Thursday, January 17, 2008

We are lunatics

In Europe the situation with recreation is different compared to Canada and the USA.
Although European people have more days a year free of work to make holidays, very few have an RV.
One reason is that RV’s are heavily taxed and therefore very expensive.

Many European families spend therefore their holidays in a tent on a campground.
For this they use large tents containing two to three rooms.
And an area to cook.





Next, for happy holidays, they depend of the weather.
Many travel for that reason to the South of Europe to be sure the sun will shine and it will not get wet and cold.
But many stay not far from where they live in the North of Europe and gamble.
If summer is nice, they are fine.
But if it is a bad summer, it is all very miserable.
Sitting in the tent for days playing domino while the rain pours on the canvas or polyester roof.

But now something new is coming to Europe.
A Dutch innovative businessman called Van Der Most is going to open a roof covered camping ground.
He is building a huge hall and people can come and put up their tent underneath the roof.
Yes, dear fervent and loyal blog readers, camping and tenting inside a building.
It is a concept and an idea one needs to get used to but when weather is bad it is easier to accept it and not to think it is absurd.

It is called Freizeitpark Itterbeck in Germany and is in a forest on a piece of 135 hectares of land.

Outside the huge building are a covered swimming pool and a covered playground and a covered restaurant.
People who spend time there go in and come out after their holidays never having seen the sky.
Never hearing the rain drops on the canvas.
Never hear any bird singing the glory of the morning.

This is not good, as many fervent and loyal blog readers will agree.
That is why we suggest the huge hall should be equipped with a big artificial sun.
And once in a while water should be sprayed onto the tents to imitate rain.
And hidden loudspeakers make people hear the birds sing, coyotes cry and airplanes pass over.
Options are to create an artificial earthquake or a devastating flooding by a river.
Or to liberate a wild black bear into the hall at night.

In Miyazaki, Japan, once a huge hall was visited and photographed.


Called the “Ocean Dome”, it is an enormous covered pool with walls painted like it is a tropical island.
The floor is covered with white sand and every half an hour they make artificial waves.



A covered camping ground and a covered tropical island may sound like lunacy.
But be careful!
As was learned in Miyazaki, Japan, thousands and thousands of people go to the “Ocean Dome”, change into bathing suits and relax on the sandy beach like it is the most normal thing to do in life.
For sure many people will make use of the covered camping ground.

Making them people full of sense and the observer the lunatic.






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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, I disagree, & believe there are more RVers in Europe. Here it is not mainly a retiree"s dream.
Campsite rarely have tents, I am positive on this subject, & could find the exact figures...but I am too lazzy to research them...

Anonymous said...

Nothing surprises me anymore.