Amsterdam, where bicycles rule!

We got to Amsterdam yesterday, after a really enjoyable stay in Alkmaar and a great ride almost 100% on bike paths along the country side and little towns into Amsterdam, Centraal Station.

Alkmaar, the cheese city, is about 33 miles north from Amsterdam. We missed the Friday cheese market but you can see one of the cheese vendors in the market in one of the pictures. By now we are experts on finding our way in The Netherlands via the biking scavenger hunt. Even coming into Amsterdam we were in the countryside up until the last kilometer. Once we crossed the canal into Centraal Station with a free ferry, a sense of bicycle chaos and tourist invasion came upon us. We did not have a hotel reservation but we got one at the tourist information office across the street from Centraal Station. Getting to the hotel was a little challenging, the GPS did not recognize the street name so we had to do with a paper map. Between the narrow streets, canal crossings, cars, scooters, hundreds of bicycles, pedestrians, and let's not forget the trolley tracks, it was a miracle we made it without falling or crashing into something (I was really close). Our hotel was thankfully a few blocks away from the centrum, it is near the museums on a quiet street. We changed clothes and went for a walk, in the old centrum, red light district, market place, all very new to us and intense. Both Steve and I agree we prefer the small cities out of the tourist's path, but Amsterdam is a city to visit at least once. Today we went to the Rembrandt and Van Gogh museums and traveled the city by bike, having coffee and lunch along the way in different outdoor cafes. It is really fun for me to feel entitled to ring my bell and make people move out of the way, and cars wait patiently behind me while riding on a narrow street. Tomorrow we will have an interesting celebration for Steve's birthday, yes it is August 1st and he will be 53... a year older than me. We will travel by train to Copenhagen, it is not a direct train... we will be in 6 different trains and have to do 5 transfers with the bikes, and in a couple we have 11 minutes to make it. Next post will be on the 2nd when we and my family all meet in Copenhagen for a fun family week and wedding celebration.

On to Holland

After a 70 mile day we're less than a day's ride north of Amsterdam. It was mostly cloudy with a few showers on the ride today with a strong breeze out of the NNW. Fortunately it was mostly a cross or quartering tail wind. One of the highlights was an 18 mile dike separating a huge man made lake from the ocean. Since a good portion of the country is at or below mean sea level the Dutch have to be clever in managing the flow of water out. When the tide is low they let water flow out, when the tide is high they close the gates.

Tonight is in Alkmaar. Once again we seem to have found a local festival and the party is underway. A good thing about spending many hours on the bike is that sleeping is usually not a problem, even when it's noisy. We took advantage of the extensive Dutch bike route system again today, as well as the Garmin 800. Both have proved to be very valuable.

Tomorrow after breakfast we head south to Amsterdam for a 2 night stay and I'm sure a few new adventures.

Into the heart of Fryslan

This was a full and interesting day: started with breakfast at Niko and Esther's house and stopping at the train station in Groningen to find tickets to come back to Denmark on the 1st. The station is a beautiful old building and has the biggest bicycle parking we have seen so far as documented in the picture. The computers were down and had to wait a long time, and we did not get the direct overnight reservation because there was no room for the bikes... instead we got a reservation where we go in 6 different trains and have 5 transfers... I am sure it will be a relaxing time to read (while on the train) mixed with being frantic during transfer times. By the time we got our tickets it was noon, and started on this interesting system of bike paths through fields, dikes, forests and canals they have in Fryslan, it was like a game...a scavenger hunt to find the next number. Niko had prepared a route for us that would be fun and interesting. We started getting soaked with a short but moderately intense rain shower. The bike path system is really amazing, we only had to back track 3 times, Lots of bicycles along the way, people going to work, families with kids, many older couples (60s,70s) going for a ride or having a picnic along the way, one tandem, as Steve said before, this is bicycle wonderland!
The goal was to get to Sneek (pronounced snake), or for the Fryslanders: Snits. In order to get there we had to cross an area full of canals and lakes with few roads so we had to catch 3 short ferries and since we started late it was the end of the hours they functioned, got a rush making it to all 3 and saved 10 extra miles around the park. We got to Sneek around 7 PM with the sun slowly setting. The hotel we found is in the main street on top of a restaurant and pub. The street was closed with barriers and the entire town was on the side walk waiting for something to happen ... when we came down to eat after showering we discovered that is was the local sport: couples go around in little carriages dressed like the old times, the man manages the horse while the woman tries to get a ring from a post with a big wooden stick!
We have many more stories for today.. we are saving them for the slide show. Next to north Holland to see the beach, tulips and cheese.

Sightseeing around Groningen

We're staying two nights with friends Esther and Nico, so today was spent touring the countryside around Groningen and a short trip in to the center of the city. The weather just keeps getting better every day. It was sunny and calm in the morning with a temp in the 60's. Partly cloudy later in the day but only a few drops of rain all day.

Riding through the countryside was like being in some kind of bicycle dream. Bike paths literally going everywhere, and people of all ages using them by the hundreds. Families, older people (even older than us), touring cyclists, and just people out for a nice ride. Lots of sheep, dairy cattle, horses, and shetland ponies to be seen everywhere. Canals are pretty much everywhere as well. With the land at or below sea level all of the water has to be drained in a complex system of ditches and canals. Amazingly it all works (at least until sea level rises too much)

Dinner back in the city center. In the morning we'll be fully loaded and off again headed towards Sneek. Amsterdam in another two to three days.

We found the flat lands: the Netherlands!

Another excellent day of riding with a little over 72 miles to Groningen, a nice University City out of the usual touristic route where our friends Esther and Niko live. If it was not for the overpasses and the dikes it would have been a perfectly flat route. Coming out of Germany, there were bike paths all the way, we stopped in a few places for pictures, like Papenburg, a small town with canals and replicas of old ships. Rheden, a border town where we had lunch and had a hard time getting a low fat meal...even the salad is covered by creamy dressing, cheese and some bright orange yolk, I was scared to eat (I will have to postpone working on lowering my cholesterol until I come back home). The garmin GPS, was amazing in bringing us right to the door our our friends country home through streets and roads that had bicycle designated paths. Amazing scenery with fields of wheat, corn, cows, sheep, horses and ponies feeding on the grass and canals with children fishing or people on boats and canoes.
After cleaning up and starting laundry we went off to town with Niko to dinner to a nice restaurant in the old part of town while Esther was at work. We finished the evening with a delicious chamomile tea and great conversation.
We are staying one more day in Groningen exploring the surrounding areas, I want to go to the "tea" museum and some older towns closer to the coast.

Bremen to Bad Zwischenahn

Back on the bikes today with much better weather. Pretty much cool and cloudy all day and not too much wind. What a nice change :-) We're in northwestern Germany and tomorrow will cross the border in to The Netherlands and hopefully on to see our friend Esther in Groningen. Mostly separated bike paths today running parallel to the secondary highways. All in all very pleasant riding.

After breakfast we toured some of the historical sights in Bremen, including the church originally built in 789 AD. Gee, only 1,000 years before San Xavier! The lunch stop was in Oldenburg which included a nice chat with a German lady who really wanted to tell us a good place to go. We were trapped with her :-) Two German guys tried to translate to no avail and eventually we had to make our escape. The stop for the night is in Bad Zwischenahn by a very scenic lake. Before dinner we did the 6 mile path around the lake then it was dinner at a nice Greek restaurant. The big excitement there was a lady at the next table passing out and having to be rescued by the paramedics and an ambulance. Looking forward to another impossible to understand language tomorrow!

Another nasty weather day, let's hop on the train!

There was wind and rain all night into the morning in Bredstedt. With no hope for the weather to change we decided to take the train south to Hamburg and find a connection to Bremen. We started the day with a great breakfast at the Hotel/cafe "Frida" and we ended up the day in a great west african restaurant in Bremen with a delicious meal and a good dose of beer for Steve, wine for Patricia and a bonus amazing liquor called "Amarula" made in Africa (yum!). You can appreciate the food in the pictures.
The German trains are wonderful, they are fast and on time, in the one from Bredstedt to Hamburg, the bikes traveled for free and we only paid 8 euros for the one from Hamburg to Bremen. The bike car fits several bikes and we were able to find a seat in the same car, we met several touring hopeful people who decided to use the train instead of suffering in the rain and wind. It was a little dicey to find our way in Hamburg without much German and for me no map (I feel lost without a good map...Steve says also with a good map...). We arrived in Bremen in the early afternoon and went around for a total of 4.5 miles on the bike until we found a nice hotel in downtown. We then went for a 5-6 mile run by the river and then off to find some good food around the corner. Tomorrow WE WILL RIDE! Enough of waiting for the rain and wind to stop... OK we will see how it is in the morning, the goal is to get to Groningen to visit our friend Esther in two days.