2013_05_12 Vianen to Dordrecht

Breakfast @ 8:00 - On the bikes by 9:00 from Vienen.  Split up the day into two 16 mile segments.  Vianen to Schoonhaven (The Silver City) and then after lunch to Kinderdijk (The Children's Dike).

Antique tug boat parade going past where we were docked.  

There they go!

"Normal" Dutch weather approaching.

Ready to ride?

Old city gate into Vianen.

Looking around.

Rode around in Vianen for a real short time and then hit the road.  Started out going through several quaint villages.  It seems that EVERYONE in Holland takes pride in their homes.  Every home - and these are farm communities have landscaping that looks like it was done by a professional landscaper. No litter anywhere and every thing in it's place.

I thought I lost this image.  Found it!

Beautiful old homes along the way through the countryside.

Roofs are made with reeds from marshes.

Just a little house built in 1565!  The trees you see are lindens.  Trained to grow like this so that when they leaf out they provide shade in the summer.  In the winter they allow for sunshine and light.

Bike trail signs

Some of us carried a map with the list of bike paths to follow to your destination.  From S to 10 to 20, etc.  This is fine but the bike guide Tom often ignored the route and winged it!  Also not so fine if you leave the group in a small pack and maybe can't decide which way to go. 

Every bike path is laid out with easily understood markings to help you stay on the right path.  Each municipality in Holland has a numbering system for their bike paths, from 1 to 99.  If you have the supplied biking map supplied from our boat your entire trip is laid out for you.  At the top of the map is a series of numbers that correspond to the bike paths you are to follow to your destination,  The trick is to find the sign pointing to the next number as you come to a bike intersection.  Sounds easy right?  It was for a while until somehow 6 of us "got off the beaten path" for a while.  We six sort of bolted away from the "pack" because they were going so slow.  We missed a turn at one of the numbers and wound up on a bike path that paralleled a fairly major highway.  Unfortunately we then had to face a stiff headwind with very little trees to break it.  After we went quite a while it finally dawned on us that we were not seeing any numbers for bike routes.  We saw a town called Cabauw that seemed to lead us back to a bike path.  The fact that it was going away from our lunch spot didn't seem to phase the others.

Cabauw was a beautiful little town probably worth the side track.  

We hit the next intersection and stood there for quite a while trying to decide which way to go.  Four of the group wanted to go to the right but I finally confined them to go left (towards Schoonhaven).  We reached one more block where a sign told us to go to the left (as you look at it) for bike route 10.  This seemed wrong to me and we asked a local guy.  Another He laughed and told us the spot we wanted was about 100 meters to the right!  Over a short rise and there was the river and shortly after that the boat was moored!  We were so happy to see the boat again.  A very short time later the "rest" of the party appeared for lunch at the boat.  

So glad to "find" the boat again.

Old city gate of Schoonhaven.

After lunch I got on my bike and it was locked with no key in it.  Someone else locked my bike and took off with my key.  I had to go inside and tell Walter (the boat captain) my story.  After yesterday's lost time he gave me the elfish eye like what's wrong with this guy?  He gave me a universal key and we met the rest of the people at the church in Schoonhaven.  I got them all together and one of the Peter's owned up an threw me my key.  Back in business again.  I gave the universal key to our bike guide Thomas because I didn't want to lose it.

Canal in Schoonhaven.

Waiting for the ferry.

We took a ferry across a river and started towards Kinderdijk.  This 16 miles was just brutally windy.  It rained a little bit but nothing like yesterday.  Thomas said that the last trip he led the wind was always at their backs!  I would say that the last 8 miles were almost directly into a strong headwind.  Not fun at all - just a long pretty miserable slog.

Stopped for lunch here.

Old windmill

Crossing a bridge over a canal

Girls spirits still high?

Many windmills at the end of the ride.  Non functional - purely for tourists to take pictures!

At almost the very end we came to a string of 15 or 16 old windmills that yielded some pretty good images.  Had I known that they were right at the end I could have just ridden on the barge and rode less than a mile form the end to see them.  I guess the journey is the thing!  We had a poll going to guess how many minutes over or under 20 minutes it would take the "two Riches" to finish the ride.  We waited at the boat to see everyone finish.  I lost - I chose 20 minutes and they appeared 33 minutes after we did.  

Richie and Rich (up at the top) finish the journey!

The boat took off for about an hour's journey from Kinderdijk to to Dorddrecht where we moored for the night.  Dinner was a Asian theme with a curry soup with shrimp, flavored chicken with rice and veggies and a dish of ice cream with strawberries!  Awesome - some thought the chicken too salty.  I was just hungry.  We burned a million calories today - I just wanted to eat.

After dinner we took a short walk around the town with Thomas.  Again, a beautiful town - actually a pretty big town but being Sunday night it was mostly closed.

Tomorrow a slightly later breakfast (8:30) and more boat travel.  We ONLY have about 2.5 hours on the bikes before we re-board to a trip through the locks to Antwerp, Belgium.  We should have more to do tomorrow night in Antwerp.

We hope the internet situation will be better tomorrow and failing that I will try to get on at Antwerp in an internet cafe.  More later……. 

2013_05_11 Leaving Amsterdam

Woke up and packed our bags in preparation for leaving for the barge.  Met Richie and Bobi Steingart in our lobby and we started out for a breakfast.  Typical Amsterdam breakfast - pricey and not so good

After breakfast, we walked towards Hotel a (which was very near where our canal tour was to begin).  This was where Redikers' and several other couples were staying in Amsterdam.  Of course, there was a driving rain! Pretty wet when we got to the hotel.  Boarded and pretty much stayed inside as it was raining and cold.  

On the canal tour boat.  Rained the entire time.

The Anne Frank Museum from our canal tour boat.

We spent about 2 hours motoring around the Amsterdam canals and were dropped off ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER from our barge for the week (The Manifique). Little did I realize this would be a theme for the day.

This is a publicity image from the Magnifique's website.  Image was taken before the boat was renovated and 5 additional cabins were added.


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First sighting of The Magnifique

Crossed this bridge to get to our boat.

On the bridge.  Magnifique in background

Again, publicity image from the website.

Stowed our gear in our room (#10) for the week.  

 My bed.  Took this the last day before we left the boat.  Reality!  Stuff strewn about.

Both beds.  Small but we slept fine each night after all of the riding!

Porthole in our bathroom.  Etched glass (you could see out through the lettering.

We were given a introduction speech about what to expect during our week and were to meet around 4:00 for our first bike ride.  Seemed late to me but it didn't get dark until around 10:00 at night.  We were quite a bit north of Chicago.  10 degrees north - about the same as Newfoundland in Canada.

Boat skipper (and owner) Walter

Bike guide Tom.  First of many stories!

Everyone got fitted for their bike (which we would use for the week) and we were off.  I was bike #3 and Connie bike #28.

Bikes at the ready.  Were we?

Well, we'll see.....

 Soon after we were riding into a stiff headwind AND a pretty driving rain.  Even given that the ride was beautiful on little country lanes through quaint little villages.  Saw quite a few functioning 
windmills.  Big ones!  Rain stopped and skies got blue.



First windmill!

David Morse and David Tivoli - still in fine spirits!

Beautiful countryside!

Beautiful home along the path on outskirts of Breukelyn.

Made it to Breukelyn.

Right after here Peter and I stopped to chat up a local on a boat.  Mistake.

Harvey and Peter from the boat!

The lost boys' return!  Eventually......

We were only supposed to ride for a couple of hours (2 hours) for about 18 kilometers (12 miles).  We eventually arrived in Brukelen (the town that Brooklyn, NY) was named after and were told we had another 5 to 7 minutes to go to re-board the barge.  Peter Shapland and I stopped for a few minutes to talk to a fine fellow who was waitting in a 60 year old boat in the canal. Beautiful boat!  We then headed after our group only to have somehow become separated.  We went towards the river for quite a while and then headed the wrong way!  We doubled back and saw the barge in motion heading our way!  Nobody had realized that 2 of us were not on the boat!  Since we were on the wrong side of the river we had to ride an additional 5 miles to where we could cross the river at a bridge and rejoin the boat.  So much for no child left behind!  OUR ride became 3 hours and 18 miles.  Just a bit more efforting to arrive at our berth for the night Vianen!

View of dining area from website

Above is another image of a dinner table from the website.  

Bar area from website

Dinner was served just after we rejoined the boat - delicious soup, lasagna and a raspberry sorbet.  Nice meal.  We're getting the information about tomorrow's ride just now by our bike guide Tom.  Supposed to be raining quite a bit tomorrow with a stiff headwind!  32 miles. Nice.  

Finished out the night with a "walk" to Vianen for the fresh air.  Of course it POURED 2 minutes into the walk.  Perfect. Back to the boat like a drowned rat.  Good night, John Boy.