by Cassie, November 11th, 2009 | No Comments
Tuesday, September 19, 2009
Brugge is an amazing well-preserved medieval city. Brugge was an important center of trade during the Golden Age because it had direct access to the sea. However, when the channel to the sea silted up, Brugge was no longer a commercial center, and the city slept quietly until it was discovered by tourists. Now, the main industry is tourism. Brugge is a neat place to visit, but it is packed with hordes of tourists. As we walked into the city, we saw a parade of tour buses entering the city. We were there during September, and there were tons of people. I cannot imagine what it is like during the peak tourist season in the summer.
City gate
We climbed the Belfort tower, and the view was really neat. However, after climbing the church towers in the Netherlands, the Belfort tower was a disappointment for us. Unlike the Netherlands church towers, you were not able to be outside for the best view. Instead, you were inside the bell tower, and you could only look out the windows on each side. And, the windows had fencing over them obstructing your view. However, it was neat to be inside the bell tower when the bells rang on the half hour. It was really loud! The price for climbing the tower was also increased for all the tourist crowds. We only paid 3 euros to climb the towers in the Netherlands, and it was 8 euros to climb the tower in Brugge.
Canal with Belfort in background
View from Belfort tower
While in Belgium, it is mandatory to eat lots of Belgian chocolates! There are chocolate shops everywhere in Brugge, so it is easy to eat lots of chocolate. We stopped at The Chocolate Line, and the chocolates were delicious! My favorite was a white chocolate with a filling that tasted like rhubarb pie. We also went to the chocolate museum that traced the history of chocolate from ancient Mayans and Aztecs to modern Europe. However, they did not give any chocolate samples until you had gone through the entire museum getting hungry reading all about chocolate. I was expecting there to be more samples of chocolate in the museum. If I designed a chocolate museum, there would be chocolate samples everywhere!
Creepy chocolate statue that is eating itself at the chocolate museum
We also went on a boat tour along the canals. There are parts of the city that you can only see from the canals, and it was neat to go underneath the old, stone bridges over the canal. The guide for our boat tour was awesome! He had a perfectly-styled curly handlebar mustache. I had seen mustaches like that in the movies, but it was awesome to actually see one in person. 🙂 Belgium has so many languages that our guide had to give the tour in Dutch (Flemish), French, and English. It amazing they can get anything done with so many different languages.
Oldest bridge over the canal
Pretty gabled houses along canal
Swans swimming in the canal
by Cassie, November 11th, 2009 | No Comments
Monday, September 14, 2009
This was our last day in the Netherlands. The border crossing was totally anticlimactic. We only passed a sign for entering a new province in Belgium. The European Union has made traveling through different countries in Europe similar to traveling different states in the US.
Border crossing from Netherlands to Belgium
Before entering Belgium, we had a half day of riding through the Netherlands. We rode through Middelburg, a small city with an impressive townhall and church. They also had a flea market going on in the main square. It was fun to go through markets in European cities and see the items that are for sale. Sometimes you will see made-for-TV items being sold. In Amsterdam, we saw a man selling a special mop. He even set up a sample wood floor for demonstrating the amazing properties of his mops.
Final day of riding through Dutch countryside
Middelburg Stadhuis
Middelburg church
Middelburg flea market on main square
After leaving Middelburg, we went on our longest ferry ride of the trip. We have had great luck in the timing of ferries. We arrived a few minutes before the ferry left. We bought our tickets and boarded the ferry, and the ferry left immediately after we boarded. Once we arrived on the other side of the channel, we began riding inland, and we said goodbye to the North Sea. Sluis was the last town we rode through before leaving the Netherlands. It was neat city with an old fortification wall surrounding the city. Sluis had a huge shopping district that was packed with people. Apparently, Belgians go to Sluis for bargain shopping.
View of Sluis from old city wall
We followed a bike path along the canal that goes from Sluis to Brugge. It was a beautiful ride along the canal lined with huge elm trees. Brugge was a bigger city than I expected, and it was the biggest city we had ridden through since Den Haag. We arrived at rush hour, and there was tons of traffic with people driving like maniacs. We managed to ride through the city without getting run over by the crazy drivers and made it to the campground outside the city.
by Cassie, November 11th, 2009 | No Comments
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Today, we entered into Zeeland (“sea-land”), which is a series of islands connected by a series of bridges, tunnels, and dams. There are lot of beaches, and it is a popular place for tourists. The majority of the tourists come from Germany because their country is landlocked and does not have any beaches.
This was the first day of our bike tour where the weather was not very nice. It was cloudy with short rain showers throughout the day. It was also extremely windy! We saw a lot of windsurfers and kiteboarders taking advantage of the wind. The kiteboarders do jumps where they are several feet in the air. It looks like a lot of fun!
Windsurfers
Kiteboarders
Kiteboarders
It was exciting to ride across the exposed bridges between islands with the wind and the rain. The bridges had windmills on them, and it was so windy that you could hear the blade going “whomp, whomp, whomp” as it rotated.
Windmills on Deltaworks
Our campsite tonight could not be more different from our campsite from last night! Last night we were camped next to a wild party, and tonight, we camped next to a cow pasture. When we set up camp, the cows were right next to our campsite! The campground is run by a German man in the middle of the Netherlands. The reception sign was only in German, and the man only spoke German. We were not expecting to use our German yet, but we managed to pay for our night of camping in broken German.
Camping next to cows!
The campground was outside the lovely, small town of Veere with cobble stone streets and neat old buildings. The church was the most interesting part of the town. It looked really funny because they ran out of money to finish building the tower. Our bike book said it looked like a “stubby giant”. The church was enormous for the size of the town. The church also looked like it was heavily damaged during WWII. Some of the stained glass windows were bricked over, or they had put in several small windows instead. In contrast, the stadhuis (town hall) was a beautiful building with a lovely tower.
Church with stubby, unfinished tower
Damage to church
Marina and Stadhuis tower
by Cassie, November 10th, 2009 | No Comments
Saturday, September 12, 2009
We had beautiful, sunny day for riding, and we rode through the lovely Dutch countryside after leaving Delft. Then, we headed into a big industrial area by the canal that goes from the North Sea to Rotterdam. After crossing the canal on a ferry, we reached the lovely town of Brielle. This weekend was Monuments Weekend, so everything was open to the public for free. Brielle has a big church with a tall tower that we climbed. We had an incredible view from the top of the tower. I love the tile roofs that they have in Europe. The tile roofs are so pretty when you see them from above.
View from church tower in Brielle
The church also had people playing the organ every hours, so we sat and listened to the organ concert. The man who was playing the organ was rocking out, and you could feel the vibrations from the organ.
Brielle church organ concert
After leaving Brielle, we rode back to the North Sea coast. We crossed a huge bridge to enter the island where we camped for the night. The bridge had huge metal barriers that could be lowered to block the sea from coming in. There was a disastrous North Sea flood in the Netherlands in 1953, so they constructed a series of storm surge barriers called the Delta Works to protect the land from the sea. They are an amazing feat of engineering.
Storm Surge Barrier
It seems like there is always a party going on wherever we go. There was a big end of the season party at the campground the night we camped there. We were camped right next to where the party was, so we got to hear the band playing until late into the night with everyone singing along to the songs they knew. Thank goodness we brought earplugs!
by Cassie, November 10th, 2009 | No Comments
Friday, September 11, 2009
Delft is a really neat small city (population 100,000). It feels like a mini-Amsterdam with neat, old buildings along canals, minus the chaos of Amsterdam. When you ride your bike in the Netherlands, you feel like you are royalty. Delft had a guarded bike parking area! We left our bikes there, and we were free to wander around Delft without worrying about the bikes.
Submerged bike in canal
The highlight of our day was climbing the tower of the Niewe Kerk (New Church). The tower is 108.75 meters tall and 356 steps to climb to the top. The tower is the second highest church tower in the Netherlands after the church tower in Utrecht. We were able to go to the top of the tower by ourselves without a guide, which would have never been possible in the US. The climb to the top was up a narrow, steep, winding staircase. It was the same staircase for going up and down, and there was not much room to pass people coming from the other direction. They allow 60 people to climb the tower at the same time, which seems unimaginable in such tight quarters. We only passed two couples on the way up the tower, and it was a tight squeeze. The view from the top of the tower was amazing! You could see the big cities of Den Haag and Rotterdam. The top of the tower was a little scary because there was only a low railing preventing you from going over the edge, and it was a long way to the bottom of the tower.
Niewe Kerk
View from tower of Niewe Kerk with view of Oude Kerk
Looking straight down from Niewe Kerk tower - it's a long way down!
View from tower of Niewe Kerk looking across the main square to the Stadhuis
The Niewe Kerk is a Protestant church, so it is plainly decorated inside. It used to be Catholic church, but it was stripped of all its decorations during the Reformation. The church is also the burial site for most of the royal family, including William of Orange. During the Eighty Years War against the Spanish, William of Orange set up his residence in defensible Delft, but he was assassinated in 1584. Since the royal family’s traditional burial place was overtaken by the Spanish at that time, William of Orange was buried in Delft instead.
Mausoleum for William of Orange in Niewe Kerk
Delft has had a couple serious disasters that damaged both the Niewe Kerk and the Oude Kerk. First, a huge fire wiped out most of the city. It is believed that lightning struck the tower of Niewe Kerk, and then the fire spread to the rest of the city. Once they had rebuilt the church and replaced all the stain glass windows, there was a huge gun powder explosion in 1654 that blew out all the stained glass windows and damaged both churches. As a result, some parts of the church are relatively new. The stained glass windows were not replaced until the 1900s.
You cannot climb the tower of the Oude Kerk because it is leaning almost two meters off center! If you view the Oude Kerk from one of the bridges over a canal, it really looks like the church tower could topple over at any time. The tower has a big bell in it, but they only ring it on special occasions because the vibrations from ringing the bell could cause damage to the tower.
Leaning tower of Oude Kerk
Our only disappointment was visiting the Royal Delftware factory. Delft is known for their beautiful blue-painted pottery, so we wanted to see it made. However, it was really expensive to tour the factory, and while we were there, nothing was going on. It was Friday afternoon, and it looked like everyone had already gone home for the day. The big tour buses were parked outside the factory, so we learned a lesson that places with the big tour bus crowds should be avoided unless it is somewhere that we really want to visit.
by Cassie, November 10th, 2009 | No Comments
Thursday, September 10, 2009
We rode down the North Sea coast through the sand dunes and beach resort towns. It was a beautiful, sunny day with an awesome tailwind. We met other people that were riding up the coast against the wind. They were working really hard, and we were barely pedaling.
Riding through the sand dunes
We saw some people on the beach, but Zaandvort and the other beach resort towns must be completely packed on nice summer days. There was a sign before the beach parking lots that listed how many parking spots were still available, and they had over 4,600 spots! There was also a race track by Zaandvoort, which surprised me. I thought that auto racing was mostly a “sport” for the United States, but it appears to be an international “sport”. We also rode by a sand sculpture contest in one of the towns, and all the sand sculptures had a Disney theme.
Sand Sculpture Competition: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
After leaving the coast, we rode through the big city of Den Haag, and we got completely lost. The bike routes are well-marked until you get into the city when you really need signs to point the way, and it becomes harder to find the bike route. We finally found our way again, and we were glad to get out of Den Haag. We were thinking of taking a side trip to Rotterdam, which our bike book called the “beast”. However, after riding through Den Haag, we had no inclination to ride through an ever bigger city. We rode on to Delft and camped at a campground outside the city. We rode through Delft on the way to city, and it was a such a neat-looking place that we decided to spend the next day exploring the city.
by Cassie, November 10th, 2009 | No Comments
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Since we had a short day of riding today, we did a big loop around Recreatiegebied Spaarmwoude. As we were riding along, we happened upon a ruined castle. It was our first castle of our Europe bike tour! Neither one of us had been in a real castle before, so it was exciting to take a tour of it. We climbed to the top of the ramparts and saw the view that the castle defenders would have had watching for invaders. This was the oldest castle ruins in the Netherlands, built originally in about 1280. It was completely destroyed twice. The first time it was destroyed, it was rebuilt on the same foundation. The Spaniards destroyed it the second time, and it was abandoned afterwards. The castle is near the sand dunes, so it was buried beneath the sand until it was discovered in the 1800s and restored by the Netherlands government.
Castle Ruins
View from the top of the castle
We rode into Haarlem to the Grote Markt and did the Rick Steves experience. We got the raw herring sandwich from the herring stand on the main square. I was not expecting to like the raw herring, but it was surprisingly good. During our time in the Netherlands, we ate several raw herring sandwiches.
Haarlem Cathedral
Haarlem herring stand
After a short ride from Haarlem, we made it to the coast of the North Sea! It was really windy on the coast, and there were tons of kite boarders, windsurfers, and surfers out on the water.
Cassie triumphant at North Sea coast
Kite boarders
We camped in sand dunes, and the campground was enormous! The campground had almost 900 campsites, and it was completely packed with people!
Sunset over the dunes by our campsite
by Cassie, November 9th, 2009 | No Comments
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
We spent the morning walking around Edam taking care of some errands. Edam was another cute Dutch town with canals running through it. We found the VVV (tourist office), and we managed to find the bike maps we needed. The tourist office in Amsterdam was out of stock of the bike maps we needed, so we were only able to get a map that would get us a little past Edam. The little tourist office in Edam was better stocked with maps than the tourist office in Amsterdam. The Netherlands has the best method of navigating the bike routes. All the intersections have a number, and each intersection has signs pointing the direction to the next numbered intersection. Instead of following signs to a specific town, you go from 12 to 15 to 14 and so on. It was really easy to figure out which direction you needed to go.
Edam
We rode out of Edam and had an enjoyable ride along a dike by a canal through the Dutch countryside. Then, we left the countryside and entered an industrial area by Wormer. There was a huge chocolate factory there, and the whole area smelled like cocoa beans! We left the industrial area and rode through Zaan Schans, where there were lots of windmills. We toured one of the windmills that was being used as a sawmill. It was really neat to look inside a working windmill. We wished we would have had more time to spend in Zaan Schans, but it was getting late. We still had many kilometers to cover to reach our destination.
Zaanse Schans windmill
Inside sawmill at Zaan Schans
We took our first ferry across the big canal by Zaandam. It was awesome because bikes got to ride the ferry for free!
Cassie on our first ferry
We were aiming for Haarlem today, but we did not make it to Haarlem since we had so many errands to do today. Fortunately, there are campground everywhere in the Netherlands, so it was not a problem to find someplace else to stop for the night. In addition to getting bike maps, spare inner tubes, patches, and groceries, we also bought a camp stove. We could not bring our camp stove on the plane, so we had to buy a camp stove in Europe. It is a small stove that runs on canisters of gas, so we thought we could get it back home with us on the plane. It was exciting to have a camp stove and cook our first hot meal of the trip! We camped in a recreation area just on the other side of the canal. The campground was more like a resort! It had a restaurant, a snack shop, and a swimming pool. The campground was also on the approach path for the planes coming into the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. Even though we were camped in the middle of the forest, we could hear planes all night long!
After we had unpatched inner tubes on my bike, our second day of riding went smoothly. It encouraged us that we could really make it all the way to Budapest!
by Cassie, November 9th, 2009 | No Comments
Monday, September 7, 2009
Everything seemed to be ready to go for the start of our bike tour when we realized that the back tire on my bike was flat again! We had just changed a flat on the same tire the night before. We changed the tire, but afterwards, we could hear the air leaking out of it. We changed the tire again and put on our second and last spare inner tube. The tire seemed to be holding air, so we crossed our fingers and headed out on our bikes.
Heading off our bike tour of Europe!
Before even leaving the city of Amsterdam, we came across our first windmill in the Netherlands!
Windmill on the outskirts of Amsterdam
We had just gotten out of the city when I realized the back tire was flat yet again! This was a problem that plagued us for the entire day. I got a total of five flat tires on our first day of riding. We finally realized that patches we were using on the tires would not hold with all the weight on the bike. We were using the stick-on patches, and normally, they work fine. The following day, we found a bike shop and bought some extra spare inner tubes and the glue-on patches.
Despite the challenges with the bike, we enjoyed the ride. The Dutch countryside is beautiful! We rode along a dike through farms with pastures for sheep and cows.
Dutch countryside
Sheep!
We also rode through cute, small Dutch towns. And. of course, there were lots of windmills, both modern and old-fashioned.
Cute Dutch town
We were worried about making it to Edam without proper patches for my back tire, so we tried to stop at the first campground on the map in Volendam. We got to the campground, but it was a campground only for caravans. We talked to a nice couple from Scotland at the campground, and they said there was a big festival going in and the streets were full of drunk people. On our way to Edam, the bike route went right through the middle of the festival. The Scottish couple were not kidding about the drunk people! The streets looked like a scene of a wild party with tons of trash strewn all over the streets. The streets were so full of people that it was impossible to try to ride through it. We managed to find our way around the festival, but we lost the bike route on the way. We stopped to look at the map when a really nice man stopped to help us. He actually rode ahead of us to show us the way to Edam! Fortunately, my bike made it to the campground in Edam. However, when we returned to our bikes after paying for camping, the back tire was flat yet again. It was a rocky start to our bike tour, and it made us doubt that we would make it all the way to Budapest.
by Cassie, November 9th, 2009 | No Comments
For those that are interested, I am going to provide detailed entries of our bike tour through Europe. So, stay tuned!
