Just a few completely random snapshots I took last Saturday, after some shopping. Please feel free to identify all the cars in this picture. Clearly visible is the Roman Catholic Church of Druten, the Netherlands. It was built between 1875 and 1877, the architect was Pierre Cuypers. To save money, and to finance the construction of the church, a new brickworks was built nearby the river and the villagers brought the bricks for the church to the construction site in the center.
The long-lasting popularity of hatchbacks visualized. From left to right: a 2004 Volkswagen Golf, a 2011 Opel Corsa, a 2007 Volkswagen Polo, a 2014 Volvo V40 and a 2011 Ford Fiesta. The Polo and Fiesta are powered by gasoline engines, the others have a diesel under the hood.
Citroën C4 Cactus in this row of six. A Subaru Forester is quite rare in my neck of the woods.
Compact Peugeot Partner service van, parked in front of the owner’s shop. ‘t Kachelwinkeltje literally means a small shop where you can buy heaters, stoves and furnaces. And have them serviced, in this case.
The blue paint on the pavement seems to have infected this Volkswagen’s plate. It’s a 2011 T5 taxi van, powered by a 2.0 liter TDI engine; the standard engine here in the Transporter and Amarok pickup. Thanks to their blue plates taxis can be recognized from far.
I’m going to let non-Europeans have first rights on the identification but would note that compared with the UK, Japanese and Korean brands appear to have some work to do to achieve market share
There are some in there. Doesn’t look too different to what I see in Glasgow, except Glaswegians like a bit more bling.
I see one Japanese car in the first picture and no Korean car.
I haven’t opened up the pictures, but I see two Suzukis (possibly Indian-built), the aforementioned Subaru, a Toyota, a Daewoo, and a little box which might be a Hyundai, a Suzuki or something else.
And I don’t see huge numbers of Japanese/Korean cars here, so it doesn’t seem too different to me.
OK, I see what you mean. I only had my first picture in mind. You’re absolutely right about the others.
Nice pix of the town AND the cars. We don’t get to see pictures of small European towns often; it’s just the big and famous places.
Very interesting! Love the old architecture!
That church would not look out of place if it were somehow to be transported to the U.S. and dropped into any number of small towns in the mid-west. I have driven extensively through Indiana, Illinois with lesser tours of Ohio and Michigan and have seen near duplicates of that church many times. As my wife might say, it looks like a church and not like a shopping center.
I did a bike and barge tour around the Netherlands a couple of years ago. The “barge” part of the tour could be a little annoying and the weather was colder, windier (hence, the functionality of the windmills), and wetter than I liked. The cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, the Hague, were great. Of course, part of what I enjoyed was the variety of human-powered and motorized two and four-wheel vehicles, the likes of which you just don’t regularly see around here. Beautiful place, best apple taart (pie) I’ve had since my mom’s.
I almost did a double take when I saw this church! It looked like the New Utrecht Reformed Church in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. One of the few landmarks in this neighborhood, it was originally built in the late 18th century, then rebuilt about 70 years later in the mid 19th century. The parking lot looks just the same. Although I`m not a member of this congregation or religion {I`m Catholic}, I did attend a few times for some community events and the Living Nativity which is held on the weekend before Christmas. They also had a dog show in June, and a Civil War re enactment of a recruit drive with a few cannons, a tent, and people dressed in period costumes and as members of the New York Irish Brigade. Good memories , nice people to meet.
Cool pictures. My two takeaways – first I enjoy the architecture of churches of that era. Second, it seems that Europe gets the same dearth of car color choices as we get here in the States.
If I were to take a pic of our church parking lot, it would be a sea of full-size SUVs and quadcab pickups, with some Accords/Camrys and a few luxury sedans. That would involve my getting out of bed and actually going to church, which is another issue in itself.
That is a beautiful church…I like the brick/paver parking lot too…very spiffy.
The lot is actually the public square of the village. Normally used as a parking lot for the shops, stores and the church, of course.
It’s also used for the weekly market and for all kinds of events, mainly during the summer. Music, (fun)fairs, sports events, shows, etc. Once a year they dump a massive load of sand on the square for a beach-volleybal tournament (and clean it up afterwards, evidently).
Very nice, something very comforting memories-like about the brick patterned streets. The only car I recognize is the Forester.
Druten is halfway across the country from where my family originated (about 100km 🙂 )
Well then, Rotterdam area ?
Hazerswoude-Dorp, southeast of Leiden.
Right. Hazerswoude-Village, in plain English.
On my recent trips to England, I noticed that bricks and paving stones are used in sidewalks, parking lots, and town squares. The same thing in the above pictures. It looks so nice!!
Here in the US, most every square foot of surface is covered with cement slabs.
Is it a cost issue or a cultural preference??
Cost issue and also a climate issue. The European climate is milder, North American winters are pretty hard on brickwork, exposed timbers, and such.
Can confirm. There are a few brick-paved street sections here in Portland, Maine and they look absolutely nothing like the ones in the pictures above. Not any fun to drive on, but I’m sure the tourists think they’re quaint.
You can also use coloring and templates on fresh concrete (and to a lesser degree asphalt) to make it look like brick. I have no doubt what we see here is brick, but in a pinch you can certainly masquerade your concrete.
Plus the natural resources. Plenty of rivers here. And rivers brought us clay, “riverclay”, as we call it. It’s a small step -all relative- from riverclay to bricks and roof tiles. That’s why brickworks are situated very close to those main rivers.
Maybe brick surfaces become more common as you go south? If you want to see brick squares, sidewalks, etc. visit North Carolina State University sometime–the roads/parking are asphalt, but just about everything else is brick.
Johannes, thanks for posting these pics, they bring back a flood of memories. The brick church and row houses, the impecible brick paving, the signs, hedges and grey skies are echt Nederlands. The only thing missing for me is Citroen DS or a Rover P6 hanging around – although on my last (2014) trip to A’dam, I saw they were getting pretty think on the ground.
Dank je wel, menheer!
Graag gedaan !
This article was a try-out, more or less. It was around freezing-point, with a strong chilly wind. Not the ideal conditions for walking around with a small digital camera and its nano-sized buttons…
Druten is a small town, but it has quite a collection of interesting, monumental houses and buildings. The new buildings look good too (in my opinion), they blend nicely with the older ones. Next round I take a longer walk.
I also have to commend your countrymen’s unerring ability to park in a straight line absent parking slots. Heck, I get people parked at an angle a foot from the curb everyday here in Brooklyn (Breukelen!)
Sadly, brick paving is a lost art. As a kid in the early 70s, I remember watching our public works crew reset a brick street a block from my house. See the same thing every time I’m in the Netherlands, but not here. Although, NYC has recently set some side streets in Lower Manhattan and DUMBO with Belgian blocks, so that’s something.
Here’s a pic of the reconstruction of Prinsengracht, just off Leidsestraat, summer 2014.
Ever seen a brick paving robot at work ?
That’s a nice piece of equipment! Thanks – I was just thinking as I read down that all brick paving must be expensive to lay, but here’s the answer.
Presumably, the sealing material between the bricks is put down and then rolled in as the road is tamped (leveled or flattened) down?
Roger, which sealing material do you mean ? The bricks are on leveled bed of sand, as always.
There are simpler ways of automatic brick paving too, BTW.
I was referring to the material (sand/cement mix for example) that is surely placed between the bricks?
No, the bricks just lay on the sand. Between the bricks, same kind of sand. See below.
That type of sand is called vulzand/straatzand/ophoogzand. Don’t ask me what the name for that specific type of sand is in English…It’s not the same sand you use for building a house (for the sand/dry cement/water-mixture). That’s called metselzand 🙂
A bit of dry cement on the sand bed is only used with a lighter (weight) kind of bricks or tiles. The kind you use for a garden path, for example.
Chuck,
Don’t know where you live, but when I lived in Memphis the “main thoroughfare” in downtown was torn up and turned into a pedestrian-only zone. To sort of re-inforce the point, the whole area was repaved in bricks and pavers. Then, about 5 or 6 years later, when they FINALLY realized no one but out-of-towners walked downtown (and not many of those, either) they tore all the bricks and pavers out and “restored” the streets to car and truck traffic.
Anyway, my point is that a lot of cities have put in pedestrian-only zones in their downtowns and all use bricks and/or pavers. It’s one way to tell how old a city’s downtown sidewalks are. Bricks and pavers are also used A LOT in new shopping malls for streets and walkways…at least where I have lived.
And yes, for highway paving, concrete (slabs) are used for cost reasons.
Boulder (Pearl Street Mall) and Denver (16th Street Mall) in Colorado have stuck to the pedestrian-only streets since their interception in 1977 and 1982 respectively with considerable success. The former uses earth tone bricks while the latter granite-coloured square slabs to cover the streets.
Many Americans aren’t so enthusiastic about walking more than quarter of a mile in the blizzard or under throbbing hot sun. Denver solved this vexing problem by operating a free mall shuttle bus service called MallRide that circulates between Union Station and Broadway/16th Street Station.
Interesting tidbits about MallRide buses: they were custom-built specifically for this street only. No other cities in the world use this type of buses. They are right-hand-drive and drive on the right rule of road because this configuration gives the bus operators better view of pedestrians on the sidewalk and access doors on right side of the buses.
The first generation MallRide buses introduced in 1982 were front-wheel-drive as to allow the low floor (perhaps a first low-floor bus in the world). The diesel motor and gearbox sit adjacent to the bus operator and is connected to the front axle taken from heavy duty 4×4 or 6×6 trucks.
The second generation introduced in 1997 is world’s first true hybrid-electric buses to be operated commercially. The buses use 2.5-litre Ford CNG motor connected to the generator that charges the batteries, which provide electricity to the electric motors in rear wheels.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Free_MallRide_bus_in_LoDo,_Denver.jpg
Plenty of brick sidewalks in Boston, around Faneuil Hall, on Beacon Hill and into Back Bay. Could be a bit treacherous in the winter, but undoubtedly handsome.
The paving in the pictures is usually referred to as “monoblock” here and is commonly used in driveways and some parking areas, but is a pain to clean if you leak engine oil on it. Old school “rustic” brick paving we would call “cobbles”
All the talk of brick paving makes me think of the cobbled streets of the New Town in Edinburgh, where they still have lots of cobbled streets, which are very slippery in winter or even if it’s just wet. Car tyres make a pleasing sound on them but they cause a lot of vibration.
The New Town, incidentally, is the birthplace of the all original Lord Brougham. Maybe one requires a Cadillac Fleetwood to soak up all the bumps.
Pedestrian malls in the downtown area are one of those things that worked some places and failed monumentally in others. Charlottesville, VA has a brick-paved pedestrian mall right in the middle of downtown, and it’s become a destination where one finds many of the best restaurants, shops, and nightlife. Raleigh, NC tried to do the same thing with Fayetteville Street, the main north-south street of the downtown area, and it met a fate similar to that you mentioned in Memphis–it became a dead zone after 5 PM. About 8 years ago they tore it all out and restored vehicular traffic, with wide sidewalks, and like magic business came flocking back.
From what I’ve seen, in the US you need two things for a successful pedestrian mall – inherent charm in the street front on either side, and adaquate free or reasonable off-street parking immediately adjacent. I know Charlottesville has the first, not sure about the 2nd. Best example that comes to mind is the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.
My hometown, McKeesport, PA, tried this in 1963 after the streetcar tracks were ripped out. As you can see, lots of bold graphics, but no nearby parking. It died a quick death, but was unfortunately only the first of several misguided redevelopments, compounded by the collapse of the steel industry in the Mon Valley. It’s a dead zone now.
Charlottesville has a large parking deck on either side of downtown, one block from the mall (it helps that downtown proper is pretty small). Not free, but reasonable enough. I forget the hourly rates but it’s something like $10 to leave your car there all day.
We took a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest (Hurrah Viking!), and I was amazed at the number and size of churches. It seemed that no village was too small to have at least one church, and a good percentage of them were several hundred years old.
Nice picture, that must be Zaltbommel, at the river De Waal. Just like Druten, further up the river (to the east). So you passed me too 🙂
You’re right about the churches, no village is small enough to have at least one decent church. The oldest churches are circa 1,000 years old.
We still have some brick, or cobblestone streets around Cincinnati. The main street through Old Town St. Charles Missouri is also lumpy, bumpy, noisy brick. Must be a real drag to plow it effectively.
The hospital where my wife works has pavers in front of the main entrance, and the pavers for the crosswalks are laid in a different pattern, but that’s the only way it is differentiated…one of these days I expect to see bright yellow paint outlining the crosswalks, but it’ll take someone getting run over before it happens.
If I remember correctly, the brick through old town St. Charles is (mostly) original, dating back to before Missouri statehood in 1816. So for anything in the US, that is ancient.
When I lived in St. Joseph, there were several streets up from the Pony Express offices that were still brick. And they were just as smooth as those in St. Charles.
The comments about car colours caught my attention. Much as I would like to see more variety I think most customers don´t want anything other than grey or black. In Denmark where I live it is entirely normal to see a carpark stocked only with monochrome cars. About five years ago I was at a hotel favoured by business people: a bland, corporate playground. There were about 500 cars in the lot, all visible at once. Two cars were not metallic grey or black: my gold 1989 car and a red Ford Escort of the same vintage. The paradox of the monotony of colours is that I think people buy these colours with resale in mind and yet we are at least 50% richer now than 20 years ago. You would think that having a personal colour would matter more than gaining an extra few hundred euros at some point in the future. I think the matter is more serious than that: having an “odd” colour does not just mean you sell the car for less, it might delay the sale for a long time if everyone is risk averse. Why buy a metallic green car when every other car is grey or black? There is a huge disincentive to buy coloured cars now, so severe it might even affect the purchase choice of the third and fourth owner.
I love your gold XM, Richard.
And I’m with you on colours. Australia’s getting just as bad. Last year in the weekly car supplement to our paper, the writer advised against buying a distinctively coloured car for that reason – resale. I almost wrote in and called him on that. What is more boring than looking through the car ads and seeing only black, appliance white or grey? They all look just the same. What incentive is there to look at any of them more closely?
What about individuality? What about choice? Doesn’t it mean anything to people any more? Do you really want a motoring appliance that looks just the same as everyone else’s? Sadly it seems, most people do want boring non-colours these days. Not us. We’ve driven hundreds of kilometres to buy a used car in a nice colour. My daughter’s yellow pearl manual Honda Jazz/Fit was on the lot for six months, and they chopped 25% off the price just to shift it – but it was just what she wanted.
I just don’t understand the preoccupation with putting potential future resale value ahead of personal enjoyment now. But then I’m a motoring enthusiast, not a money enthusiast.
Been reading a lot of press lately about self-drive cars. As much as they would get short shrift amongst our discerning readers, there is the (supposed) theory that they would eliminate congestion, road accidents and free up household capital for other purchases (if used as rentals for the ride rather than outright possession). I’m not sure how close this future is; it would require massive infrastructure change in the cities that already exist and the capital expense would be enormous (likely a PPP like toll roads), but there is still a concerted push towards them.
As to buyers’ trends, i posted this yesterday at another story but worth repeating if only to remind us that there is a great majority of people out there that don’t take the same view towards cars that we do. When I bought my Mimosa Yellow (read fluorescent yellow/green) W116, the vendor was having great trouble selling it. I get a lot of compliments on the colour, but from those whose admiration is at arm’s length. Societal shifts…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/automobiles/wheels/carmakers-retreat-from-quirky-designs-as-millennials-embrace-mainstream.html?ref=automobiles&_r=0
Mimosa Yellow is one of the few paint colour names I can remember. It is a magnificent colour. While cutting across the backcountry of Ireland in 2012 I saw a Mimosa Yellow Mercedes parked in a country village. It had a black interior and the combination worked very well indeed. I can´t verbally descibre the effect. The yellow says sporting and the black says sober and the overall shape of the car keeps the aggressive character of the yellow in check. If I had a W116 it would be in that yellow. Good choice, sir!
When I first saw the listing, I thought it was a respray in Melbourne taxicab yellow. But it was a two-owner so I had a closer look. The colour is wonderful; depending upon cloud presence or not it either looks green or yellow. Interior is tan. Btw, have enjoyed your site in the past. Cheers.
Money enthusiasts don´t only drink table wine out of plastic cups. It´s quite odd how money (trivial amounts of it) come into the equation the moment the question of colour shows up. I have a bee in my bonnet about car reviewers criticising the colour of the test car as if it´s something that is as fixed as suspension settings or the size of the trunk or boot. These guys have also brainwashed readers into thinking unusual colours are not just a matter of personal preference but almost morally wrong.
My XM used to be a bit less gold but I decided to choose Volvo Maya Gold when it came time for respray. Rich colours were on the way out for large cars by the end of the 80s but I think the warmer gold suits the XM in the way it did the SM. Nobody suspects it´s not a Citroen colour. I left the original colour on the door sills. I reckoned the paintshop had no chance of putting the doors back properly. The car was 20 years old when I had the work done. Here´s the original colour a week before the respray:
You chose the new colour well.
Change may be coming, I saw a column on another site saying that pearlescent red is the new white;
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/2016/01/15/detroit-soul-red-is-the-new-black/
I read that the Netherlands taxes new vehicles quite heavily based on incremental grams/km CO2 emissions so it makes sense that most of the cars in the parking lots are small. Plus, bike paths are very well integrated with the road infrastructure so cars are probably not even a necessity especially in medium to large cities.
Johannes, another American here who thanks you for posting these. They brought back pleasant memories of some short business trips to Delft some 20 years ago (gulp!). The vehicles were a generation older, but it was still mostly “forbidden fruit” for Americans as is the case today. I do remember seeing some DAF cars in regular service. I guess they would be a rare sight now. Druten appears to be more open than Delft, but many of the “details” (e.g., the brickwork commented on by many) are the same as I remember. I went to Delft in the winter and unsurprisingly, this doesn’t look any better! That’s the only real negative I can think of though.
I had to smile at the Citroen Cactus. Superficially it could seem a good name for an off-roader. I don’t know whether it’s just Aussie slang, but in my country “cactus” is most emphatically NOT a word you’d use to describe a new car……
Hadn’t really noticed how low the Cactus actually is. It appears lower than the Panda parked next to it, because it is: only 1,49m tall, less than 4cm taller than a Golf and 7cm lower than the Panda.
Haven’t seen any C4 Cacti in a while: they sell well in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, but I can’t recall having seen a single one in Munich since moving here a few months ago.
Daewoo Tacuma seems to be a rare sight nowdays there in the Netherlands as well. 🙂 When I was a kid in the mid ’70s and early ’80s, I remember Dutch tourists had arrived to the seaside of Dalmatia with tonns of Citroen GS, GA and CX (like CX, CX Pallas, CX Athena, CX Prestige submodels) and also with ID19, DS20 and DS21. Ami 4, Ami 6, Ami Supér, 2CV4, Dyane 6 and GS/GSX/GA was usual among the local folks. As well as the Renault 4. Dutch tourists also came with the then popular Peugeot mid sized models. All in all mostly with French made cars…
I can also remember some true interesting rarities like the GM’s RANGER which was a rebadged Opel Rekord-C and D series and was manufacured in the BeNeLux!
…and of course…the small DAF VARIOMATIC cars..which later became the VOLVO 66… 🙂
Don’t forget that we had a true love affair with Opel in the seventies and eighties: Kadett (the number one in sales numbers, every year), Ascona and Rekord. We just couldn’t get enough of them ! Back then Volkswagen could only stand in their shadow. Quite the opposite now…