Today I had the dubious pleasure of cycling through the attractive countryside between our home, in Eindhoven, and Nuenen. The cycling was pleasant enough, but I was going to the dentist, which is not one of my favourite places to visit. No need to explain that, I think.
Anyway, after a less-painful-than-average session in the chair, I had a relaxed ride back, and took some pictures. The first one shows my bicycle perched against a relatively new bridge over the Dommel:
The next picture shows the inscription on the “Willem-Hikspoor” bridge.
Directly (though not so poetically) translated, it says:
- “Unintentionally (or maybe unnoticed?), God saved us
- with this weak bridge.
- Her weakness was our strength
- here the enemy had to turn back.“
Apparently some German armoured vehicle (I think it was a half-track troop carrier) was too heavy to cross the earlier little bridge during WWII, and had to detour to another place, as a result. The cynic in me thinks that they would have made it across if they really wanted, and in any case could have found a better place to cross not too far away. The Dommel is hardly a major river… However, I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure.
On the last stretch towards home, I passed the city's ecological grass mowing operation, though the operators (sheep) were having a break. Couldn't have been a lunch break, must have been a break from lunching?
