New Discovery

I have discovered the website www.crazyguyonabike.com This offers all sorts of inspiriation.

Haarlem and the beach

Rode to Haarlem Wednesday and ate poffertjes with strawberries and cream in the square. Its abut 25 km east of Amsterdam and home to the artist in the 1600's Frans Hals. Otherwise a typical very old Dutch town with the canals and cute old town.

WATERLAND 2

then cycled to the seafront (inland that is the Ijmeer)at Marken where the oldies were returning from their racing) and sat in the sun enjoying a Heineken.

WATERLAND

North of Amsterdam is an area of reclaimed land below sea level (polder) called Waterland. This was reclaimed in the 1300's by building dykes and keeping the water pumped out by windmill power. Its agricultural though only 5 km from the centre of A'dam. i had the most enormous pancake at a gorgeous village in Broek en Waterland (after which Brooklyn in NY is maned) where the houses are the traditional wooden cottages.

UTRECT WITH CHRIS

Chris had the day off and was clearly stuffed so we went ot Utrecht by train ...with bikes of course. I think that I ride too slowly for him too. We climbed the 430 steps of the Dom , the highest bell tower in Holland and the view was pretty extensive.





Saw an unusual way to transport toddlers.






The canals are below street level and there are restaurants along the side path. We saw a barge delivering the beer .

CASTLES DE HAAR

This castle was closed but wow was it gorgeous.

TRAVELS WITH DAMIAN

Damain Murphy, Karen's brother , very genously fore went his brother in law's birthday lunch to take me for a drive . We
hit the Koffie and applebak trailand visited the beautfu, village of Muiden with the Muiderslot (castle ) built by some clever bloke in the 1200's who slung a chain across te river and charged boats to cross. This is the more recent version of the castle which was occupiedfrm th 1500's by the family of a P.C. Hoost , a writer and administrator who had a cultural salon there. This was at time when Holland was incredibly wealthy due to the spice trade and wealthy merchants had to do something with their money so bought paintings...which were formerly only created for religious purposes. They commissioned paintings of their own lives and portraits...pity Chris wasn't born in those times!