short trip. We had an animated conversation but we had to raise our voices because the outdated French car made a horrible noise. Riding through the darkness on the bridge over the wide water that divides the catholic south from the protestant north of Holland, we put out the light for her, so she could see something of the landscape. My father seemed to like her very much. After we left her alone and got off the train in The Hague he asked me: "If you would have been without me, would you have continued with her all the way to Amsterdam?" |
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Border Crossing No.
033/008.1 |
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| Date and time: | Thursday 6 April 1972, morning |
| Crossing point: | Nieuweschans - Bunde |
| Passport check at: | In car at Dutch (?) and German border station |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Copenhagen |
| Vehicle: | Hitch-hiking (Groningen - Hamburg) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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My friend Joop and me decided to hitch-hike to Copenhagen. In Amsterdam we waited in vain for a car and we took a train to Groningen, where we spent the night in the room of a girl from his home town Schagen. From Groningen we got a ride to a place near Hamburg. The driver was a pleasant elderly Dutchman, in my memory wearing reading glasses while driving, who went to visit his mother-in-law in a hospital. He told us that the winding roads we were riding followed the ancient paths of the cows. |
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Border Crossing No.
034/008.2 |
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| Date and time: | Friday 7 April 1972, c3.30-4.30 |
| Crossing point: | Puttgarden - Rødby (sea) |
| Passport check at: | In train before Puttgarden (German) and after Rødby (Danish) |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Copenhagen |
| Vehicle: | Train (Hamburg - Copenhagen 23.57-6.45) on boat Puttgarden - Rødby |
| Ticket: | Single Ticket Hamburg - Copenhagen |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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Hitch-hiking to Denmark a German driver let us out of his car on a busy highway in a Hamburg suburb, where it was impossible to make a car stop. We took a train to the main station. There we decided that we had hitch-hiked enough. For the first time in my life I had cheques in my pocket and I bought two single tickets to Copenhagen. Joop used to smoke a famous strong tobacco with a particular smell, called "Zware van de weduwe (Strong from the widow)". They said it got that name because it killed her husband. The customs, who suspected everybody under a certain age to be a drug abuser, came deep in the night and one of them thought he caught us. He shouted in German: "Ha! Was rauchen Sie da? (What are you smoking there?)" Joop showed him the package and he started to investigate the tobacco as he had learned in his police-course. His more experienced colleague however took the package from him and said "Ha! Erste Klasse Tabak (First class tobacco)!" They did not inspect our luggage. We had a kilo of extremely cheap tobacco, which we wanted to sell in Copenhagen, because tobacco was very expensive there. We convinced an alcoholic at the Copenhagen railway station to buy half a kilo, but our profit was nil. |
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Border Crossing No.
035/008.3 |
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| Date and time: | 8, 9 or 10 April 1972, morning |
| Crossing point: | Copenhagen - Landskrona (sea) |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Copenhagen to Landskrona |
| Vehicle: | Boat (Copenhagen - Landskrona) |
| Ticket: | Return Ticket Copenhagen - Landskrona (free) |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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Half way to Sweden we found out why they gave us free tickets for the boat. All cabins and lounges were filled with gambling machines. Young men as well as old ladies were handling the one-armed bandits and other instruments. The Swedish town of Landskrona looked much more boring than the year before. On one side of the central place there was a huge supermarket and on the other side we entered a large hall were people were sitting at long tables, playing bingo. |
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Border Crossing No.
036/008.4 |
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| Date and time: | 8, 9 or 10 April 1972, afternoon |
| Crossing point: | Landskrona - Copenhagen (sea) |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Landskrona to Copenhagen |
| Vehicle: | Boat (Landskrona - Copenhagen) |
| Ticket: | Return Ticket Copenhagen - Landskrona (free) |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
037/008.5 |
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| Date and time: | Tuesday 11 April 1972, c15.30-16.30 |
| Crossing point: | Rødby - Puttgarden (sea) |
| Passport check at: | station Rødby (Danish) and train after Puttgarden (German) - |
| Travelling: | from Copenhagen to Amsterdam |
| Vehicle: | Train (Rødby - Lübeck c15.30-17.58) on boat Rødby - Puttgarden |
| Ticket: | Single Ticket Rødby Færge - Lübeck |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
038/008.6 |
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| Date and time: | Wednesday 12 April 1972, c9.30 |
| Crossing point: | Bunde - Nieuweschans |
| Passport check at: | German and Dutch Border stations |
| Travelling: | from Copenhagen to Amsterdam |
| Vehicle: | Foot (Bunde - Nieuweschans) |
| Ticket: | Single Ticket Hamburg - Groningen (but not needed by foot) |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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At the Bremen train station we waited until 5.00 a.m. The waiting room was filled with homeless people. Every now and than a guard came and asked for tickets. People without were chased out of the hall. One guy told us with a drunken voice he bought a ticket to Bremerhaven in order to be able to stay. We left at 5.17 and reached the Dutch border at about 9.00 a.m. by foot after two trains, one bus and a few kilometers walk. The border policeman asked if we had pornographic magazines, as he noticed we came from Denmark and Denmark was famous at that time for its pornography. |
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Border Crossing No.
039/009.1 |
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| Date and time: | Monday 24 July 1972, morning |
| Crossing point: | Slenaken? |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Champex (Switzerland) |
| Vehicle: | Car (Gulpen - Diekirch) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | My brother Jan, Hans |
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Our neighbours in The Hague had six children. They used to cram them in their fiat multipla, a car with a 600 cc motor, which in spite of its very small size had seats for six grown-ups. My brother bought that car from them and drove with me and a friend of mine to Switzerland, where ho would meet a friend of his. The first day we managed to reach Gulpen, a village near Maastricht, where an uncle lived with hi family. The next morning we crossed the border with Belgium, but we could not see anything through the small windows because of the extremely heavy rain. |
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Border Crossing No.
040/009.2 |
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| Date and time: | Monday 24 July 1972, afternoon |
| Crossing point: | Gouvy - Troisvierges? |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Champex (Switzerland) |
| Vehicle: | Car (Gulpen - Diekirch) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | My brother Jan, Hans |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
041/009.3 |
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| Date and time: | Tuesday 25 July 1972, morning |
| Crossing point: | Luxembourg - Thionville? |
| Passport check at: | Belgian/French border station (?) |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Champex (Switzerland) |
| Vehicle: | Car (Diekirch - Solothurn) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | My brother Jan, Hans |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
042/009.4 |
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| Date and time: | Tuesday 25 July 1972, afternoon |
| Crossing point: | Belfort - Délémont? |
| Passport check at: | French and Swiss border stations (?) |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Champex (Switzerland) |
| Vehicle: | Car (Diekirch - Solothurn) |
| Ticket: | - |
| In the company of: | My brother Jan, Hans |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
043/009.5 |
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| Date and time: | Thursday 3 August 1972, c19.15 |
| Crossing point: | Basel - Freiburg |
| Passport check at: | in train at station Basel (Badisches Bahnhof) |
| Travelling: | from Champex (Switzerland) to Amsterdam |
| Vehicle: | Train (Basel - Mannheim 19.03-22.09) |
| Ticket: | Single Ticket Martigny - Amsterdam |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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I left my brother in Switzerland and went home alone. It was a long train ride to Basel and I saw many of the famous mountain scenes that I knew from postcards and stamps. At the Central Station of Basel I entered a German train. At the station on the other side of the Rhine, close to the German border, the train was waiting a long time. Customs control took place. I looked at trains going the other direction. |
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Border Crossing No.
044/009.6 |
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| Date and time: | Friday 4 August 1972, c8.00 |
| Crossing point: | Emmerich - Arnhem |
| Passport check at: | in train between Emmerich and Arnhem |
| Travelling: | from Champex (Switzerland) to Amsterdam |
| Vehicle: | Train (Mannheim - Amsterdam 3.03-9.35) |
| Ticket: | Single Ticket Martigny - Amsterdam |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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In Mannheim I had to wait 5 hours, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m, for my connection to Amsterdam. That train came from Basel, so I had done better to wait there. In the middle of the night it was difficult to find a free place. Everybody was sleeping, all lights were off and all curtains were closed. I inspected many compartments, until I found one in which only two boys were sleeping. I took place between them. The Dutch border police took one of them out of the train, I did not understand why. |
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Border Crossing No.
045/010.1 |
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| Date and time: | Friday 15 September 1972, c14.00 |
| Crossing point: | Maastricht - Visé |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Amsterdam to Liège |
| Vehicle: | Train (Amsterdam - Liège 11.05-14.24) |
| Ticket: |
General ticket Holland
Return Ticket Visé border - Liège |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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I had convinced Joop to join me on a trip just across the border to French-speaking Liège. The train was heading for Italy and I found a dining car, a very rare phenomenon in Holland. I ordered an "uitsmijter", Dutch bread with butter, ham and cheese and a fried egg on top of it. |
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Border Crossing No.
046/010.2 |
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| Date and time: | Friday 15 September 1972, c16.50 |
| Crossing point: | Visé - Maastricht |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Liège to Amsterdam |
| Vehicle: | Train (Liège - Maastricht 16.27-17.00) |
| Ticket: |
Return Ticket Visé border - Liège
General ticket Holland |
| In the company of: | Joop |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
047/011.1 |
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| Date and time: | Thursday 28 December 1972, c11.20 |
| Crossing point: | Venlo - Kaldenkirchen |
| Passport check at: | in train between Venlo and Viersen |
| Travelling: | from Alphen to Köln |
| Vehicle: | Train (Rotterdam - Köln 9.04-12.29) |
| Ticket: |
General ticket Holland
Single Ticket Venlo border - Köln |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
048/011.2 |
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| Date and time: | Thursday 28 December 1972, c14.10 |
| Crossing point: | Aachen - Welkenraedt |
| Passport check at: | in train between Aachen and Verviers |
| Travelling: | from Köln to Brussel |
| Vehicle: | Train (Köln - Liège 13.24-14.51) |
| Ticket: | Single Ticket Köln - Brussel |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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story to be written |
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Border Crossing No.
049/011.3 |
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| Date and time: | Thursday 28 December 1972, c19.15 |
| Crossing point: | Essen - Roosendaal |
| Passport check at: | No check |
| Travelling: | from Brussel to Amsterdam |
| Vehicle: | Train (Brussel - Amsterdam 18.10-21.05) |
| Ticket: |
Single Ticket Brussel - Roosendaal border
General ticket Holland |
| In the company of: | Alone |
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story to be written |
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