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May 29 Monday sunny Bicycle touring Holland We liked breakfast so much yesterday we had a repeat performance this morning. Minus the Snicker's bar. We were telling Bob and Amy how many cyclists we had seen in the dunes last weekend. Scores and scores of cyclists. Scads of cyclists. Hordes of cyclists. Cyclists of all shapes and sizes. I counted 59 in one mass cycle group that passed me one time on a cyclepath with another bunch of close to that number following on their tails. I had said to Sharon, "Gee, there's a lot of them when they all go out." Amy laughed. She told us that last weekend was National Bike Day. National Bike Day is one day a year and there we were, smack in the middle of it at the dunes. The rain knocked most of the entries in the sand castle competition down, but the winning creation was still standing. I saw a picture of last year's sandcastle competition winner. It was an enormous perfectly sculpted miniature medieval town. Admired more of Amy's paintings which are hung throughout the house. Amy says no matter how well she paints flowers or how many times she paints flowers, the outcome will never equal the perfection of nature. She says working with oil paints has taught her patience. Frithjof phoned and said he would give us a tour of Utrecht. Bob gave us a map and directions to Frithjof's place. He is living a five minute walk from downtown in a house rented from friends who are backpacking around the world. We set off on our touring bicycles and soon got lost. A fellow on a recumbent stopped and gave us directions. We eventually arrive at Frithjof's. He says that after our talk last night about there not being a good time to go travelling, he says that he's finally made up his mind to go to Germany. He's leaving in five weeks. He's found a job for two weeks during the day and the computer course he teaches at his Dad's company will be finished by the time he's ready to leave. Our tour started along Utrecht's canal. There are old buildings under the main street lining the canal. In the old days they used to deliver goods by canal to the various merchants. Above each door is a unique carving depicting what the business was (nowadays they are mainly pubs or restaurants). Saw a record shop and souvenir place as we strolled along the lower level. The architecture of the post office is most impressive. There is a very high ceiling with fresnel-like glass panels. The wall has carved black stone of a figure and a continent name. Coats of arms hang on one back wall. There is a huge stained glass window at the entrance. Very opulent indeed for a post office. We walked around the large church. There are gardens inside, but the church is locked as it was late in the day. The roofline has many odd angles and pitches. Supposedly it is a very strong church -- it's built over an area where three supposed lines of power intersect in the Earth. A bicycle, locked to the church's fence, looks like it's been overcome by a very strong force, too. In fact, it has become permanent art, bent practically in half by some bodybuilder. We're told that students in Amsterdam lose an average of three bikes a year to thieves ... and that is when the bikes are locked with two and even three heavy-duty bicycle locks. Frithjof said he used to add the cost of three bikes a year into the price of his tuition each year. We walk long the canal, back to Frithjof's. He has to leave to teach night course in A*, a new town in Flevoland. It was started from scratch a few years ago, giving modern city designers a perfect place to try new concepts. Frithjof says not much is different except it's growing so quickly that maps for it are constantly out of date. I think I've had some of those maps. Sharon and I cycle along a canal out of town ... which proves to be a tricky proposition, since the canals are concentric. We see groups of rowers. We see bunches of people fishing from a park bank. Eventually we bicycle across a bridge and before long we cycle out of the city and into the countryside, past herds of Jersey cows. Lots of people are out walking next to the cyclepath. We are cycling along the north bank of the Lek River. There is lots of (relatively speaking) pastureland. We cross on a river ferry to the Lek river's south side and head to Streefkerk, where we visited the commercial banks two weeks ago. Too bad it's late in the day and they're closed, because I would like to show them my shiny new Mastercard with its shiny new expiry date. A few kilometres farther along the bicycle path and we are back to the same camping spot where we stayed on the very first night of our Holland bicycle tour, by the picnic tables and windmills. Holland is so small, we've had to resort to using the same free camping spots more than once while bicycle touring here. |
