Cycling in the Netherlands keeps you speechless. I really have to ask myself why on earth I’ve never been there before. The country is simply beautiful, believe it or not. I know what I’m talking about: German bike ways are simply crap.
The first 2 days were really windy (2nd more than 1st). I wouldn’t mention the wind with tailwind. So it’s clear where the wind came from. 3rd day I took a day off. Usually it’s too early for a rest day just after 2 days of cycling. The campground was (officially) free of charge. There was nobody collecting the fee for the next few days.
To my fortune most supermarkets (even Aldi) are in the Netherlands open on Sundays, so I could stock up on my rest day with groceries and enjoy coffee and cake at the campground in my comfortable folding chair. BTW Aldi was just 200 meters from the campground away and the name of the city was Bolsward. Really pretty nice tiny town.
Monday I left Bolsward heading to the dam connecting Zurich/NL and Den Oever/NL. The dam is about 35 KM long. But to my sorrow the dam was closed for cyclist. Probably maintenance or more likely construction work. I could take the bus over the dam but lastly I decided to bypass the dam. I’m not in the Netherlands to take any buses. It was just 30 KM more of cycling and the scenery was still gorgeous.
The next few days were absolutely fantastic. Cycling through the suburbs of Amsterdam, Den Haag and Rotterdam was an experience of its own: Wide, wider, widest high speed bike roads with phased traffic lights. If you haven’t seen it you don’t believe it.
BTW a bridge in the vicinity of Rotterdam was closed for maintenance (only bicycles or all traffic? Probably former). So I had to bypass the (closed) bridge. Yes, definitely lots of bridges and waterways in the Netherlands.
The stretch from Quackstrand (pubic beach, about 15 KM SW from Rotterdam) to the Belgium border along the North Sea and the dams was one of most impressive sceneries in my life, absolutely with no exaggeration. Sceneries I haven’t seen before even after more than 30 years of cycling around the globe.
In Belgium the scenery changed. Almost every (even tiny) town along the North Sea had high story buildings, either hotels, apartments or whatever. Definitely not a place to be on weekends or during school holidays. These towns are very uniform. They all look the same. Either you are in Belgium, France, Spain or wherever else on the planet with mass tourism.
If I remember correctly (its already about 12 weeks ago) it got from day to day hotter. Temperatures in the very high twenties or very low thirties. For cycling very hot.
One night in the vicinity of Verdun there was a heavy thunderstorm with heavy rain and lightning. Very scary for about 3 hours. I took my folding chair and waited at the sanitary facilities until the thunderstorm passed by. Happily next morning was cloudy (and dry). The weather forecast predicted sunny weather for the morning. Why I wasn’t disappointed about the wrong forecast?
The last evening at the campground I met a French cyclist. He spoke very little English but somehow we had a nice conversation. He traveled very lightweight. During the preparation of our daily dinner (for me couscous with veges) the (very, very light) wind stopped suddenly and it got very uncomfortable. The air was to humid. I think this night I slept shirtless in the tent. Usually I feel uncomfortable without a shirt but it was to hot/sticky that night.
Last cycling day was fortunately cloudy and dry. Oh, I remember, they forecast rain for the morning so I packed all my stuff very quickly in the morning and had a nice breakfast at the campground hut. Very nice shelter (last picture in the gallery below). Most campgrounds don’t have any shelters. This one was thankfully an exception.
17 days from Bremen to Durbach, 16 cycling days, 1 day off. In summary a very, very nice trip.
On the interactive map below is the cycled track from Bremen to Durbach
Below are some pictures of my journey. The first 57 pictures are from the first leg: Durbach to Bremen via France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
