Asten has 54 places, of which 40 publish opening hours, 74 per cent. Of those, 85 per cent open on a Sunday and 45 per cent work past eleven, the highest night share among these fourteen places. Some 30 per cent have no online presence.
The mechanism behind it is the reverse of what one expects. The by-law lets places with a drinks licence carry on until one midweek and until two at the end of the week, but places without such a licence an hour longer, so until two and until three. The snack bar here closes later than the café.
Shops may open every day from six until ten, public holidays included.
What makes Asten known in the world is small and heavy at once. In 1872 a clockmaker started a workshop behind his house; from it grew the bell foundry that today makes tower clocks, carillons and bells, received the royal title in 1972 on its hundredth birthday and is still in family hands. It cast, among others, the largest carillon in Europe, in Berlin. The museum in the village pairs those bells with a second collection about the peat bog.
That bog is the De Groote Peel national park, 1,500 hectares, which lies on the boundary of two provinces and so is not Asten’s alone. Of the 17,484 residents, 25 per cent are over sixty-five.