Mur’s Epilogue Final

Pretty much every village, town and city in all of Holland and at least Flanders in Belgium have a few common high points. No matter how big or small the place ,they all have at least one and often several very large churches or kerken. They all have a Grote Markt which is a central square or market place always lined with restaurants. Somewhere close to the center of town is a shopping street for pedestrians only. More often than not, there is an ancient Stadhuis, city hall. It is usually huge and does not relate to the size of the town or city but most were built 4 or 5 hundred years ago when, I’m guessing, the Stadhuis was a status symbol. In both countries there are several pleins, squares, open areas surrounded by buildings lined with shops and restaurants used for celebrations and weekly markets.

The streets are not all streets and avenues. A common city street in a town or city is a Straat. A major road or a highway is referred to as Weg. If you are walking along the beach on a hard surface you are on the Strand. In the Netherlands, more so than in Belgium, the roads that align with the canals are named Gracht.

In North America, we for the most part, live horizontal as far as our house layout. The house and even the apartments or condos are on one or two levels. In Europe at least in the urban areas the houses are very narrow and the people live in a vertical fashion. The bedroom may be on the 4th or even the 5th story of a building with only a few feet of street frontage. Each  of the other floors are designated has one specific use such as the living area or the kitchen/dining area.

Living Vertical
Living Vertical

Tipping in either place is neither common nor expected. I noted that when the ‘tipping’ request showed up on the credit card payment machine the waiter would skip by it before handing me the machine to tap my card. In Bruges, a very touristy place, I was once asked for a tip. Extremely rude I felt. I think the fellow may have thought I was American or maybe just a stupid tourist. Anyway, I said no, I don’t think I made his day. There was a sign on the canal boat we were on suggesting tipping was a ‘custom’ but very few people actually put money in the fellow’s hat and then only coins.

Amsterdam is a very liberal place. There are some unusual things there like coffee shops where smoking pot is more prevalent than drinking coffee and of course there is the red light district with the products on display in the shop window. Just don’t be shocked when you are at Schipol airport on your way to the departure gate and a fairly burly fellow with bright red hair and a bushy red beard has just arrived and is heading to immigration dressed head to toe like Heidi complete with a red dress, knee socks and pigtails. Even after a few days walking around Amsterdam, that made me turn my head. The Dutch say ‘Doe maar normal, dan doe je al gik genoeg.’ (Direct translation: Just act normal, that’s crazy enough.) But in Holland it actually implies ‘We’re all a bit odd, so let’s not make a fuss about it’. And no one was making a fuss.

Debbie and I were trying not to get sick. We are going diving two weeks after we get back home and sick and diving don’t mix. So what do we do? Spend the last two days in Europe in one of the busiest cities, going to art galleries. Not the best strategy. The places were crowded to very crowded to extremely crowded. People were hacking and sneezing and we just tried to keep our distance. Then we started our journey home. Schipol Airport is a major hub, not just in Europe but of the world. You cannot find any place to isolate and avoid sick people. Montreal’s Trudeau airport was next and although not quite as crowded there were no secluded spots there either. If you are trying to remain healthy for any reason I would not recommend visiting galleries or museums on the last couple of days away and definitely avoid both of the above airports. When we arrived in Edmonton at about 10pm it was deserted. So far our health has remained intact.

Until next time…..

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Mur’s Epilogue 1

Here are some of my take aways from the last month in Holland and Belgium.

Moving in the Netherlands looks like a very expensive process. I watched some movers working over a couple of days. The unit being moved into was on the 9th story. The building had a court off the road. The furniture was being moved in and out on an extendable pole lift with a bucket ,to the balcony. Two fellows at the top and two at the bottom. In prep for the truck and the lift to sit on the courtyard, huge metal plates were put down. The truck backed up to the lift, the outgoing stuff was loaded into the bucket, then lowered, the up going stuff then loaded in the bucket. This went on for hours. The next day the metal plates were lifted. All this would cost considerably more than a truck and elevator system used in North America.

When I am out riding at home and a rider passes in the opposite direction we usually acknowledge each other. When passing another rider a word is usually exchanged. When passing a pedestrian a good morning is usually offered. There was only one place in either Belgium or the Netherlands where an unsolicited response was offered. Around Veere, where there are many descendants of expat Scotsmen who moved there when the textile trade was running high. As we passed people there, early one morning, we were offered a hello or good morning. It was a noticeable difference.

bikes

The city riders in both countries have balls. They ride along on the bike roads and paths without much worry. It is up to the pedestrians to stop and look both ways both at the bike path and the road. The riders cruise by cross streets without pausing or even looking. When entering another bike path they just flow around the corner, any approaching riders move over slightly and avoid a collision.  We are the weirdos as we slow and try to look both ways, we just don’t trust that drivers or other cyclists will accommodate us. There is one thing that the riders in both countries stop for, the red bike lights. There were very few riders that disobeyed those stop signals.

Customer service is not quite the same as it is in North America. Twice we had waiters forget our order and had to approach them to make sure we ate. One day at hotel reception it was shift change. There was a line up, only one person at the desk. There were 3 other workers hovering around behind her. When the working lady had finished with the customer she bowed out with “my colleague will help you in a minute”. She left. The hovering people continued with what they were doing and we stood in line. The fellow in front of me shook his head, I shrugged my shoulders. Quitting time is quitting time I guess. This would not happen if I was in charge.

boat tour

Vinyl records have made a comeback the last few years. I occasionally notice a ‘record store’ when wandering around a NA city. I think we passed 5 shops selling record albums the last two days we were in Amsterdam. We passed at least one record store in every city and town, no matter how small.

We found croissants in both countries. The bakers in both counties have a long way to go to match French croissants. The ones we ate were wrapped triangles of bread, not the flakey batter used in real croissants. That said, the bread and buns available at the supermarket were fantastic. Almost all of my breakfasts and lunches were buns and PB.

That is all for now I will post part 2 in a couple of days.

street
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The Netherlands and Belgium Epilogue

I have been thinking a lot about what an English fellow we met at a ferry said to us. He said we had too much stuff. He was camping and still only had four panniers, albeit large ones. He thought we had too many clothes. His riding and street clothes were the same clothes. Here is what I packed for clothes:

Riding

2 pair cycling shorts

2 cycling jerseys

Light jacket

Heavy rain jacket

Heavy rain pants

Pair of riding tights

Cycling gloves

Helmet

Armings (used instead of a long sleeved jersey)

Small hat for under helmet

2 pair cycling socks

Pair of cycling shoes

Pair of warm over gloves

Pair of cycling over shorts with belt

Street Clothes

2 pair of pants-1 technical, 1 linen

3 icebreaker wool shirts-varying sleeve lengths

3 pair of undies

1 pair of socks

Down sweater

Buff

Small sun/rain hat

Scarf

In my view, taking the right amount of clothes is all about risk. How much risk, of being wet, of being cold, of being dirty, are you willing to take. My risk tolerance for wet and cold is almost zero and my risk tolerance for dirty varies depending on the item of clothing. Socks and street pants are high tolerance for dirty, cycling shorts is closer to zero.

With those tolerances in mind, I could have reduced my riding clothes by one jersey, the small hat and one pair of socks. I wore everything else regularly. For the street clothes, I could have reduced by the pair of linen pants as I only wore them once. I also could have left one pair of undies at home. I wore all three shirts regularly, along with the down sweater. So, this would be a small reduction of overall volume and weight in my pannier.

We carried a first aid kit and specific bike parts and tools. Did we really need to carry these? Maybe not, but again what is the risk tolerance? The English fellow’s tolerance is much higher than ours as he did not seem have as many “what if” supplies.

A couple of items we brought that we were waffling on turned into great things to have. A lightweight grocery bag which we used for the few groceries we bought every day and it was also used to carry our water bottles up and down to the rooms each day. A small pair of scissors ended up in the bag and we used them a lot, mainly to open lunch meat and cracker packages. We also brought a plastic knife and spoon and they were also used, mainly for peanut butter.

For my weight and physical ability, I think that I was carrying a reasonable load for my level of risk tolerance. 

Cyclocross rider
Cyclocross rider in the rain

Living in Canada, I have gotten used to certain free perks. In Europe, there are not many of these free perks. Toilets cost 1 Euro, unless you are eating at a restaurant and then use of the toilet is free. Tap water is not free in a restaurant. Ketchup or mayonnaise is 1 Euro. Napkins are free! Is it to cut down waste or excessive use? Perhaps.

Walking towards and then passing by people is always a game of chicken in Europe. I got good at waiting until the last moment to move slightly over, as the person also moved slightly over. Europeans have a much closer zone of comfort than North Americans. On the bike, I just maintained riding a straight line and let the locals move around me. Although sometimes I just stopped to let someone by!

In The Netherlands, the typical bedding is two twin comforters on a queen or king bed. Then each person has their own covers. I LOVE this practise! No more cold channel between us and no more fighting for the blanket! Watch out! I may instigated this in our house.

On our various stops, we encountered chestnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts laying on the ground. Not consumable by humans but good for squirrels.

Statistics:

Numbers of kms ridden – 705

Number of days riding – 16

Number of days touring cities – 12

Number of different hotels – 16

Number of museums visited – 13

Best Stadhuis – Leuven

Best Museum – Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Number of random acts of kindness bestowed on us – 2

Leuven’s Stadhuis
Leuven’s Stadhuis
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Amsterdam Day Two

After yesterday’s strike outs, I would say we hit a home run today. Bus timing was perfect. We choose the MOCO Museum (Modern and Contemporary) and the crowd is very light. The museum has art from Andy Warhol, Bansky, Kusama and a number of other artists. Many of the artists started out as street artists. Graffiti guys with a message. All very cool and a different take on an art museum. There were several infinity boxes to view. These immersion rooms feel a lot like the ones by Kusama that we say in Melbourne but they were done by a Dutch artist duo, Studio Irma.

Immersion Room at MOCO
Immersion Room at MOCO

We wander another section of downtown, trying to stay out of the tourist zone. Many cool residential lanes and squares. A flea market, selling mostly second hand clothes, takes up one square. Every once in a while we pop out of a street and we are back in the tourist zone, so we pop back into another lane.

Poffertjes
Poffertjes

Through our trip we have been trying Dutch and Belgium foods. Today, Murray tries more Poffertjes, Dutch batter cakes the size of a toonie pancake. They are eaten with Nutella and icing sugar. At the flea market, I eat loempia, Vietnamese spring rolls, and my lunch is complete. The loempia are like veggie spring rolls on steroids, about three times the size of a spring rolls we would get at home. Large and delicious!

Amsterdam
Amsterdam

Murray and I have been talking about how it is so crowded with tourists in Amsterdam. Our last day in the big city, a Thursday, proves to be no less crowed that a weekend day. We also found Antwerp, Brussels and Bruges just as busy, a lot of the crowd in all the places must have been tourists like us. A small quiet town is much preferable, in our view. I think our future travels may have to be more on the unbeaten track.

Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam

Our day starts with a missed bus. Then on the second bus a missed stop, strike two. Strike three is our visit to the Van Gogh Museum. We take away two things from our visit. First, it is ridiculously crowded in the museum even though there are timed entries. I do not get close to any of the paintings. There is always somebody standing in front of each one. The people are 4 or 5 deep at every major painting. After our time in small towns and other cities, this was hard to take. Second, Van Gogh is known for a handful of famous paintings – sunflowers, irises, the potato eaters and self portraits, but he has so many other paintings in varied styles. My favourite is one of a tree in bloom. It is light and airy and bright.

Amsterdam Canal
Amsterdam Canal

The Concertgebouw, which is very close to the Van Gogh Museum, has free concerts on Wednesdays at 12:30. Murray knew about these concerts but last night when he checked online there were no more tickets available. Once out of the museum, we walk over to the concert hall to see if the venue had kept any tickets back for random walk in visitors. After talking to various people, we find out there is a possibility people will not show and those seats are made available for those who wait. As folks are going in, a couple comes up to us and asks if we need tickets. They have two extra tickets that they offer to us for our entry. This is the second random act of kindness that we have experienced on our trip.

We find a seat in the ‘Small Hall’, a richly decorated mini version of the main concert venue. The Cong Quartet plays a Debussy piece. The concert is 30 minutes. They are all excellent musicians and the music is captivating.

Amsterdam Canal
Amsterdam Canal

The canals in Amsterdam seem to be an integral of the city fabric, with many boats and house boats moored along the banks. In Bruges and Ghent, the canals are more like a reminder of the city’s past economic boom times but are now just a remnant of what they used to be and more of a novelty of the tourists.

We wander outside the tourist zone and walk residential lanes looking at the houses. We muse about living in such a small space and decide we would have to downsize quite a bit to do it.

Our treat for the day!
Our treat for the day!
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Zandvoort to Amsterdam – 25 km

Today’s ride is more about getting to Amsterdam and getting our bikes packed away. We thought it was partly a country ride, but we are in urban areas the whole time.

Spaarne Ferry
Spaarne Ferry

Our route has one last ferry ride. A small pedestrian only ferry across the Spaarne River. The river is an idyllic setting, with houses on the banks and ducks floating on the river.


Spaarne River
Spaarne River

When we started out, we could see airplanes in the distance. As we ride closer to our airport hotel the airplanes get closer and closer until we are riding right under the ones taking off. It is so thrilling to see an airplane belly close up.


Arrival in Amsterdam
Arrival in Amsterdam

We arrive safely at the Ibis Styles Amsterdam Airport hotel. We cannot get into our room yet, so we immediately take our bikes apart and stow them in their bike bags. By the time we are done, our room is ready. We then unload everything from our panniers and make three piles – Murray clothes to wear and airplane stuff, Debbie clothes to wear and airplane stuff and riding gear that can be packed right away. We load up one suitcase and the other partially. We are now ready for our two days in Amsterdam and the trip home.

Some Debbie thoughts about the riding:

  1. I really wish the locals would ring a bell or say “Passing” when they go by me on the path. Scared me almost every time. They just silently cruise by. Sigh.
  2. I am glad we did so much training at home. A couple of the days were long, but I never felt I couldn’t make our destination.
  3. Note to self: Train with more weight than you think you will carry as inevitably you end up carrying more weight! Belgium chocolate!
  4. Wind. It comes from all directions. In our face, gusting to 40 kph. At our backs, blowing us faster and faster. On our side, tossing us across the road.

We have two days in Amsterdam. We will go to the two art museums we missed when we first arrived in Amsterdam and maybe do some shopping. We will endeavour to eat more fries, pancakes and waffles.

Along the Spaarne River

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The Hague (Scheveningen) to Zandvoort – 39 km

We ride away from the hotel and at the 2 km mark, we make our first stop. A tall tower, heavy looking and from what Murray can gleam from the plaque, perhaps a water tower. Except it has windows half way up.

The wind is howling. Right into our faces. Murray rides in front and I hide behind him. I can tell I am getting a draft as I catch up to him in certain places. Our average speed today is much slower than the rest of the days, but we are not concerned as we have plenty of time to do the distance. I guess this is payback for the four days of wind at our backs from Bruges to The Hague.

The landscape looks like the Badlands, in Southern Alberta. Sandy dune like hills with tuffs of greenery everywhere. Did I mention hills? We make a game of guessing the incline on the small hills. Steepest hill is 5%, the usual grade is about 3% with many 4% grades.

Helping a fellow cyclist

In Edmonton and where we ride, in Ardrossan, the cycling community is very willing to help cyclists, or at least check to make sure a cyclist on the side of the road is okay. About 2 kms outside Zandvoort, we come across a young woman changing her tire on the side of the path. We slow down and ask if she needs help, Murray asks “Do you have a pump?” She says No! We stop, of course. As Murray and the woman work on her tire, we chat about bikes and riding. This is her last ride for the season as she is pregnant and it is now too uncomfortable to ride. She hasn’t had a flat in five years, and today she had to have one. But, once again, Canadians have come to the aid of the Dutch. The tire gets inflated and we are all on our way.

Even now, 80 years later, the Dutch remember and are thankful for the help of the Canadians in liberating their country from the Germans during WWII. It still comes up in conversations with Dutch folk.

F1 banner
F1 banner

Zandvoort is another seaside town that fills on the weekends and in the summer, and for a wild weekend when the F1 race is on. I want to see the track so we walk down the beach and over to the track. There are some street cars on the track zipping around. We watch a couple of laps from a parking lot close to the track. I can imagine the noise and humanity during an F1 weekend.

Car on the track
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The Hague Day Two

Our mission today is the Kunstmuseum and the Peace Palace. One bus ride deposits us outside the Kunstmuseum and we are awed at the building immediately.

The Kunstmuseum was built in 1935 as a modern museum that was accessible to everyone. It has the world’s largest collection of Mondrian works and various genres of art. We were as impressed by the building as the works of art.

Kunstmuseum
Kunstmuseum

I know Mondrian from his red, yellow, white and black angular paintings, but this collection has his early works of landscapes. They are stunning and I am thankful that I saw them. Mondrian was part of a group called De Stijl, designers, artists, architects. They explored new designs and methods at the same time as the Bauhaus in Germany and Frankfurt Lloyd Wright in the USA. It’s fascinating that they were all coming up with very similar looking designs for houses, furniture and art.

Chair designed by Rietveld
Chair designed by Rietveld

There is also an exhibit of Lois Dodd, a painter from the 1930s til today, from New York. She painted scenes looking out her studio window and inside her studio. Walking through the permanent collection we see works from Picasso, Monet and others.

The Peace Palace is the International Court of Justice for the UN. The building is quite imposing and regal. Tourists cannot get close to it unless on a tour, so we walk around it taking photos.

Peace Palace
Peace Palace

We have been riding the bus and the tram to get around The Hague and Scheveningen (please don’t ask me to pronounce that one!). Both the buses and trams run every 15 minutes or less. They use the tap on and off system, so a credit card can be used to pay for your trip. So easy! No tickets to purchase!

Amusements on the beach at Scheveningen
Amusements on the beach at Scheveningen
Sunset at the beach
Sunset at the beach
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The Hague

Our The Hague explorations start today. We have a 10.45am appointment at the Mauritshuis Museum. It seems you have to book tickets and an entrance time to museums in Europe. It makes for a better distribution of crowds, so they think. Thus our appointment. Wanting to be a bit early we wander down to the tram stop with plenty of time. The first tram does not arrive, we cannot read the sign so we wait with the others at the station. The second tram doesn’t show up so I ask a local what the sign says. She tells me there has be a delay. That is the extent of what the sign offers. So I cross the tracks to see if the bus will take us to where we want to go. Yup it will. A second lady explained there was a city wide power outage last night and the transit systems was having trouble getting all the trams on the road. We caught the bus.

The Girl with the Pearl Earring
The Girl with the Pearl Earring

Arrived early at the museum we didn’t have to wait. They just let us in. The Mauritshuis is a small art gallery with many of the works of 17th Century Dutch and Flemish artists. Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer being three of the more prominent ones. The Girl with the Pearl Earring being one painting the most people would recognize. I think it is the best gallery of ‘old’ paintings I have visited. I was not overwhelmed by the number of works so I could look at each piece on its own. I was able to see things I had not noted before, like how precise the lines are and how detailed every painting is. The painters of that time possessed an incredible amount of patience and skill.

In search of a map we headed to the central train station. There seemed to be an awful lot of young men dressed in black moving about. We thought is might be a ‘game day’. Which it sort of was. There was a big right wing demonstration rally in the park today. People were protesting the immigration laws. Debbie and I headed the other way. Seems it was a good choice as the protest got somewhat violent with bottles and stones being hurled at the police and the police responding with tear gas and a water cannon. As things heated up there was a police car set ablaze. I think the whole idea is somewhat in contrast to the normal Dutch modus operandi. They are normally quite tolerant of everything. The have a saying “Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg.”, it means, just act normal, that’s crazy enough. Nothing like a bunch of crazies to spice up a vacation.

Large doors!
Large doors!

We wandered the streets taking in a bit of The Hague with our final destination the M.C. Escher house. Another worthwhile stop. Most of the gallery is Escher limited edition prints from wood cuts and lithographs. The third floor of the gallery is dedicated to some interactive displays and odd pieces from other artists that are interpretations of some of Escher’s ideas.

We again planned a tram ride home but the crazies mentioned managed to disrupt the train schedule so Plan B was put into motion and it was the 22 bus back to our hotel.

Chandelier in the Palace where the MC Escher Exhibit is housed
Chandelier in the Winter Palace where the MC Escher Exhibit is housed

Post Script: Yesterday at lunch we had a random act of kindness draped upon us. We were in the train station and ordered fries and a Coke to eat. This train station is very sterile and there are no places to ‘lounge’, no benches to sit upon. I ask one of the security guard if he knew of any not so obvious benches we could sit on to eat our fries. He makes kind of a funny face and said follow me. He then uses his employee pass to let us through the turnstiles that separate the train passengers from the general public. Just on the other side are two picnic tables. We sat and had lunch.

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Brielle to The Hague (Scheveningen) – 47 km

It is the fourth day of riding in a row. Our legs are feeling it as we start out but the stiffness eases and they spin nicely. A 10 km ride gets us to a ferry to cross the Nieuwe Waterweg, the main shipping channel into Rotterdam. It is a 10 minute crossing and we are off riding along the channel towards the coast. Large barges and ocean going freighters ply the channel that is lined with wind turbines.

Shipping Channel
Shipping Channel

Once we reach the coast we are riding on a path parallel to the sea. Lots of riders and some walkers. As we approach Scheveningen, outside The Hague, we seem to be riding up and down over the dunes. Each uphill is more of a struggle and by the time we reach our hotel, I am ready to drop. We are staying in Scheveningen, close to the tram line that runs into The Hague.

Scheveningen Beach
Scheveningen Beach

It is a beautiful day today and the populace is out on the beach. It is a wide beach, with beach clubs and restaurants lining the boardwalk. People are in the water, and I think BRRRRRR! it’s the North Sea!

Wind blown sand!
Wind blown sand!

We have two days in The Hague to visit art museums and see the sights…..and rest our legs.

Art on the beach walk
Art on the beach walk
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