There was lashing rain and thunder in the night, continuing into the early morning, which discouraged us from making an early start. Instead, it was on with a wash and wait for a break. It came eventually, though the view over the Waal was still gloomy:
It was quite a walk through town to the station, but in the centre we were delighted to meet this character. Apparently Tiel has traditionally been noted for jam production and this guy represents a raspberry and is something of a town mascot:
There were attractive public spaces too, though I'm not sure what this sculpture represents:
At the station we found we had just missed the train, with another not due for an hour. The relatively short trip to Nijmegen would anyway take 90 minutes due to the required change at Arnhem. After some debate, we decided fate was against us and began to retrace our steps. We admired the double-decker bike storage near the station, and toyed with the idea of renting bikes, but didn't.
On our way, we passed this rather odd floating pagoda:
Then after a few useful purchases, it was back to the boat, and finding a little pale sunshine struggling through, we decided to hang out the washing rather than head off in search of a laundromat for the drying. Despite some threatening clouds, so far, so good:
Tomorrow to Den Bosch, about 30 kilometres, mostly down river, so we should get there in good time and with luck find a good mooring.
You met Flipje from Tiel ! The Betuwe jam company created him as a cartoon character in 1936 and the last promotional cartoon booklet came out in 1954 (thanks Wikipedia!). But he was still very popular when I grew up late fifties/early sixties.
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