Trip date: June 22, 2019 [Click on a pic to enlarge]
We had an excellent Dutch breakfast at the hotel with fruit, yogurt, eggs to order, meats, cheeses, some really good croissants, and fresh squeezed OJ. Afterwards, we collected our bags and went out front to meet with the tour manager, Elliot, and DaeDae ("DiDi"), our cycling guide. We got fitted to our bikes and learned the rudimentaries of the shift mechanism, locks, etc, and got them set up for hauling the girls and the gear that we wanted to keep with us. The tour had a van that hauled our main luggage to the next stop. I wanted to make sure my many meds went with me as losing those would create major problems. As it turned out, the luggage always arrived ahead of us, safe and sound, at each stop. I was going to carry Isla (then 6 years old) and John was to haul Addie (4). Meghan hadn't ridden in many years, and was not ready to deal with a passenger. I've been used to Loni riding behind on the scoot for a decade, so wasn't too concerned. Hah. She and Loni would carry the side pouches with the water, packs, ponchos, etc. Since those hung low down over the rear wheels, the center of gravity wasn't an issue.
We set out through the streets of Haarlem heading for the seacoast, and encountered a few true hills that we hadn't expected. I think this first day had the most elevation changes of the trip. Even these were moderate, but as none of us was a regular bike rider we huffed and puffed. At one point, we stopped to allow the ladies to catch up. I was standing astride the center bar of the bike when Isla shifted slightly to look back and the whole bike slowly tilted left. There was no stopping it with just holding onto the handlebars, and we did a less than graceful sideways tumble with both of us tangled in the bike. DaeDae hopped over and got us extricated. I was more than a little embarrassed that we hadn't gone a couple of miles before I dumped us. I was even worse when it happened again a few miles on. Isla's pretty tall, so John and I switched girls and I got the lighter and lower Addie from then on. No further problems. We rode through green fields, hay fields, wild poppies, and along the sand dunes on the coast for about 15km, when we stopped for lunch at Tulum, a beach resort area. A side of lumpia, a tuna sandwich, and beer! The girls played in the sand while we got to know DaeDae a bit better. He's a student studying International Law and is contemplating Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, etc. You know which one we pumped for. As we were to find out, he's incredibly up on American politics and put us to shame with his knowledge of U.S. affairs.
After a liesurely lunch, we finished our total of 43km for this day in about 5 hours. Not bad for we septo's. We went through flat countryside with farms and lots of animals for the girls to spot, and through round-abouts that had bike lanes, to our destination of Leiden and the Golden Tulip Hotel. Our only casualty was Meghan veering off course into a holly bush when she couldn't make a turn. Some of the paths have quite narrow portions and sharp 90 degree turns where it's tricky to maneuver. A scrape, a cut, and wounded pride was the score. The hotel was a very modern, glass-faced building and was quite nice. We all opted for nice, hot showers and afterward walked to the old part of town for dinner. DaeDae took off on his bike to return by train to Haarlem for the night. He'd return in the morning.
The city is a college town, featuring Leiden University, the oldest in Holland. It boasts 13 Nobel prize winners and twins with Oxford. It being summer break, we didn't see many students about, but there were hoards of folks at outdoor cafes. We ended up at Scarlatti's for beer and comfort food along the Oude Rijn river, a branch of the Rhine delta. Great for people and boat-watching.
A slow stroll back to the hotel, watch a little Women's World Cup, and ZZZZZ's for our bods.
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