Netherlands July 19

We packed and left the Den Haag campground during intermittent rain, but it was clearing as we rode and soon we were free of most of it, leading to a pretty rain free day. I ate first breakfast in my tent, since I had been carrying a roll with cheese all yesterday, then we had second breakfast in De Haage at a bagel shop. Bill's biggest complaint so far has been that the cups of coffee are half sized and there are no refills.  It is also interesting that asking for tap water is frowned upon.  We rode north through very expensive properties, the heart of foreign diplomatic homes. Linda's bike had several loose spokes and so was out of round, of course.  So in Leiden we stopped at a bike shop, to which we needed to be directed, because of course everyone who lives in the village knows where it is, so why put out signs?  The mechanic (possibly owner) was very proud of his shop, which he should be.  He obviously was quite capable and thoughtful.  We left the bike with him for a few hours.  While we were gone, it started raining and he went out and put Bill's helmet where the padding would stay drier. He did a great job and pushed the job to the front of the queue to get us back up and running quickly.
While the bike was in the shop, we took the opportunity to visit an historical windmill.  Very cool, of course the operator lived with his family in the bottom.
The operator kept an extra of each part, to use as a template to make replacements for worn pieces. The rooms were astonishingly spacious; it doesn't look nearly so large from the outside. You are allowed to climb the extremely steep stairs to ascend to the upper levels, where the stairs become so steep as to almost qualify as ladders (the same steepness I encountered in the bed and breakfast access to my 3rd floor room).
		Most windmills have a plaque noting the year of build.
Incredibly complicated, the wheels and teeth are all wooden.	The museum had little models of all the different kinds of windmills.	This was the mechanism from keeping the mill from spinning out of control.
Looking out the door near the top.	The final ladder/stair was blocked off. This last level would allow access to the rafters of the roof, but probably not much else.  From the level with the "balcony", the operator had access to the sail shaft, the steering column and a hoist to bring sacks of grain up to load into the gravity fed hopper. They used the sail shaft to pull up the sacks through a trap door. Generally when you see photos of windmills, they are just the bare blades.  In low wind conditions, "sails" are unfolded and cover the blades to increase efficiency of the blades.  We only saw one windmill in our entire trip in use with its sails unfurled.	Weights were used to measure a farmers grain when he brought it to the mill.  The taxman was there to make sure the government got its share of the profits.
A huge steering wheel turns the blades and shaft into the wind.
	We tried out some of Holland's famous pancakes.  Bill and I shared an apple, ginger, cinnamon one. They were about 14" in diameter.  Very yummy!
I believe this is a polder windmill.  Its function is to pump water out of low lands and into the river, which is on higher ground.
I hope this photo is not indicative of how my hair generally looked, though if it is, I don't really want to know that.	We spent a lot of time photographing these two windmills.  The one with the speed limit sign in front was running and had two of its sails unfurled. The second one had a beautiful and functional garden out front.
	We cycled up the shoreline from there checking out windmills and gardens. The extensive dunes reminded me of Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan.
There was no way to really get lost, so we enjoyed the rolling terrain at our own paces. On our way into Zandvoort, we got a close up view of two reindeer, roaming someone's yard.
	More kite surfers skimmed the ocean, despite (or maybe because of) the weather. Stopping for coffee in Zandvoort, we got to meet the owner, who is a huge bicycling booster/ supporter. She keeps tire levers and a pump on hand and lets cyclists fill their bottles there.
The town/ city bike paths take three different forms. Shown here is one form; cyclists going both directions share the same path, which is segregated from traffic by a barrier. You can see that the barrier effectively keeps out traffic, but allows cyclists entry.  The second is to have painted lanes, one on each side of the street for each direction.  The last is to have streets which are closed to cars, but open to cyclists and pedestrians.  There are very few places closed to cyclists and one way streets are often open to cyclists going either direction.		It rained off and on, never quite soaking, but we didn't take off our rain gear, because each time we tried, it would begin to sprinkle again.
	In Haarlem, we wandered around lost for a little while, until a couple put us back on track. The lift bridges are interesting and plentiful.  I never could quite figure out how some of the tiny rural ones worked, since we never saw anyone go through them, but I think someone has to hop off the boat, hand crank it up and then hand crank it down.  Most don't have little operator booths like we have in Buffalo, but the bridges are mostly smaller. The counter weights on this one are typical and almost decorative.
Recreational and small cargo haulers share the canals. Again, the churches have obvious generations of building. The brick and stone are of totally different eras and you can often see where repairs were made with similar, but not exactly the same materials.
	At the campground, we discovered both sides of the railroad tracks.  There are two sides of the campground, the new and expensive and the old and cheap.  We are in the old/cheap side... We shall see what the night brings.	r

 

      

Netherlands July 18

The bed was soft, but someone had left the window open a smidgen and two Mosquitos had made it in. The first managed to bite me and woke me up, then kept me awake while I tried to kill it. In the morning, I was awoken quite close to breakfast time by the B&B owner gathering the breakfast stuff together.  Hadn't thought I would sleep in, so I had not set an alarm. I took advantage of the fabulous photo op from the third story window, taking in the rooftops and the cool view. Breakfast was an intriguing variety of stuff, from the more mundane scrambled eggs to two chocolate waffle crisps with honey between (stroop waffles). We also had crepes, to which I added real chocolate shavings the Dutch call "sprinkles", not to be confused with the junk Americans call sprinkles. There was also yummy butter, warm rolls and local cheese slices.  We retrieved our bikes from the hidden garden type alley behind the houses, where they had been locked overnight.

It took a little circuitous travel to get out of Gouda, since there is a lot of industry surrounding it and several highways. Very high winds forced us to draft a bit, but with the trailer, I am unable to contribute. Delft was a beautiful town, and  large.  We ate lunch at a bakery chain.  Everything is an experience.  I could look and point, but the menu was unreachable.  There were not enough cognates and I don't  know Dutch. Sara tried to help us, but there were three of us who didn't know Dutch and only one of her.  She really is extremely sweet and things would be much more difficult without her. Delft reminds me of Cork, Ireland.

Little tiny shops, but more tourists. The tourists mostly stay in the market square.  The church in the square looks like it was built in 4 distinctly different eras, with slightly different materials separating the parts. For the most part cars are not allowed in the town squares. This leaves an empty space for people to congregate that is about 2 blocks long.

We didn't visit the Delft factory, but the reputation and references to the style were obvious.  (At the end of the trip in Amsterdam, the Rijkuseum had a small exhibit on the origins of Delftware).

 We took the fast way out of Delft, choosing the more industrial space to travel to De Haag. Just on the outskirts of towns are expansive plots, which must be private gardens for the city folks.  They are not decorative (though they sometimes have really extravagant "tool sheds", but appear to be vegetable or cutting gardens. They remind me of the community gardens of Buffalo, but with more distinction between the plots.

 It was interesting, if not beautiful.  Miles and miles of greenhouses growing vegetables designed to grow tall (think 15 foot tall tomato plants and such), flowers for cutting and maybe some starter crops, all surrounded by grass fields mowed by goats and sheep. I think they rotate the sheep around the greenhouses, rather than have sheep for each side of the building.

Entering De Haag, Sara led us pretty confidently, because she has friends here.

Entry to Parliamentary Bldgs

We walked through the parliamentary buildings, where she pointed out that the members of parliament regularly ride their bikes to work, just like everyone else.



 

 

Bill and I went to the Escher museum, but since they had seen that museum so many times, Sara and Linda chose to visit another. It was pretty cool to see the real pieces, even though I have often seen many of the images.

Included were some nice interactive exhibits, including a silver sphere you were supposed to orient in order to generate an image similar to one Escher produced.

On our way out of De Haag we passed the Peace House, where war crimes are prosecuted.

A little further on, we were greeted by the ocean after a rise.  Wonderful humorous bronze sculptures welcomed you, including a cartoon "Little Dutch Boy" trying to plug a leak, which was basically a fountain.





The bike path along the ocean was parklike, traveling through old dunes. We came across this sign.  I burst out laughing. The "LET OP!" part I knew was "look out" or something akin to that, but the rest totally baffled me. Later I asked Sarah about it and she told me it was something like "wet cattleguard".  There were several long running references to glad wildroosters hereafter.

Then came the rain, cold and wind. The wind was welcome, because of our mostly northern travels.

Not much further on up the coast, along a dune path, we came to our campground. The sign here said "Camera Bewaking". We finally had a chance to try the Dutch version of French fries, which are served with a type of mayonnaise. Not bad. The showers and laundry I found confusing, but if I had just thought them out a little before hand I probably would have figured them out.  For the showers, you had to insert the money before you entered the shower room...

Netherlands July 17

We met up with Linda and Sara and left the hotel mid-morning, hoping to miss projected early rain. It was much easier to get around with Sara doing the navigating. Since she is at least partially familiar with the Netherlands, it might be easier, but in part it's because she is relying on a bike touring book. It is still a chore and she has to hold the book in her hand as she rides, because there is nowhere to put it. Hopefully tomorrow we can tear out some pages and place them in a seal-able bag.
 There was a witch weighing house in one small town (Woerden, I think). If you weighed too little, you could fly and thus were a witch. We ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe, scarfing yummy sandwiches, and I tried to buy a raincoat at a bike shop. Only problem is that many stores will not accept my credit card, because there is no chip in it. I had managed to get a card without a foreign transaction fee, but alas no chip.
Some prankster had cut apart a pair of rain boots and put them on the feet of a statue of a girl. Pretty clever, since they had to make laces up the backs.  It was really a double take moment, before you realized they were not supposed to be there.

Along the canal, boat traffic moved in both directions.  Some appeared to be commercial, but most was recreational. At intersections, there were still old streets signs, though many were very low and difficult to see.








 Gouda is laced with canals and often the front yard is accessed via a bridge across one.












We stayed at a B&B in Gouda, which has small quaint rooms. Mine is on the third floor and has almost a ladder rather than a staircase, it is so steep. We grabbed items from a grocery for "dinner" and tasted some of Linda and Sara's Old Cheese, after walking around town a bit.






Here is the view from my rooftop window (the window is similar to the one on the house across the street)

One of the rooms was large enough to accommodate a table at which we could all sit.

Netherlands July 16

I left at around 5pm Buffalo time.  The flight is about 8 hrs, but travels back 6 time zones. This puts me in early the next day. Last night I deliberately slept for only 4 hours, so sleeping on the plane would be less difficult. I watched one movie and then slept a bit, on and off. This flight has many empty seats and the one next to me was empty, making sleep much more comfortable and likely.  We passed a huge thunderhead spewing lightning, which towered above the surrounding cloud bank but we were above and to the side of it.  For the most part there is a continuous carpet of clouds below us, with some beautiful thunderheads, which we were above.

thunderhead

 Windmills near Windsor, Ontario and again in France maybe, an oil rig off the coast of Holland. The clouds below us over the ocean were distinctly cotton candy pink, even though we were long past dawn.

Note the field of wind turbines off the coast.

 

Totally a land of water

Bill managed to find me right off and gave me my first lessons in cycling in the Netherlands. It started raining as soon as we left the airport and never stopped, though at least it was about 60 or 65 degrees.  There are roads where the two way car traffic gets only one lane and the cyclists get two.  And the cars have to wait if there is not room for all to pass. The drivers scare me sometimes, because they are forced to pass so close, but they are used to it and there is no maliciousness.  Flying overhead it had looked like there were pastures without fences, ditches serving that purpose and while cycling around, it was clear that the ditches are quite effective for that purpose. Arriving in Utecht was an eye opener, since the first sight you come across is the red light district. Little rooms perched on the edge of the canal, about two in a space equivalent to a shipping container, the women show their wares through picture windows with red neon down the sides. They all had on bras and underwear and weren't terribly risqué, but most were talking or looking at their phones. It is unclear whether they are engaged in sex chat or talking to friends or just surfing. Just a little further down the canal, beautiful canal/house boats line the edges.  We have seen several windmills already.  It appears there are only 900 left, but they are heavily protected.  It is supposed to be as difficult to run them as to pilot a ship. We arrived in Utrecht quite soaked and searched for the hostel and then a specific hotel, but finally gave up in exasperation and took a pretty pricy hotel. We dried our clothes on the heating registers successfully. Utech isn't especially lovely downtown, mostly owing to the massive railway station construction going on, the rest owing to the rain and grey. Thousands of bicycles are parked on every permissible surface.
On a separate note, Bill got 2 free pieces of luggage, though he only used one and brought his boxed bike for $50 via Icelandic air, while I only got one piece of checked luggage and had to pay $80 for my second piece (that being my bike in its suitcase). He may have gotten a better deal, depending on how much he paid for his ticket. He threw out his cardboard bike box and will buy another for the return trip (I think maybe he said he can buy it from the airline for about $25).