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TUESDAY 3 MARCH 2015 THE INDEPENDENT Ferry Fortnight Impressions of Brabant SARAH MARSHALL visits Van Gogh’s homeland to gain a fuller picture of the artist Welcome to Ferry Fortnight With more than 75 ferry routes linking the UK to a variety of European holiday destinations, there’s a lot to shout about during this year’s National Ferry Fortnight. From now until 15 March, holidaymakers are encouraged to take advantage of the ease, value and flexibility of ferry travel, and book their next break by sea. Families in particular can benefit from a stress-free experience: with no luggage restrictions, long airport security queues or cramped seating, a journey by ferry can actually be enjoyable. Other advantages include the freedom to bring a car, bike and even pet dogs along for the ride. A new generation of ferries also offers greater comfort, with on- board facilities that include fine dining in the restaurants, spas, kids clubs and cinema screens showing recent blockbusters. More than 39 million passengers travelled by ferry last year, an increase of 2.6 per cent, and numbers look set to rise. “Consumers are now very savvy about getting the best value and minimising hassle when they travel,” says Bill Gibbons, director of industry body Discover Ferries. Following this year’s Ferry Freedom theme, our supplement looks at the breadth of destinations accessible by ferry, highlighting some of the best holiday options for 2015. For more information, visit discoverferries.com A peasant painting should smell of bacon, smoke and potato steam, Van Gogh once wrote in one of the many letters to his brother Theo. It’s a challenge he cer- tainly fulfilled with The Potato Eaters, a dark, atmospheric depiction of fam- ily life, which the artist considered to be his greatest work. The painting now hangs in Amster- dam’s Van Gogh Museum, but to really understand its context, I visit the southern province of Brabant, where the eccentric artist grew up and formulated many of his ideas. The Vincent Van Gogh Huis, an excellent multimedia museum, now stands on the site of Van Gogh’s birth- place in Zundert and gives a insights into his difficult family life using extracts from the 800 letters written to Theo, his “only genuine friend”. Museum director Ron Dirven takes me to the neighbouring Prot- estant church where Vincent’s father was a pastor, pointing out a grave- stone on the way. “That belongs to Vincent’s older brother,” he tells me. “He was born, and died the same day, exactly a year before Vincent. Imagine, he would visit this grave on his birthday every year.” On a winter morning, the weather is almost as sombre as Vincent’s family history. We drive past open stretches of frost-dusted farmland and bare, wiry pollarded trees where Vincent would walk for miles. When, in 1888, his friend Gaugin challenged him to make a painting from memory, it was the gardens of Etten-Leur that sprang to mind – for here Vincent, aged 28, decided to become a painter. The Van Gogh Church where his father preached features an exhibition of sketches and abstract stained glass windows. Van Gogh made 2000 paintings and drawings in his brief 10-year career, and 25 per cent were created during his time in Nuenen, where The Potato Eaters was set. Local guide Frances, from the Vincentre in Nuenen, drives me to the nearby watermill which was the subject for Water Mill at Gennep, one of 11 original works on display at the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch. Residents of Nuenen are now extremely proud of their artistic former resident. At the time his work was con- sidered of little worth: sketches exchanged as payment for debts were used as firewood or pasted to walls as insulation. During his lifetime, Vincent Van Gogh only ever sold one painting for the measly equivalent of eight euros; yet 125 years later, some of his works are worth tens of millions. But against all odds, Vincent kept going. The smell of money, it seems, was less compelling than bacon, smoke and potatoes. Stena Line (stenaline.co.uk) offer a rail-and-sail package from London to Hook of Holland, from £49pp one way. Cabins (required on overnight sailings) start from £20.50pp each way, based on two sharing. For more information, visit holland.com
