We had a totally new experience today. We went shopping at an outlet center in Europe for the first time. There are a few in Germany that we’ve driven by or heard about, but we never felt inspired to go to any. If we heard from people about going to them, the response was pretty much average. Shopping in Germany is generally not something we enjoy. Customer service doesn’t exist and you often feel like you are inconveniencing the sales person by asking them to do their job.
But Stefan heard about this place from some of his colleagues in Dusseldorf who said it was absolutely fantastic. We were impressed with the names on the store list – places like Hugo Boss, Ferragamo, Armani and even a Polo store, which isn’t so easy to find here in Germany. Since Stefan was badly in need of a few new suits, we decided to take a trip up there and see if it was everything it was cracked up to be. As it turned out, it was.
Since I am a complete freak, I had scoped out most of the stores on the internet and knew just were we needed to start on our quest. You never know what you’re going to get at outlet centers and I’d only heard of about half of the stores previously so I wanted to know where we would be best off for the task. Stefan’s not one of those browse for a while and then finally buy – he wants to go in, git-r-done, and get out. He’s a man.
We also had Ayla along and found this to be a really pleasant experience. I saw on their website that dogs were allowed and we were really surprised just how many dogs there actually where there. Ayla was by far the biggest but we did actually bump into a pair of Berenese Mountain Dogs as well as a few other decent sized dogs. One of the cutest things I saw all day was a Pug being driven around underneath a passing stroller. He just sat there as they cruised along. Unfortunately I didn’t have the camera with me though.
For those with dogs, this place is extremely dog friendly. They had a special doggie water fountain and most of the stores don’t seem to mind if you bring your dogs inside although with Ayla generally being a spazz from time to time, we didn’t risk that too often. Only in one suit store where Stefan was actually buying something did we take her in…and she was so excited to be near her daddy again that she had to jump at him. That was her only really insane moment, though, and she was really great about all the people that wanted to greet her as well as not freaking out too many other dogs as they went by.
Finding the center could have been a bit easier because not all intersections leading off the A73 are clearly marked as to where you need to go. The closer you get, the better the directions are. Parking seemed ample for now although they seem to be adding on a new section of stores so I wonder if traffic might pick up. You pay 2 euros a day for parking but we noticed that many of the people who are leaving the parking lot stop to pass along their parking ticket to others just arriving. As we were approaching a parking space, the passenger hopped out of the car and handed us their parking ticket. Sweet! We noticed a few other instances of this while walking through the lot later and found it to be a really cool aspect about the place. Leave it to the Dutchies to make shopping a truly pleasurable experience.
I’m quite sure we’ll be going back there. They have a couple of stores for kids clothes also, like Villa Happ and Lego something which will be coming in useful soon. The prices as the Polo Ralph Lauren store were sinful. We saw a women’s polo shirt for 54 euros and after that just looked away. There could have been some deals in the store…but we just didn’t feel like looking for them.
