Some people call this country Holland, while others call it The Netherlands. In truth, there are two provinces; North Holland and South Holland and together, these two provinces make up the country, properly called The Netherlands. Even though the flag is composed of red, white and blue horizontal stripes, orange is a colour you see everywhere, because orange is the colour adopted by the Netherlands sports teams.
Today we started our bike ride at 8:50, through the city of Haarlem. Bike lanes and directional signs for bikes are everywhere. There are even traffic lights with bike symbols on them especially for the bike lanes and so at an intersection you see the walk symbol, regular traffic lights and lights for bikes. Most bikers drive very fast, which at first was very intimidating, but now I am quite comfortable in the traffic with the zillion other bikes.
After leaving the city we cycled to Spaarndam where we stopped to take pictures of the statue of Hans Brinker, the legendary boy who saved the town by plugging a leak in the dyke with his hand. We then crossed the North Sea canal by ferry and cycled to the Zaanse Schans, an historic village with windmills, museums and other traditional Dutch buildings. It was neat to go inside a working windmill and not only see how it worked but to hear the blades of the mill going around in the wind.
We stopped at a quaint little town where we ate our picnic lunches in the park, and then found a coffee shop to sit for a bit and enjoy a soft seat. We crossed another canal by ferry and rode the rest of the afternoon through farmlands. The last 15K were tough as we had too pedal against the wind, ending our 55K ride in Alkmaar where our ship The Jelmar was docked. Peter, our guide, said that we rode over 50K today.
After another delicious three course meal, our guide got out the map and gave us a preview of tomorrow's ride. We will get the weather forecast at breakfast tomorrow morning before we ride another 50K.
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