Day 14: Hattem to Deventer

This was our last major bike day.  We had considered going one more day further, to Zutphen, but the forecast for the following day was rain, and we had been to Deventer and liked it there.  So we decided to spend two nights in Deventer, and do a day-trip if the weather was decent.

We took the same ferry back across the river and headed south.

Note the flag - the wind was still there; if anything, it was stronger.  It was a west wind, but sometimes our path turned west and we headed straight into it. A couple times we just got off the bikes and walked.  When it was a cross-wind, it was strong and gusty enough to make it hard to keep a straight course.  But the rain held off.  We saw some rain clouds go across our path, but well to our south.  When we stopped for hot chocolate in the town of Wijhe, we wondered whether we should stop at the next town, Olst, and take the train the rest of the way.

Along the way we saw a number of artificial nesting platforms for storks, most of them occupied.

When we got to Olst, we took another break, bought some postcards, and debated what to do.  We finally decided to go on by bike.  It turned out well - the route went inland, along paths and roads that were mostly sheltered from the worst of the wind.  We came back to the river at the very end, and just before the main part of Deventer we came to our bed and breakfast, a place we had been to before back in 2010 and really liked.  After 40 kilometers of riding, it was a welcome sight indeed.

Day 13: Kampen to Hattem

We started off from Kampen by crossing the IJssel on this bridge.  It looks like it's a lift bridge, but we never actually saw it open.

It was a windy day, and the wind was out of the southwest, which meant that we were frequently traveling into the wind.  It was strong enough that we had to downshift and thus slow down, sometimes to 8 km per hour. 

Much of this day's ride was on top of a dike.  The land on the river side was mostly pastures.

For part of the way we had to take a detour due to construction.  It seems that they are widening and deepening the flood plain, so that they can better handle high water.  It's a big river, one of the outlets for the Rhine.

At the end of the ride, we took a small ferry to Hattem, another one of those sleepy towns, and stayed with a couple there. 

Day 12: Blokzijl to Kampen

We had a somewhat difficult night in Blokzijl - no idea why; I don't think there was anything wrong with the place or the room.  But we had a nice breakfast, brought up to our room.  While we were getting ready to leave, it started to rain.  It had pretty much stopped when we left, but just after we got out of town, it started again.  It wasn't heavy, but it was a shower, not  a drizzle.  After about 7 km I was feeling pretty unhappy despite the nice rain jacket, and regretting not bringing rain pants.  It started to let up as we came to a national park visitor center near Sint-Jannsklooster, and we decided to stop there.  We had a nice chat with the people there, and, since the rain had let up, took a short walk along a boardwalk.

The area there used to be full of peat.  People dug up this peat and used it for fuel.  Water collected in the pits left by digging the peat.  Over the centuries, the wet pits grew until there was very little land left, just where the villages were.  Then, sometime in the 1700s, a big storm came through and the villages were wiped out.  Now there are a bunch of lakes that are gradually filling up with vegetation - a great habitat for birds.

We packed up to leave, and it started raining again.  So we stuck around for a half-hour video and ate our lunch.  By that time it was thinking about being sunny, so off we went.

On the way, we came upon this rather unusual picnic table.  We weren't sure what it's supposed to be about, but we found out later (stay tuned).

Kampen is another one of those towns that was a major port before they took away the water.  For old-town buffs, it is paradise.  Lots of interesting old buildings, including three of the old town gates, like this one:

We stayed with a very nice retired woman in a house facing the IJssel river.  She served us the usual sumptuous Dutch breakfast of bread, cold meat, cheese, jam, and boiled egg.

Day 11: to Meppel (train) and Blokzijl (bike)

We packed up our stuff, rode to the station, and caught a train for Meppel (most trains in the Netherlands run every half-hour).  We got off the train, figured out which way to go with only a moderate amount of stress, and headed out.  Much of the riding was on bike paths along (or even between) canals, like this one.

The most interesting place along the way was the village of Giethoorn.  The old part of this village has no roads, just walking/biking paths and canals.  Lots of bridges, of course, and all high enough that boats can get under them.

The comparisons to Venice are inevitable, though Giethoorn is on a much smaller scale.  It does attract a lot of tourists, though.

We stayed the night with a couple of women in the town of Blokzijl.  Blokzijl used to be a major port on the Zuider Zee, which seems weird because if you look at a map it's way inland.  The explanation is that the land between Blokzijl and the former Zuider Zee (now the IJsselmeer) didn't used to be there - the Dutch created it by draining parts of the IJsselmeer.  So the old line "buy land, they aren't making any more of it" does not necessarily apply here!

Day 10: back to the Netherlands

In which we take the train from Bremerhaven back to Groningen, and visit a small community near that city.  Details coming soon.

Day 9: Monday in Bremerhaven

Woke up and had a very relaxed breakfast with Hella in the guest room.  We called a taxi and went to the tallest building in the city.  Kind of a rip-off!  It cost 3 Euros to get into the building.  You take an elevator up to the 20th floor and walk out onto a platform to view the city.  When you have to pee, good luck!  No toilet in the place and the elevator will only stop on the 1st and 20th floors.  The view was pretty nice and so was the weather, but the toilet thing was too much.  As Hella said, Well, I don't ever have to do that again!  We hoofed it over to another building and only had to pay 1 Euro for the toilet!

Things got better after that - we went to lunch in an old ship - below decks.  It was very nice.  Very full too.  So they gave us what must have been the captain's private dining area.  Good food, too!

Once we got back to Hella's she helped me figure out what I was doing wrong with my knitting project.  She's an expert knitter.  The winter hat I have worn for years was made by her without the aid of a pattern!

We sat out in the garden - a courtyard space of the building she lives in.  Watched her cat who looks alot like Suki and we just plain relaxed!

The 3 of us talked a lot about her new apartment in a senior living complex she is moving to in July.  She is experiencing some of the same issues the CHAT group is looking into for EcoVillagers as we age.

Day 8 : to Bremerhaven by train

I went back and filled in the earlier days - so check them out, too!

We took the train today to Bremerhaven in Germany to visit our friend Hella. We decided not to take our bikes because the station in leer, where we need to change trains, has no elevators and carrying bikes and bags up and down stairs with 5 minutes between trains seems like a bad idea. So we left our bikes in a special bike garage where, for a euro a day, the bike will supposedly be safe from thieves.
The train ride went fine. It turned out that in Leer, the two trains were on opposite sides of the same platform, so we could have taken the bikes. Oh well.
We had a low key time hanging out with Hella - she's 77 years old, has had 2 strokes, and is not up for a lot of traipsing around. She lives in an apartment in a building that has something of a community, so we also have met some of the neighbors. I am enjoying the opportunity to speak German with the folks here.

Day 7: Groningen

The only bike riding today was on a guided bike tour of the city of Groningen.  This is a university town in the northeast of the country, and is considered the most bike-friendly city on the planet.  The old city center is closed to cars, but that does not make it idyllic - there are zillions of people zipping around on bikes, not to mention a mob of pedestrians, and the occasional bus, taxi, or delivery truck.  On the tour, we got a taste of navigating a bike through that maze - it takes some getting used to!

Groningen seems like home in one way - lots of young people around, like in Ithaca.  Very different from those sleepy villages we have been seeing.

Today both of the big squares in the center were packed with street vendors, most of them in fancy trailers.  There was lots of food - fruits and vegies, fish, and meat.  One vendor sold only potatoes - 20 different varieties.  Also prepared food (e.g. frites!)

We had dinner at a nice little restaurant that served vegetarian and fish dishes.  Suzanne had a cheese fondue and I had a seafood risotto.

We're staying in a hotel because we were not able to find someone from Vrienden op de Fiets in time.  Tomorrow we will head to Bremerhaven, Germany (by train) to visit our friend Hella.

Day 6: Bolsward to Franeker, then to Groningen by train

We rolled out of Bolsward in the morning, and headed to Franeker, another one of the 11 cities of the Elfstedentocht.  Originally we were going to follow the route in our tour book to Harlingen and then to Franeker, but the ride would take more time that way, and we probably wouldn't have time to visit the planetarium in Franeker.  So, with the help of our hosts and a cycle map, we worked out a route straight to Franeker, about 22km, seeing lots of hayfields, cows, sheep, and the occasional village.  All flat as a pancake; easy riding except when we were going into the wind.  But that wasn't often, and the wind was not as strong as earlier in the week.

The plantarium was cool.  This is not one of those modern project-things-on-the ceiling setups; this was built in 1774 by an amateur astronomer/mathematician named Eise Elsinga.  He built this thing as an antidote to a general freakout that was happening over a major planetary conjunction.  He made it on the ceiling of his living room (which was also the kitchen, dining room, etc).  The planets travel along grooves in the ceiling, controlled by a clockwork mechanism above.  There's a picture here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FranekerPlanetarium.JPG

The clockwork is all homemade, using wooden shafts and wheels with metal pins.  It is still functional, needing adjustment only occasionally.

After that, we went to the railway station and boarded a train for Leeuwarden and thence Groningen.

Day 5: Hindeloopen to Bolsward

Our hosts in Hindeloopen gave us a nice breakfast, and then we were off to Workum, about 12 km away.  On the way, Suzanne's shifter started acting up; the lever would move but the gears would not change.  We found a bike shop in Workum, and they changed the cable while we went to a museum devoted to the art of Jopie Huisman, who lived in that area until the 1990s and painted pictures of ordinary people and very ordinary objects (some people would say junk).  Huisman was a gentle but strong soul, and his pictures show it.

We had lunch at a restaurant on Workum's main square.  I got a Friesland fish fix from a plate of assorted smoked fish and shrimp, garnished with greens and remoulade sauce.

After Workum, we went another 12 or so km to Bolsward.  We got there before our hosts came home from work, so we hung out at a cafe in the town center.  The whole town is gearing up for the "Elfstedenfietstocht," a 250 km bike race that passes through the 11 most significant towns in Friesland.  That happens on Monday, when we will be safely out of the way.

Our hosts are very nice - we are the very first guests for them.  They have a rather large and nicely renovated house on the outskirts of Bolsward.  The small back yard adjoins a canal.  One host, Bauke, is going to be riding in the Fietstocht.  He expects to cover the 250 km in about 10 hours.  Whew!

Here's a view of their back yard:

Day 4: Enkhiuzen to Stavoren (by ferry) then to Hindeloopen (by bike)

From Enkhuizen, we took a ferry across the IJsselmeer to Stavoren.  The ride took about an hour and a half.  The wind was pretty strong, so there were plenty of waves, but not so much that we got seasick.  This is a view back toward Enkhuizen shortly after we left.

On the boat, we had a nice chat with a Dutch couple who were also traveling by bike, but on electric bikes.  They are very popular here.

From Stavoren, it was only a little more than 10km to Hindeloopen.  Most of the way the road ran just inside of the dike that protects the land from flooding.

Hindeloopen was once a major trading center, but is now another one of those sleepy towns.  We stayed with a couple; he is a retired woodworker with a very nice workshop; she is a home care nurse.  Like other towns near the water, the town is criss-crossed with canals.

Hindeloopen has the "national skating museum," devoted to the Elfstedentocht, an ice skating race that is held every year the canals freeze over.  That means it's a rare event, happening every decade or so.  The last time was 1996.

Day 3: Beek to Hoorn (by train) then Enkhuizen (by bike)

From Beek we took the train north, past Utrecht and Amsterdam, to the town of Hoorn on the west shore of the IJsselmeer.  Since bikes are so popular here, the trains all have places to carry bikes.  You buy a special ticket for the bike, and carry it into the train, choosing one of the doors with a bike symbol on it.  The tricky part is carrying your bags at the same time.  We tried leaving the panniers on the bike, but they made the bike too heavy and hard to maneuver.

At Hoorn, we started riding north along the coast to Enkhuizen.  We cruised along on a bike path beside a busy road, making good time, when it occurred to us that there was no water anywhere near us.  We checked the map and found that we were indeed going on the wrong path.  So we turned right at the next road towards the coast and soon were riding on a narrow road on top of the dike.

What this picture does not show is the wind, and it was fierce.  When the road curved around so we were going straight into it, we had to get off the bikes and walk.  At other times it was a cross-wind, and that made it hard to keep riding in a straight line.  Every once in a while a car would pass, which was nerve-wracking on such a narrow road.

After a bit, though, the route took us off the dike and inland, which was much nicer.  When we did get back to the coast the wind was mostly at our backs, which was nice for a change.

The guidebook said that Enkhuizen "oozes charm."  It wasn't too far off - it is a very pretty town, and big enough to be lively.  We stayed with an older woman in a very old house right near the center.

The house had its share of "oozing" charm, and part of it was the nearby church with bells that chimed melodiously every half-hour.  It wasn't so melodious to my ears at 3 AM, however!
 
The big attraction in Enkhuizen is the Zuiderzee Museum.  It has a collection of old houses and other structures from around what used to be the Zuiderzee - a large bay that was walled off from the sea in 1932, turning it into a lake, the IJsselmeer.  The museum recreates some of the little fishing villages that ringed the bay - not places where life was easy!

Day 2: Stevensweert to Beek

We figured that our first day should be easy, only 25km or so, but that made the next day at least 40, and it was a difficult ride.  The wind was out of the south, and we were riding south, so we were going into the wind much of the time.  And we were getting far enough south that there were actually some hills.  The net result was that we were pushing ourselves very hard by the end.

This ride was also along the Maas valley, with the river and many canals.  The fields are ringed with drainage canals like this one.

On the other side of the path was a dike.  I got curious and climbed up it to see what was on the other side, and saw this:

This wide waterway is over 10 feet higher than the path, and more like 20 feet higher than the drainage canal.

At one point, tired and thirsty, we stopped at this little place to have a rest and go to the bathroom.

We went inside and found a small barroom, maybe 15 feet square, with half a dozen people hanging out and gabbing.  They spoke some English, and we had a fun little chat that refreshed our spirits as well as our bodies.

We did finally make it to Beek, with the last few kilometers the hardest, especially since we were going through the town - riding on cobblestones is a pain!  But our hosts were wonderful, welcomed us with a glass of wine, and gave us a very nice room to sleep in.

Day 1: Thorn to Stevensweert

Day 1 - Limburg - Thorn to Stevensweert.

Our friends Wim and Linda drove us and the bikes to Thorn, sometimes called the "white village" because most of its houses are white.  Here we are in front of the place where we treated our friends to lunch:

From Thorn we cycled along the Maas river and its many branches, pools, and canals.  The Maas is a major commercial waterway and so has been "regulated" with lots of dikes, sluice gates, etc, but is still a beautiful area.

After about 25km of riding, we reached the rather sleepy village of Stevensweert.  We stayed at a bed and breakfast that was also part of the "Vrienden op de Fiets" network for bike travelers.  The place was a little funky but quite nice with a luxurious bathtub.  We went into the center of town looking for the lively cafe scene found in many town centers, but this town was too sleepy for that.  But we had a fine dinner at a little "eetcafe" (cafe that serves food):

Welcome!  We're a few days into a bike trip through the Netherlands, and people back home are asking how it's going.  Well, I thought, why not put up a blog for all of you to read?  So here goes!