This is Part 1 of 2…we have been without internet since we arrived.
On arrival we tended to the usual organizational items that had to be accomplished prior to getting underway. We were met by Puck at Schiphol…what a special treat! By chance Puck was on her way to Haarlem to visit her sister and celebrate her own birthday, so decided to greet and travel with us, Haarlem also being our first destination. It was a brief, and happy re-alliance of three quarters of the “two bottle night club” first established in 1981 during our extended visit to Holland at the conclusion of a 6 month trek. Sadly Joop passed on far too early from our lives, but I know he will be in our thoughts often as we peddle through the low lands in the coming weeks.
After multiple train rides between Haarlem and Amsterdam we managed to secure our bikes and maps in Amsterdam, load everything up in Haarlem and with a few funny happenings managed to get ourselves together with our addled brains by train to Hilversum just south east of Amsterdam. Along the way we encountered dysfunctional elevators in train stations supposedly used to lift bikes between train platforms that either barely fit one bike at a time or were not functioning at all. One fellow watching us engaged in cramming a single bike into a “Fiets Lift” at Amsterdam Central could only laugh with us, remarking, “typical Dutch”, and, “Only in Amsterdam!”. At one station the elevator was not operating forcing us to use the escalators. Normally an easy task, it was quite another thing man-handling two fully loaded bikes on a steep moving stair way. Annemarie, being the smaller of the team was finding herself going backwards more than forwards at one point…however we have learned in our travels to never underestimate the kindness of strangers who were there again this time to help her to arrive at the top!
Somehow and somewhat jet lagged we managed to find our way to Hilversum by mid-afternoon on a warmish May day (27C). We had been unsure if we would have enough juice in the legs to start riding at this point, but a shared Snickers bar, a couple of bottles of water and a touch of adrenaline put us right! With a deep breath, off we went.
Cycling Heaven…there is absolutely no other way to describe it...simple as that, end of story. From the moment we set off we knew that this is what we had been looking for. All the long walks and ‘training’ rides at home over the years spent kicking around the idea of cycling in Holland had suddenly crystallized into this moment! With two big smiles on our faces, we must have looked like pretty friendly cyclists, more likely a bit off in the head!
The first ride was intended to be short, only 30kms in order to get our sea legs, but it quickly extended to 40kms, albeit not by design. Riding in Holland is pretty straight forward once you get the hang of it. So a short lesson on route planning is in order. There are two types of cycle routes (fietspad) to choose from or combine to help you to reach your destination, either the National Routes (LF) or Regional Routes (RR). The LF routes are identified on the maps with solid green lines and dotted green lines are used to identify the RR’s. Where any two routes cross and form a junction (Fietsknooppunt) a number is assigned to the junction and at each junction there is either a number sign with a green circle around it or a 4-sided “mushroom stool” with direction arrows and town names/distances on each side.
Sometimes you miss these markers as the “mushrooms” are by chance just the perfect height for a local to sit on comfortably! The corresponding junction numbers are…you guessed it, also conveniently identified on your map. So once you have determined roughly where you want to go, all you have to do is take note of the ‘numbers’ then put the map into the detachable plastic cover on the top of your bar-bag and basically head off in the direction of the first numbered junction. Its basically riding by the numbers! However, a bit of jet lag seems to add a certain element to this numbers game and our first ride occasionally turned into a Sudoko puzzle!
We did eventually find our way to Odijk where Annemarie’s cousin Win has graciously offered us his place while he is house-sitting elsewhere. So here we sit for the first 3 nights with a day visit to the beautiful city of Utrecht with Win as our scholarly guide. Later that evening we were hosted by Win and Annemarie’s Tante Thea at her home in Werkhoven which is Annemarie’s mother’s family village. After dinner we enjoy a beautiful sunset, waterside walk complete with a castle and ducks the 4kms back to Odijk for a well earned sleep.
