Cyclists on Vacation: Exploring Noordwijk and Noordwijkerhout

June 22nd , 20km cycled, 20km so far

After a good nights sleep we woke up ready to check out the breakfast offerings here at the NH Leeuwenhorst.  The hotel is fairly expensive and certainly the lunch we had on Saturday was pretty pricey for what little we ordered.  When we were on our long walk into Noordwijk aam Zee and back, we didn't see any place to shop for any kind of groceries, not even a convenience store to speak of.  The hotel is really out in the countryside, 3 or 4 kilometers from either Noordwijk or Noordwijkerhout, so the facilities here are what you depend on for food.  (By the way, the wijk part of those names is pronounced 'vike', the j is silent)  Which reminds me to comment on how pretty it is here, with farmland out front and a forested parkland behind the complex that is the hotel and conference center.  The first thing we noticed as we started our 'Longest Day' walk was the number of different song birds we were hearing.  Many of them were very melodic.  And you can hear them in the morning from our room, including one that squawks like the rare tropical bird in the movie 'UP'.  At least that is what it reminds me of.  But, back to breakfast.  We were pretty hungry and the included breakfast lived up to expectations, given that this is a higher end hotel.  Lots of breads, cheeses, fruit, yogurt, bacon, juices, milk, cereal, omelet made to order;  well, let's just say we had a good breakfast.

We went down to the front desk to rent bikes.  Now let me say this about bikes:  Bikes are everywhere, and everyone (meaning all ages) rides bikes.  All the main roads have dedicated bike paths, either a 2 way path on one side of the road or lanes on both sides of the road.  When there is no dedicated bike lane, it is only because the road is low traffic and the bike shares the road.  If it is a one-way street for cars it usually has a sign indicating that bikes can go both ways.  The only exception is the freeway and with the freeway there is always a road right next to it that has the bikeway included.  It's really easy to see where to go and when you are planning, you can pretty much expect to find a good bike path or shared road to go anywhere you want. 

Now here are the caveats:  Bikes and bikeways are as much a part of the system as cars and roads are.  There are lots of traffic circles with bike paths going around them and criss-crossing the entry and exit lanes for the cars.  Sometimes the bikes have the right of way, sometimes the cars.  There are signs and you have to pay attention, just like you would if you were in a car.  If you have right of way, you make eye contact and try not to hold up the cars that are stopping for you and waving you across :)  Likewise, you have to pay attention to the rest of the bike traffic.  Pretty well all the bikeways are either marked as 2 way or are still considered to be 2-way anyway.  If there are narrow bike lanes on both sides of a road then you can assume they are 1-way, but if they are separate from the car road itself (as in 'not just a shoulder lane') then you need to be aware of faster cyclists who may want to pass you on the left.  Which brings me to the thing that took the most getting used to:  Scooters (as in small motorcycles) are allowed on all but a very few specifically marked bike paths.  They travel at about 40 km/hr or maybe even faster, it's hard to tell,  let's just say that they are zipping around all over the place, especially up from behind.  Bells or horns are mandatory on bikes, but nobody uses them.  They do, however, use hand signals and expect us to as well.  So you have to get used to the fact that bikes are so much a part of the traffic system that, in fact, you ARE part of a traffic system and so you must ride according to general rules of the road/path like you would if you were in a car.

This is not to say that it isn't enjoyable, lots of the paths are wide enough that you can pedal 2 abreast and still pass or be passed by others.  And as you will see in the pictures, there are lots of beautiful stretches.  Lanes for cars are very narrow by north american standards and when shared with bikes on the minor roads cars tend to be patient and bikes tend to have right of way.  I have been really loving it.

Now finally, one more thing about bikes before I move on to the travels of the day:  When we first observed all the bikes left here and there and everywhere, we thought they were all being left unlocked.  But then we noticed that all bikes have a built in lock like the one on my rented bike shown here.  When the key is in, the rear wheel is unlocked and the key stays in while you are biking.  When you stop you lock the bike, taking the key out, and if it is rented, then you return the key.

So here is my bike, locked with the key out.

And here it is with the key in, ready to go


















Well cycling is one of the main things we intend to do on this trip.  So when we got through with breakfast, with this being the one day Erika would have before her conference got underway, we were anxious to get underway.  The hotel has a large inventory of bikes under the parking platform and they just give you a key at the desk and you go out and find the bike with the key number on it.

We decided to retrace our walking path from yesterday to get a good look at the ocean and the seaside town of Noordwijk.

Back on the sand at Noordwijk, it is always windy here, I think, so they rent space behind all those windbreaks

Marvin is saying "Hey look, sailboats!  I want to go there.

We were there at just the right time to see over a half dozen of these launch over the space of less than half an hour.  It was very interesting as it was quite tricky in the fairly strong wind and with good sized waves breaking.  Some knew exactly what they were doing and a couple had quite the struggle.

This guy knew what he was doing, kept his sail full while heading into the waves

Some would get broadside to the waves and the wind and each wave would really buck them up and wash them back toward shore and down the beach.  The one with the coloured sail is being lifted off the wheels that are used to roll them down to the water.

Once they got out past the surf, they could turn broadside to the wind and really boot it

Heading up the hill from the beach to the town

Farther down the beach, the main street of town opens up leading away from the beach

Now we discovered the real centre of Noordwijk aam Zee where there were lots of shops and lots of people.  Lots of fun and we found a cheese shop with samples of all their cheeses so we were able to try them and select our favourite plus some fruit breads.  Really yummy!

As we continued, we left town for a bit then found ourselves in the other part of Noordwijk, Noordwijk-Binnen.  Erika turned into the main alley with shops. Notice all the bikes.

Typical path on our ride back

As we ride, various towns or villages will pop up

In the afternoon we rode over toward Noordwijkerhout proper, looking for the downtown/shopping area. We missed it at first, riding out of town then turning around and wandering about for a while until we found the church and downtown area.

Downtown square, Noordwijkerhout

Bench of the day

We found a Dirk supermarket and picked up some fruit and bread

Main street with shops

More views of the square. 

The lovely road back to the conference center

We had really beautiful weather and picked up some nice supplies.  We found prices to be much cheaper than we expected.  Back at the hotel, we find we have cycled a total of about 20km.  

Longest Day of the Year

Friday-Saturday, June 20-21, 2014

In the Buffet for breakfast

Friday morning found us (Erika and me) up shortly after the crack of dawn, very excited with anticipation, of course.  Everything should be ready for our departure, I just needed to call our friend, Bob Gauthier, to make sure he was coming to pick us up to take us to the ferry.  Nope, didn't need to do that after all, Bob called us instead.  Thanks, Bob :)

Hey, We made the ferry, we are on our way!

So we're off to the ferry, schlepping our bags,  checking them with bus company that will take us to the airport from Tsaawassen, then a nice breakfast in the Pacific Buffet
where we have a great view of the crossing, then on the bus for the ride to the airport.  All of this is fairly familiar, even though I've only done it a couple of times before, still it's pretty standard Vancouver Island exit routine.

Ok, so now we're at the airport only 3 and a half hours before our flight, so certainly nothing seems rushed. We check our bags with Air Transat which is at the far end of the international airlines area.  Once through security we are the first to flop down in the waiting area outside the gate for our flight.  A couple of hours later the flight crew and front desk start to show up and eventually we are on the plane, which turns out to be not crowded at all, since at least a third of the passengers won't get on until Calgary.  Even as we leave Calgary the flight is still not too crowded, there is a row behind us that is empty and we have the seat between us empty, so a little more comfortable than usual.

Now about that longest day thing:  I had been thinking "Hey, it's an overnight flight, maybe the darkness will make it easier to sleep on the flight.  Trouble was half way through the flight, we're over Greenland and I do a calculation that tells me it's somewhere between midnight and 1 AM local time and the sun is still streaming in the porthole window on the north facing side of the plane and suddenly it occurs to me:  "Holy cow!  It's the summer solstice and we are up over Greenland during the middle of the night.  We are NOT going to see the sun go down today!"  Well we didn't :)

We landed in Amsterdam a little ahead of schedule which turned out really well for Erika and me because it made our timing for catching the shuttle bus to the conference centre in Noordwijkerhout work out perfectly.  Customs was a complete non event, even before we got to the carousel that would have our bags, there was a series of gates and we lined up in the "everyone else" line (as in EU passports or everyone else)  and they took a quick look at our passports, stamped them and even with the line up it only took about 5 minutes.  Then after about another 5 or 10 minutes the bags started to arrive on the carousel.  So thus it was that even though our flight was scheduled to get in at 11:45 AM we still caught the noon shuttle that had been set up for conference participants and didn't have to wait for the one at 3 PM.

Now the thing about noon in Amsterdam is that it really was only 3 AM back home, so with all the excitement and how well it all went, I wasn't doing so bad at all.

Now the real part of the holiday was beginning, a bus ride, unlike a plane ride, is much more like a tour because you can really see things:

First thing I noted was that at the airport it looked like I could still be in Vancouver.  Vegetation is pretty much the same, Big screen TV towering over the bus queue, lots of big corporate ads and billboards, many of them familiar, about the only thing that looked a little different was the smaller service vans that were more of a European shape.  Then into the country, and from the pictures, you will see that things start to look different:

On the bus, nothing looks very different out there

Nice fields and crops, just like the lower mainland

Wait a minute, what's this, a boat in a canal?

Aha!  Now this is really starting to look like Holland!

And there you have it!  How iconic is this?

So the bus ride was great!  It was like being on a tour, I can always provide my own commentary, ha!  There are more pictures but I have discovered that I forgot to bring something to extract pictures from the camera with.  Electronics shops around here seem to be closed on Monday as well as Sunday, so the remaining pictures will have to be added later. (Actually, I now have the necessary hardware and so am finally posting this blog entry a few days late )

Once we had arrived at the conference center, checked in, had some lunch at the onsite bar/cafe and waited for our room to be ready, it was about 3 PM and we crashed for a while.  Then around 8 PM we thought we would like to go for a walk because it was such a beautiful day and so we asked at the desk for a map showing us how to walk to the ocean.  "But" they said, "it will take 45 minutes to walk one way"  Actually, I figured what with the way we would dilly dally along, it would probably be more like an hour each way.

But, what the heck, for us it was still the longest day of the year, after all the sun still had not gone down.  So we set off for Noordwijk aam zee, which was about 4 km away, plus the 10 minute detour we took when we turned too soon on to a dead end street. 

A field where the tulips have already been harvested.  The conference center is behind the trees to the left.  The tower is part of it.

Such a lovely walk down a quiet lane.  We see more bicycles than cars.  This is after 8 PM

Erika noticed the snails crossing the road.  This was on the section of "detour" we made down a dead end.

This house has a tile roof

this one,

A Thatched Roof

We did see some lilies still growing

I get pretty excited about these signs that show all the different bicycle routes you can take

The bench picture.

The road is over on the left, next to it is the bike path, then the pedestrian path, then the canal.
Look how long our shadows are getting.  It's going on 9 PM

Oh my! A hill!  Didn't think we would see any of these

Actually, the hills are because we are now close to the ocean and they are dunes

Look, we reached the North Sea

At the top of the walkway down to the beach

So we discover that Noordwijk has miles of broad sand beach.  We walk around looking at the beach restaurant/resort area and then kind of reluctantly head back, so as to arrive before dark.  Just a few minutes before arriving back at the hotel we see the gorgeous sunset looking back the way we came from the sea.  It is 10 PM and the longest day has finally come to an end for us.  Some 33 hours of broad daylight have finally ended the longest day of my life!   And that's a very positive thing :-)

June 19th, 2014 - Why the blog or How did this all get started

This whole blogging thing is new to me. While I have enjoyed the blogs of many others, I have never ventured to create one myself. So, why the change? Well, last year Marvin and I did our first bike touring trip down the Willamette Valley in Oregon. While on the trip I wrote daily epistles via email to those who I thought would interested. Some of those people forwarded them on to others. Then, a few months after the trip, my iPad had a few problem and I lost my copies of all the notes I had written. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve my notes from a sent folder I had not as yet emptied. However, that experience made me realize that I didn't want to only rely on my iPad so thought that starting a blog might be away of insuring my notes are not lost and that those who are interested in what Marvin and I are up to can keep track of us as we explore Germany by bike.

Yes, Germany by bike! We are so excited and the first day of our adventure begins tomorrow. Tonight we pull together the threads of weeks of preparation and in the morning we are off.

Our interest in bike touring started when our good friends Steve and Dodie Miller started doing tour cycling several years ago. Steve has been a faithful blogger for each of their trips. If you are interested in their exploits you can find them be googling "Grampies go by the books". I have to say, Steve has a very amusing way of expressing himself so his blog is very entertaining. Back to our interest in cycling. In any case, reading their blog and visiting with them got us excited to try out tour cycling for ourselves.

 Now I need to make it clear that we are not the hard core cyclists that Steve and Dodie are. With my fused ankle, extra weight and undependable right knee, hills are not just a challenge but also very painful. But... We wanted to cycle. Marvin then did a great amount of research and came up with the idea of us using ebikes. The ebikes give the extra push I needed for hills while still providing exercise at the same time. As we want to go at least 50 km per day, we use minimal power on the level, or none and save the power for hills.

Last year we started by doing trips around some local islands so I could work on distance and hills. We then topped off the experience by doing the Willamette Valley.

Then something exciting happened! The International Nurse Educators conference for 2014 was announced to be taking place in Amsterdam. The conference would take place just after we finished clinical practice for the term. That meant I could go to the conference, cycle in Holland, visit my brother and aunt in Germany and, drum roll please.... Plan a cycling trip in Europe!

So, this is the plan. We fly to Amsterdam tomorrow. The conference runs for three days. We then will spend a few days exploring some towns in easy cycling distance from where we are staying (we will rent bikes at the hotel). We will then take the train to Rotterdam, do some exploring there and then get picked up by my brother and niece. We will then travel down to Frankfurt and spend a few days visiting with family there and generally getting spoiled rotten by my brother.

We will be renting our bikes in Frankfurt. Then Peter will drive us down to Esslingen, a city south of Stuttgart. After visiting with my Aunt Friedel our cycle tour will begin. We will cycle from Esslingen to Heidelberg along the Neckar. We will then spend a couple of days exploring Heidelberg before hopping a train to Saarbrucken. We then hop back onto our bike and head down the Saar River. After a few days cycling we should cruise into Trier. At Trier we get onto the Moselle and cycle off to Koblenz. We then will turn right, cruise down the Rhein till Wiesbaden, turn left and pedal on to Frankfurt.    The trip will be just over 600 km and take us through gorgeous valleys and towns, along beautiful rivers, past vineyards and give us a chance to stroll through history. We will camp, stay in lovely gasthaus' and with new friends, enjoy German hospitality and unwind from a stressful year. The bags are now packed and at the front door. In the morning our good friend Bob Gauthier will
drive us to the ferry. We will then enjoy the view as we sail across Georgia Straight. Then it is onto a
plane and off to Amsterdam. And yes, I am very excited!