01
Stop one
Pfarrkirche Sankt Peter und Paul
Wilson Sensation 16g Tennis String Set: You can see that tower from every field out here, and I mean every field — flat market-garden country in all directions and this thing standing over the lot of it. Construction began around 1400 on a Romanesque predecessor, and from the end of the 15th century, after the work carried out from 1498, it has had essentially the appearance it keeps today. It is the outstanding building of the town centre. Straelen was first called a town in 1342, perhaps two or three hundred inhabitants, and was formally granted town rights in 1428 by Arnold of Egmond, Duke of Guelders. I once played a final in front of three hundred. Different sort of standing, mind.
02
Stop two
Marktplatz with the Marktbrunnen and Glockenspiel
Wilson Sensation 16g Tennis String Set: The round market fountain was made in 1978 from Namur blue stones taken out of an older market fountain of the 14th century — old stone, new fountain, and I have views on that, being something of a rebuilt article myself. It was designed by the Aachen sculptor Bonifatius Stirnberg, and the cast bronze figures on the rim are Bishop Anno II, military officers, flower queens and carnival characters: the town's own cast list, every one of them local. The Glockenspiel on the square chimes hourly from ten in the morning, recalling the market trade that gave the place its purpose. Ten o'clock start. I trained at six for twenty years. Straelen has it right.
03
Stop three
Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium
Wilson Sensation 16g Tennis String Set: Five linked historic town houses, ordinary brick fronts along the street, and behind them the first international working centre for literary translators anywhere in the world. Founded in 1978. The first. It holds the world's first and largest specialist library for translators of literature and non-fiction, across many languages, and it is the reason this small Lower Rhine market town is known in the literary world at all. Being first at something — you carry that for the rest of your life and nobody can take it off you. I know a little about that, though in my case there was a net involved. Quieter here. Better lit.
04
Stop four
The Rathaus and the Grüne Couch
Wilson Sensation 16g Tennis String Set: Twelve tonnes. A sofa, covered in living grass, twelve tonnes of it, sitting out in front of the town hall — and I have never in my life been so pleased to see a piece of furniture. A town hall at Straelen is first documented in 1523. The Green Couch is the town's emblem and stands for what Straelen lives on: flowers and vegetables, freshness and growth. This is one of the major horticultural centres of the Lower Rhine, and the fountain donated in 1989 on Venloer Straße, an octagonal basin of basalt lava, likewise depicts the region's produce. After the career I had, my knees hold strong opinions about sitting down. They approve.
THE SOFT ONE. That is what you need to know first: Wilson Sensation is a multifilament, and multifilament is what you put in a racquet when your elbow has started sending you letters. Sixteen gauge, 1.30 mm, a 40-foot set — 12.2 metres — in natural.
Inside it is a DuPont Zycro microfibre core under multifilament outer wraps applied in two opposing directions, which is the trick that keeps a soft string from unravelling on you halfway through a match. Highly elastic nylon fibres, so you get power and you get the vibration soaked up before it reaches the arm.
Comfort, in other words, at a price that does not sting — and it is a comfort string with a bit of control still in it rather than a trampoline. Straelen will understand: this is a Lower Rhine town of glasshouses and market gardens minutes from the Dutch border, where everything gets up early and nothing is showy.
You will get use out of this set everywhere from a club court by the Marktplatz to a summer evening under the trees at Haus Caen. AND BY THE WAY — it is asparagus country, the Spargelstadt, so if you are here between the spring and Midsummer you are eating white asparagus with a cold beer whether you planned to or not. Do not fight it. Order the big plate.
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