Back safe and sound in the US! No broken bones, not even scrapes or scratches for which we are all very grateful. Considering the chaos that has been international travel for the last week we had an easy, though long day traveling from Amsterdam to Philadelphia.

I think this is the last post although Carole may post a few more photos. We had a great week in Holland. We saw many sights in this unique country and had lots of laughs and as Darien says... a lifetime of memories. Our novice cyclists did extremely well and were far from the weakest link on this trip. Thanks to all who read and commented on our blog, it has been a fun thing for all of us to do. Looking forward to the next vacation (New Zealand, Greece, France, Africa??) Happy Trails!

Back in Amsterdam

Yesterday we had a great day! We barged into Amsterdam and then biked out to a rural section of north Holland. It was just Carole and I so we were able to stop and check out the birds we have been watching as we having been flying by this week. It was a nice area and we had our own maps of the extensive bike path network in the country. I don't know if I have mentioned the bike culture here but it is unique, you can go from one end of the country to another and never ride on the road with traffic. The auto traffic is very respectful of the cyclists when their paths cross. Every Dutchman has a bike and uses it for everything. We have seen them carrying, several children, new TVs, a weeks worth of groceries all on bikes it is really amazing. Even in busy Amsterdam biking is reasonable.
Today we are going to train to Delft and check that out. Then an early flight to the US in the morning. Hopefully we will have no ash related air problems.

Last Day on the Barge

On Thursday we biked through the tulip fields. I won't bore you with my inadequate descriptions of the lovely colors but I'll post a few pictures and try and let you see what we were so lucky to have seen. In the afternoon we went to the Kierkenhof, a Disneyland type place with every bulb plant known to man. It was really quite extraordinary. Last night we docked in the center of Haarlem, another medieval town. We walked through town and had our one night with dinner on our own.
Today, everyone is doing some thing different. Doug and one group biked out to see the dunes on the North Sea and then they'll bike into Amsterdam (should be beyond exciting). Kass, Mary and others are riding the barge into Amsterdam and then will tool around town. Carole and I will leave the barge and then bike into north Holland for the afternoon. We'll see how all of this goes!

Tulip Day!

Too tired to post much tonight...today we saw lots and lots of tulips, so more photos to follow. We biked in some rain this morning, but I ended up sunburned by the end of the day.

I have been carrying this Denali poncho around with me for about 17 years (just in case) and today it came in handy. If no one comments on this photo, I will know no one is reading this blog. (Carole)

The Latest

Despite the most recent post about the things Linda would like about the trip (authored not by me but a larger group) we are having a wonderful time and living fairly large. Our accommodations while "cozy" are just fine, our food is excellent and continental, the company is exceptional and the sights we see when riding are memorable. Our riding skills have improved considerably, we now roll into these small towns weave around obstacles and people and bike right to the town square. All are riders are doing well, everyone is doing 30 miles a day even when we have winds. I am impressed at how well all are doing, even Kass who is far from the slowest rider has been great. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks!
Today we are off to the tulips fields and the Keukenhof, so it will be all flowers all of the time.

Resting after 30 miles into the Wind!

Top 10 Things my friend Linda would love about this trip!

10. Sleeping on a barge (instead of a cruise ship)
9. Making your own lunch (and then eating it on the side of the road)
8. Green door bathrooms (aka - behind a tree)
7. Vacationing where it is 15 degrees colder than home (wearing 5 layers including gloves and hats in April!)
6. Teeny, tiny cups of coffee
5. Riding a bike 30 miles every day
4. Sleeping in bunk bed (in a room too small for 2 people to stand up at the same time)
3. Everywhere the exquisite sweet perfume known as “Eau de Manure”
2. Lifting 17 bikes over the “road closed” barricade
1. Dining with a parrot at your table!

Dordrecht to Gouda

Last night our barge docked in a wonderfully scenic canal right in the center of Dordrecht...an excellent spot for cocktail hour. After dinner we had a marvelous tour of Dordrecht by Pauline from the local tourist office. It is funny how one person can mold your opinion of a place. She was enthusiastic, honest, entertaining and informative in giving us the history and architecture of Dordrecht. We all enjoyed and will have great memories of Dordrecht thanks to her. We left by bike at 9 this morning and cycled to Kinderdijk, a UNECSO world heritage sight. In a line there were 18-20 windmills moving water, quite a sight. The Dutch are unrivaled in their attempts to control Mother Nature. Most of the country is below sea level but they are tireless in trying to reclaim the land from the sea. We biked in our first windy conditions today, winds were about 10-15mph off the North Sea. Everyone did fine but some were done in with today’s ride. We stopped at a local farm where we added home made soup and apple tarts to our box lunch, and we finished up in Gouda at a cheese and ice cream making operation in a old monastery - free samples all around! (btw- Gouda is not pronounced the way we say it ...sounds more like “chowda” but even more guttural.) Back to the barge for cocktails and dinner and now off to explore another town.

A Beer Well Earned!

On the Road!

Taking the Ferry

Relaxing on The Feniks after a Day Cycling

Doug at the Clog Factory

We are having considerable troubling uploading photos to the internet as our connection is not good. Many of our fellow travelers have much anxiety about getting back to the states with the air ports closed. We are discussing whether to go south to Spain or east to Poland to get a plane home. I vote for Poland, how else would we ever get there?

Another Beautiful Day Cycling in the Netherlands

We have had very good weather for cycling. Today we had a great day, almost all in the countryside, although we did go through some medieval towns. There is so much water here, that it is often necessary to take ferries to go from one town to the next. We rode somewhere between 25 and 30 miles, nothing is too exact on this trip. Most of our riding is on bike paths, often on the top of dikes where we get a great view of the countryside. Many of the roofs of the large Dutch farms are thatched and goats seemed to be the animal of choice here. Everything is green and the land is very fertile, farms and orchards dot the landscape. Typically we pack a lunch before we leave the barge in the morning and then find a nice place to stop and eat. Today we had a stop at a wooden shoe making facility, one of the few left in Holland. The proprietor was quite informative and very entertaining, everyone was taken with the stop and a few purchased wooden shoes. The towns we’ve seen all date from the Middle Ages and are organized around canals. Typically weeping willow trees hang over the canals and time appears to have stopped a couple of hundred years ago. When we finish the daily ride we come into town to find our barge tied up and all set for cocktail hour. Dinner is served at 6:30. Our hosts on the barge, Winifred and Els, are very welcoming. Els has taken extensive cooking lessons and the meals reflect this. She has a successful herb garden on the top deck of the barge. We have had breakfast quiches, elaborate dinners and desserts to die for. We may bike a lot of miles but I doubt we’ll lose any weight. After dinner we tour the town where the barge is docked….then we go right to bed as we are all exhausted. Everyone is holding up well and having a great time.

Sunday April 18...How far are we???

(Darien writing here with a little help from Mary)


Our first full day of biking – 36 miles – a record for more than one of our party! We started in Utrecht, on the death ride thru town (as Darien calls it, but not so bad on Sunday morning) ended up in Gorinchen. How did we get here? We aren’t sure, ourselves. We had two crashes, didn’t see a castle, went on a cool ferry, over a very very long dike, had a beer (thank god for civilization). Our leader had a crash in a cute little town square – wish we could tell you the name…we seem to be asking a lot of directions. I am convincing people that these are memories for life…we will certainly be laughing about this trip for years to come. And it is only day 2!

Our boat has a great great crew. Els is the cook of the century, has fresh homemade soup waiting for us every evening and finds ways to use fresh herbs from the boat in ways we only wish we could dream of. Winfred is our captain (Els partner), and Patricia makes the third of a great support crew. They have two great pets – our newly adopted mascots. Iggy (for Iggy Pop) is a cranky, cantankerous parrot that we all pay attention to. What Iggy wants, Iggy gets. Lila is a dear sweet older dog that only perks up when we take the bikes off of the boat. Beautiful black and white spaniel mix.

Tomorrow will be a short ride, we are told. We don’t believe it! I am in the “trust but verify” mode now. We will end up in a city called Dordrecht. Follow us on a trip that will be retold in many different ways, depending on the refreshments! Tomorrow we will be having thai chicken soup and curry for dinner. Yummmm…and few windmills in between.

Vanessa, if you are reading this. THANK YOU! I could not have made it thru today without you.

Postings

For the two hundred people that have been trying unsuccessfully to comment on our blog, I have just fixed the settings and now you can. You should just be able to click in the comment button at the bottom of a posting.

Our First Day on the Feniks

Today we boarded the barge Feniks about noon time. There are 16 cyclists, 2/room. We now have a new definition of cozy. The room Carole and I have is about 5 x 6 with two beds a right angle. The only storage is under the bed. I am storing some things in the sink which is about 4 inches from my head. We have two portholes for windows and folks on the upper deck can lean in and converse with us. And the best, we have the primo room on the barge! Kass and Doug are living in a small coffin like room, where only their heads are visible when they sleep. Despite the small living spaces everyone is in high spirits! We cruised about 2 hours from Amsterdam to a small town in the Dutch countryside. The weather is warm and sunny. There are no signs of any volcanic ash here. The barge tied up and we off loaded the bikes and began our ride through the countryside into Ultretcht. On the way we stopped at a working windmill and were given a tour by the couple who operate the windmill. The Dutch countryside is beautiful, we haven’t seen tulip fields yet but the landscaping is very impressive. The biking seems to be going well for everyone. We have some novice bikers in the group but the pace is not too strenuous and everyone is doing well. We returned to the barge which had docked before our arrival. We sat and had cocktails on the upper deck and then had a fabulous dinner. Some of our fellow bikers have gone walking into the town but some of us are resting up for a big day tomorrow.
The airport closures have caused some stranded travelers to go on this same trip for the second week in a row while others who had hoped to be on this trip were unable to get out of the states because of the European airport closures.

All Amsterdam Today

We spent the entire day walking the length and breadth of Amsterdam. We started with the Anne Frank House. The museum that the Frank house has now become is extremely well done. The story is told with Anne’s words and some video from survivors and news clips from the 30s and 40s. We all found it a very moving experience. We walked and saw many of the canals and picturesque bridges that connect the city’s streets. We were in Dam Square, The Rembrandt plaza, the skinny bridge, the flower market, the Bejinhof cloister and finished in the Red Light district. Amsterdam is a city of extreme contrasts, we went from the Frank House to Amsterdam’s monument to homosexuals, from the Bejinhof cloister with its religious focus to the red light district with scantly dressed prostitutes in the windows, from the beauty of the flower market to WWII resistance sites. All the while the Amsterdamers are merrily rolling along on bicycles. We’ve never seen a city with so many bikes; it isn’t unusual to see a woman with two children on a bike rolling along talking on a cell phone, nary a helmet on any of them. Truly a memorable city!
No sign of any volcanic ash in the sky, hardly even a cloud.

Our group, minus Carole the photographer, off to dinner on the first night.

These are the views from our hotel Brouwer on the Singel canal in Amsterdam. Very picturesque both day and night

Amsterdam is a very walkable city, Kass and Doug are walking with their luggage from the trainstation to our hotel. Weather is sunny and in upper 50s.

Let the adventures begin.

Day One…on which it was almost too easy…
There was no traffic on the way to the Philadelphia airport, security wasn’t a hassle, so we had plenty of time for drinks and appetizers, the plane departed on time, we had an empty seat in our row, the flight was uneventful… Once in Amsterdam we met up with all the rest of our group in the Schiphol airport and managed to buy tickets and board the correct train to Central Amsterdam and then drag our luggage to our respective hotels. The only challenge was buying the train tickets which required a credit card with a PIN number - of the 8 of us- we appear to have TWO. And despite claims that ATMs are everywhere – Kathy and I eventually had to return the train station to find one that would actually dispense cash! Took a cruise through the canals of the city and then back to our hotel which while on the canal appears to be in the red light district…more on that later!

Hopefully we can post some photos later…but right now it is time for cocktails (posted by Carole R)

Just realizing how lucky we were to have landed after the volcanic eruption. We were one of the last flights in!! Kathy

We're off today!

We leave this evening on a non stop flight from Philadelphia to Amsterdam, there were no bargains in airfare but the more I travel (and the older I get!) it is worth something to fly non-stop. We will have Thursday and Friday for touring in Amsterdam and then Saturday at noon board the Feniks, our home for a week. It looks a little Spartan in the photos but we have some input from others who have stayed who say it is very nice. Looking forward to seeing the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh museum, flower markets and coffee shops in Amsterdam.

Revised Itinerary

This is our real itinerary, I had mistakenly posted the itinerary for the 2011 tour. I think I have it right now - thanks Kass for the eagle eye! We are riding between 30-40 miles each day with numerous stops, so we should be just fine with the distances. The terrain appears to be very flat but the wind off of the North Sea remains a potential issue! Here's hoping the tulips will be in bloom as promised.

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