A Sunday drive to the Netherlands and The Roermond Designer Outlet

Sunday, we took a short road trip to Roermond, Netherlands.  It’s about an hour drive from where we live in Hürth, Germany.  Like many other Germans, we often make Sunday trips to the Netherlands to shop. The stores in the Netherlands are allowed to be open for business unlike shops in Germany.  The Eastern side of the Netherlands on any given Sunday looks more like a little Germany as it is filled with Germans searching for shopping deals.  This is in no way an exaggeration!

We brought Jack the Dog along for the ride.  He was less than impressed. Car rides are not his favorite, and he lets us know by singing us the songs of his people.  Jack the Dog is a husky, and his singing is very loud, very loud.

We arrived to the giant designer shopping mall in Roermond and promptly found parking in the huge parking garage.  I knew we were in for a busy day when I saw how large the parking garage was, and saw that is was jammed packed with cars (mostly with German plates.)

This place was HUGE!  Tons of great shops like Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and the likes.  They also had a Vans, and Dr Martens, just to name a few of the stores.

However, it was SO packed with people we could hardly walk.  Jack was having none of this and began to sing.  Trying to let the others know of his struggles, he sang louder.  His signing did not help matters at all.  All the Germans were too busy queuing in ridiculous lines to get into the Levi’s store.  Yes, it’s true.  There were lines wrapped around several of the stores as Germans so desperate to spend their money on a Sunday waited to get inside.

Cheyenne and I did manage to squeeze ourselves into the Vans shop, and she found a great deal on some shoes.  Once 89Euro, purchased for 37 Euro, she was thrilled. (Even if it took 40 minutes to reach the check out counter and pay).

All this wading through a sea of people was stressing me and the dog out.  I was also starting to get hungry, but the lines to the restaurants were unbelievable.  So, after a very short visit to the Roermond Designer Outlet, we got back in the car and headed home to Germany.

We ended up stopping at one of our favorite little places to eat, Zur Linde in Hürth, and had a wonderful meal.  Jack loves it there, since we usually sit outdoors and everyone gives him pommes to eat.

Another family that was eating near us heard that we had gone to the Outlet Mall on a Sunday and started to laugh.  They kindly recommended we go on a Monday or Tuesday next time we decided to make the trip to shop.

After dinner, we stopped to pick up some Cornetto ice creams cones on the way home, and our day was then complete.

Since Dirk works 6 days a week, I feel like there is a lot of pressure to pick the perfect day trip for our Sundays.  I usually pick a place to hike, that way Jack enjoys it too.  Dirk picked the Netherlands because he thought I would like to do a little shopping.  (Since I do not have a job, I haven’t been able to do any shopping for 10 months!)  It was a very nice thought, but I think we should stick to exploring nature on our Sunday excursions from here on out.

This poor, tired out puppy thinks so too….