Skip to main content

Stage 15 - Gouda to Haarlem 65km (24-Jun-2019)


Back in the saddle after a couple of lovely sunny days in charming Maastricht with our daughter Jessie who flew in from London. Hadn't seen her since she left Sydney early February.
Today's route created by my mate, Ellwood was beautiful and going through Leiden made it that much more special.
After a quick breakie, we hit the road around 9am on a lovely warm day, trusting that we would get into the cycling rhythm after Maastricht. You can't help but get into the rhythm with the sun on your back and bike paths, smooth as, along canals/dikes or flower beds and it didn't take us long.




The cycling infrastructure is second to none here and long may it continue. The Dutch take full advantage of it, as one sees people of all ages, from young toddlers to grandpa's and grandma's cycling.
Moving along, we rode into Leiden; it was that time of the day when Ursi needed her morning fix of decaf coffee. just as well for 2 reasons, one, it was the best coffee she has had in Netherlands (a happy wife is a happy life) and two, we got to discover one of the cutest little towns.










The ride after leaving Leiden was uneventful, but beautiful all the same as we rode on perfect clearly marked bike lane along this canal with very little traffic  




Coming into Heemstede, where we had to collect the keys to our apartment in Haarlem, on a path through the woods was also very special especially as it gave us some relief form the hot day.



Finally arrived in Haarlem where we plan to stay for a few days to explore Amsterdam and surroundings. 


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stage 22 - Schengen to Wasserbillig via Trier 70km (24-Jul-2019)

All good things come to an end (more about that later). Today's stage along the River Moselle was a late addition into our itinerary; more opportunistic than anything else. We decided to spend a couple of days in Luxembourg, 1 day visiting Luxembourg city, (which is one big construction site at the moment) which we did yesterday and 1 day to ride somewhere, which is what we did today on a seriously hot day with the temperatures hitting 38deg. Early start to catch the 9.05am bus to Schengen, where the treaty to open up the European borders was signed, yes, local buses to take bikes. Un loaded our bikes on arrival at Schengen and made our way a few 100 meters to the magnificent bike path on the Luxembourg bank of River Moselle; the other bank is Germany, to the town of Trier (Karl Marx's birthplace) in Germany. Must admit the river appeared a tad untidy but the landscape of vineyards were breath taking. Stopped a few time to take some photos of birdlife, towns an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stage 12 - Bled to Ljubljana - 62km (21-May-2019)

Didn't sleep well last night and waking up to a rainy day with grey skies was not ideal. Looking on the bright side, it wasn't cold. Never thought I would say 11 degrees as not cold but thats what it was. Max (from Austria), the guy I met yesterday; we briefly discussed what challenges lay in front of us and how best to dress for it on our respective bikes, him on motor bike and me on my pushy. After a fond farewell, Max was the first to leave with me half an hour later by which time the rain had ceased but the roads were pretty wet with patches of pooled water, just what a cyclists doesn't need. I was very mindful riding out of Bled doing best to avoid car/bus/trucks spray and the occasional splash of water from the water pooled on the roads. Captured this photo which hopefully depicts what my day looked like making my way out of Bled. Mainly on bike paths and occasionally on minor roads through small villages which by now were coming alive with cars and people about ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stage 16 - Haarlem to The Hague 53km (28-Jun-2019)

One of the many good things about bike touring for us is taking time out to smell the roses and the 3 days spent in and around Amsterdam was a point in case. Our base in lovely Haarlem: A day and half in fabulous Amsterdam: A day in fairy tale town, Geithoorn But all good things come to an end, so today, we were back in the saddle and through a combination of good luck and planning, we rode a fabulous route to The Hague. It turned out to be a ripper of a day's ride. Given, it was a short ride, we took our time over breakie and getting ready; left Haarlem around10am and experienced riding (on, as always, nice bike paths) a bit of everything today. We cycled through, forests, little villages, along canals, past lakes, next to a golf course, sand dunes, even a National Park (Noordwijk-Binnen) with deer and along the North Sea. Just before we entered the LF1 route, we caught site of a bright purple lav...
Post a Comment
Read more