Oh dear, this was more than a month ago, but anyway let's blog!!! Jurgen and I went all the way to Amsterdam...
...by bike! But let's take it from the beginning.
Our first stop was in Baarle Nassau, a small town just across the Belgian border but with Belgian enclaves (a consequence of complicated history). When you enter such an enclave (by crossing the street) you're not in Baarle Nassau (the Dutch name of the town) anymore but in Baarle Hertog (the Belgian name of the town). Very interesting. One town in two countries. We stayed at a nice Bed and Breakfast called Bed op de Reth. Nice, clean, recently renovated, rural environment.
Our first stop was in Baarle Nassau, a small town just across the Belgian border but with Belgian enclaves (a consequence of complicated history). When you enter such an enclave (by crossing the street) you're not in Baarle Nassau (the Dutch name of the town) anymore but in Baarle Hertog (the Belgian name of the town). Very interesting. One town in two countries. We stayed at a nice Bed and Breakfast called Bed op de Reth. Nice, clean, recently renovated, rural environment.
Then followed a day of biking through the southern Netherlands, the part called Northern Brabant (as opposed to Southern Brabant, which is the central part of Belgium where we Leuven and Brussels are situated) and crossing into Southern Holland. We followed the knooppunt-system (same as in Belgium) but there was a lot of confusion and we were really dependent upon our navigation systems sometimes. Our destination the second day was Gouda, the capital of cheese. B&B in Gouda was Familie Mieremet. Fair enough, not overly hospitable but OK and with a good location in cental town.
And then we arrived in Amsterdam on our third day. It was like a dream to come there by bike, first along the river Amstel, then when we entered town pushing on through the streets full of bikes and other traffic. Intense but very beautiful! After a lot of searching we found our hostel, WOW, a kind of cultural centre offering long and short term accomodation. The name "WOW" was a big overstatement for a hostel in a gray and unhospitable building (a former technical university), close to the highway, situated in the poor area Bos en Lommer, with a very poor organisation, very poorly equipped rooms and a breakfast on survival level. Sadly, it was the only place we could pay - Amsterdam is very, very expensive. And the one-hour walk into town every day did us good!