An adventure is nothing more than a crisis that you accept. Put the other way, a crisis is nothing but an adventure against which you try to defend yourself. - Bertrand Piccard

Whew. This is going to be the last blog post, folks. Thanks so much for following along with us, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

The highlights of the trip for us were the following:

• Seeing Paris for the first time! What an amazing, historic, beautiful city!

• Ghent: we loved everything about it (Saroja especially loved, loved seeing The Lamb!)

• Steeping in the history of Brugge

• Sleeping on a houseboat in Rotterdam

• Relaxing in Amsterdam, we especially loved De Hortus and the House of Bols
• Penguin: forcing Saroja to give up on using a hair-dryer.I felt like I should have made a covert nature documentary of her rarely seen air-dried (and therefore very curly) hair (which I love). I would call it, 'Wife-rabbit in its natural state'. 
• Saroja: learning that we're just as good a team on bicycles as we are in a canoe. I loved spending all that time one-on-one with Penguin. It meant so much to share all the highlights with him, it just wouldn't be the same otherwise. He always finds a way to make me laugh when things are wet/cold/miserable. I've never loved this man more. 

Here are a few things we would do differently:

• We would have spent more time in Paris, 2 days just wasn't enough! We would also have downloaded a city-guide app onto the tablet or phone so that we would get more out of our experience while we were there. 
• Had we been able to pre-plan what sights we were going to see, we would have definitely downloaded more apps in general. Most of the museums have guide/information apps that would have saved us both time and money. 
• We would have booked our accommodations more than just one day in advance. We had done this on purpose so that we wouldn't feel pressured to reach a certain goal on any given day, in case we had bad weather or other misfortunes. But in the end, Saroja found it especially stressful not knowing where we'd be sleeping that night if someone hadn't gotten back to us right away, especially if the weather was lousy, having a warm bed and hot shower waiting for you meant a lot. That said, though, things always worked out for us! 
• We would have turned off the Garmin a lot sooner and blazed our own trail. Trying to stick to someone else's route and feeling perpetually lost was really frustrating. It's nice to have a "mostly traffic free" route through places, like leaving Paris, but when that route involves turning at every other intersection, following odd one-way streets, and generally forcing you to look at the map again every 2 minutes, it's not really worth the hassle. We decided in some cases it's better to take a slightly busier route if it's more straightforward, so things improved significantly once we decided to take navigating into our own hands. 
• We would have decided from the get-go whether we were going to camp or stay in B+Bs/hotels. Carrying all that camping gear for only a few nights didn't seem worth it in the end and without it, we would have had a lot more space for more creature comfort stuff (like more than one non-cycling shirt, says Penguin) 
• We would have brought more food with us. We were really hungry during parts of the trip and on more than one occasion, skipped lunch or went to bed without dinner because there just wasn't any food available. Having a bunch of extra protein bars in our bag would have made such a difference! 

Here are some things that we thought worked out exceptionally well:

• Doing spin classes all winter to prepare for the trip. That said, no matter how many 1 hour spin classes you do, nothing will really prepare you for spending 8 hours a day in the saddle day after day after day. But we're quite certain that psychologically, it helped a lot to know that we could do those spin classes. 
• Taking a bike mechanic course pre-trip so that we weren't intimidated by the, admittedly minor, repairs we had to do along the way. 
• Bringing our own bikes. We couldn't imagine doing this trip on a bike that didn't fit us perfectly and we were perfectly comfortable riding. Especially for Saroja, who is on the smaller side and would have had difficulty finding a rental bike that fit her. 
• Getting a European SIM card for Penguin's phone so we could upload blog posts, email B+Bs, and google directions whenever there wasn't an WiFi available. This was definitely a lifesaver! 
• Using Sygic as our map app on the tablet once we started navigating for ourselves; it was definitely the most reliable and user friendly one. 
• Planning our trip based on other bloggers experiences / routes. The advice to head east to west along the Normandy Coast of France was very good advice indeed! 
• Checking out bike-friendly accommodations on Gites de France and TripAdvisor was very handy. B+Bs were by far the most bike friendly and had the best food and hospitality. 
• Lastly, we were really glad that we made this blog. We normally each keep a journal when we travel but this was the first time we made an effort to blog as we went. There's so much that we would have forgotten if we hadn't taken the time (and effort - trust me, some nights it took a lot of effort) to write it all down. But, the blog itself is probably the best souvenir we have from the whole trip.

Amsterdam, at last!

Well, we've been back in Winnipeg for several weeks now, so apologies for not getting this blog post up sooner! There were gardens to plant and weddings to go to and all sorts of other non-vacation things to take care of. But now, here are our final days of the trip, at long last!

Location: Amsterdam
Distance: Many km, but all on foot
Accommodations: Fleur d'Amsterdam (B&B)

Our accommodations at Fleur's B&B were excellent! Fleur had warned us in a previous email that she didn't actually have 'official' space for us at the B+B but her son was travelling through Vietnam, so we could use his room. Her exact words were, "Could you please tell me if you would like an extra mattress on the floor? Or are you madly in love, and would like to share the 1.20 bed?" Haha. As it turned out, the bed, although still on the small side, was larger than we expected and fit the both of us comfortably. Fleur also provided a lovely blue and white duvet that said 'liefde maaks een smal bed breed' (love makes a small bed big), which was very sweet and very true.

Fleur also had some spare bikes to lend us if we wanted to use them to bike around the city but we decided we would do some walking instead - in part because they didn't have something where Saroja could still touch her feet to the ground and also just to take a break from the biking. Breakfasts were tasty and on top of the croissants, bread, cheese and jam we also enjoyed eggs from Fleur's own chickens in the backyard and chocolate sprinkles (a true Dutch treat), which were all delicious.

Saroja got a picture with a chicken at last! Thanks Fleur! 

Shortly after arriving at the B&B Fleur pointed out many of the sights of Amsterdam on a map and so that day we ventured out for a evening walk just to orient ourselves - but not before resting up during the afternoon. The next days were spent walking around Amsterdam and taking in various sights. Here's a breakdown of what we saw...

Photo-bombed by a Goose

Day 19:


Our first stop was De Hortus, the botannical garden. Saroja has a photo of a giant lilypad on our fridge from De Hortus and wanted to see it for herself. Unfortunately it was still early in the season so it was rather small, but there were still thousands of other plants to keep her entertained. She loves plants. I loved watching Saroja scamper about cavorting with all things green.

Here's Penguin with the Wollemi Pine - a tree so rare (there are only 60 left in the wild) - that it is kept under lock and key in De Hortus. 

Saroja poses with a cycad tree, the oldest plant at De Hortus, at over 300 years! 

After a snack in the garden cafe, we headed to the Resistance museum. The way it was described to us was that it was sort of like the Anne Frank museum, but from the viewpoint of the entire country during WWII. It basically goes over the whole of how the war affected the Netherlands from start to finish, with a focus on the underground resistance. It actually took much longer to go through and see all the exhibits than I expected, but it was really interesting.


The last stop for the day was the Artis zoo. Having just watched the Blackfish documentary, we were of two-minds about going in to see the critters but in the end it exceeded our expectations. We especially liked the free-range small mammal exhibit and there was a really great penguin exhibit for Penguin.

Free range mammal exhibit: who looks more at home, Penguin or the monkey? 

Somebody was excited to see the penguins! 

Hello from Amsterdam! 

Dinner that night was at cafe 1900, a restaurant close to the B&B that was recommended by Fleur. It was very nice, although their new summer menu hadn't been translated to English yet. Luckily by then we were getting pretty good at figuring out menus in foreign languages, our waiter was very impressed with us. Saroja loved that it was very veg friendly.


Day 20:


After another tasty breakfast, we walked up the Arthur Straat Market, which is sort of like a farmers market but only if you throw in other stores like drugstores and clothing stores - essentially an outdoor market for anything. I thought I'd try some tasty chocolate and bought a chunk of 85% cocoa chocolate. I like dark chocolate but I now know that I don't like my chocolate 85% dark...so bitter!!!!


From there, we walked to the Rijksmuseum, which had been closed for renovations for quite a long time but fortunately it was open by the time we got to Amsterdam! Despite being warned of long lines we made it inside without really having to wait at all. It's certainly not as extensive as the Louvre, but still has quite a few nice pieces... I really loved the giant model ships they had of the Dutch Armada and Saroja swooned over the Vermeer paintings.


Lunch was at a restaurant called Cobra, where Saroja had salty pumpkin soup and we enjoyed the typical European service - for example, we learned that if you don't know what you want to drink off right off the bat, you're ignored for a good 30 minutes afterwards. We were also served our neighbours food by mistake at first, which was unfortunate because they ordered what I wanted to eat but then when my food arrived, I realized the waiter had misunderstood my own order. So close.... Someone told us that the waiters don't bring your cheque at the end of the meal because they don't want you to feel rushed to leave. And maybe we're typical North Americans - always on the go - but we were often frustrated trying to plan our exit from restaurants because we couldn't find our waiter to pay for our meals most of the time!


Regardless, with food in our bellies, we were ready for the House of Bols, also known as alcohol heaven for Saroja. For anyone who doesn't know yet, Saroja has discovered that gin is the best form of alcohol in the world. Bols makes jenever, which is basically gin's forerunner. We went on a tour of the distillery which included experiences for all the senses - feeling the herbs, smelling all the flavours of jenever that they make and, of course, tasting! You get to choose from a menu of mixed drinks at the end of the tour and also get to try 2 shots of your choice of the different flavours of jenever. It was delicious.

Sniff test at Bols House: can you correctly identify the ingredient? 

Enjoying our free cocktails! 

That evening we walked the 9 Straats and finally found some art that we could take home. We ended up buying a print from a local artist whose shop we almost thought was closed, but wasn't. The artist literally flipped the 'closed' sign to 'open' when he saw us peering in the window and invited us in to chat. How could we say no? :) We got a linocut print of a canal scene in Amsterdam. Linocut is Saroja's favourite kind of art. This worked out much better than the $500 tapestry Saroja had been eyeing in Brugge..... Almost across the street was a quiet Indian restaurant, where we stopped for dinner before walking back to the B&B for the night.


Day 21:


After all the walking for the last few days we decided to sleep in (just a little bit) before heading out to visit the bloommarkt (flower market). In case you missed it from the description of De Hortus, Saroja loves plants. Loves loves loves. We also picked up a few souvenirs at the Delft store. Delftware is blue and white pottery that is quintessentially Dutch.


We then walked over to check out The Bank - a special Starbucks concept store. It's the first official Starbucks "laboratory" in the world, with special vintage and exclusive coffees available, onsite bakery, and "floating" community spaces- it's where Starbucks is experimenting with coffee and the environment we drink it in with the goal that what works in Amsterdam can be applied in their other coffee shops around the world. It was definitely a pretty cool space to hang out! Amsterdam's tradition in coffee very interesting since it was the Dutch (via the Dutch East India Company) who stole a coffee plant from Arabia (who had previously had a monopoly on coffee), grew it in their greenhouse (De Hortus!), and then shipped seedlings to South America where it truly took off.

Taking cool artsy photos with my camera at The Bank. No big deal. :) 

Loving this lifestyle. 

The museum of choice for today was Our Sweet Lord in the Attic. This is a hidden church that was built on the upper floors of three adjacent canal houses. When Protestantism rose in Amsterdam, mostly due to the King's conversion, most of the Catholic churches were shut down as Catholicism was made illegal. Those Catholics who wanted to practice their religion had to build hidden churches in which to congregate. Despite being hidden, it still had more fanciful decorations than many other churches I've been to.

Our Sweet Lord in the Attic 

The museum was followed by a walk through the book market which sets up once a week. Apparently, this was Rembrandt's favourite place to come peruse other's prints for inspiration. Then, we took a canal cruise, which actually ended up being kind of lame. The best of the three canal cruises we had was definitely the one in Ghent. We did come away with one cool fact, at least - the terminal station at the harbour is home to 60 000 bicycles every day! There's definitely a lot of bikes in Amsterdam.


We toyed with the idea of going to the Ann Frank house museum, but the line was very long, and we had a whole headful of info from the Resistance Museum so we decided to move along to the next cultural masterpiece....the movie theater! X-Men: Days of Future Past had just come out, so we bought tickets to see it in English with Dutch subtitles. And everything was so civilized!! By default, you get assigned seating (no paying extra), and even the seats in the front row are not as close to the screen as they are here. We were in the third row from the front and still had a great view of the screen. You can even buy beer in the lobby to enjoy with your movie. The only uncivilized part was the butter dispenser for the popcorn, which ended up spraying Saroja's jacket in grease. Poor jacket....


Day 22

Route: Amsterdam to Schipol Airport
Distance: 40km
Ride Quality: excellent
Accommodations: Citizen M airport hotel


Yes, on day 22 we were back on our bikes. The route to the airport was a little longer than we thought, and it didn't help that you can see the airport for quite a long way off. By the time the bike paths bring you to the terminal you've basically circumnavigated the entire thing. But the nice thing about the Schipol Airport is that you can actually buy cardboard bike boxes at baggage services, which meant we didn't have to drag anything with us to the airport. We took our bikes down to baggage services, took them apart and packed them up right there. They were left in storage overnight, so all we had to do was come back in the morning and take them with us to check into our flight.

Arriving at Schipol Airport! Hooray! 

The Citizen M hotel is only a few minutes walk to the airport, and was our best option for a place to stay that night, balancing cost and proximity to the airport. It was also pretty cool. The whole thing is made out of old shipping containers. The hotel rooms are long and narrow - the bed takes up the far end of the room and there's no way to walk around it as it's flush with the walls. The shower and toilet are in tube-like enclosures in the middle of the room, and you can control the window coverings, lighting and TV all from one remote. It was definitely different but clean and pretty new. There's no restaurant there but you can get a wide variety of food from the snack bar, including hot options, and they have cocktails and beer at the bar. They also had free on-demand movies - so we ended up watching 3 movies in the hotel room before going to sleep. A lazy day at last!

Citizen M had some pretty entertaining bath products. 

Day 23: Homeward bound!


Our flight was at a decent time in the morning, so we were able to sleep in a bit before walking back to the airport to reclaim our bikes. Everything went fairly smoothly - at least, as smoothly as it can when you're trying to wheel two large bike boxes around the airport on the baggage carts. The lineup to check in for our flight was long but when the attendants saw that there was no way we'd fit through their lines with the bikes, we got to head straight to the Executive boarding desk - so the bikes actually helped in that regard. Although we booked with Air Canada our first flight was on Lufthansa, so we kind of got screwed by having to pay our excess baggage fees for the bikes in Euros instead of Canadian dollars. But aside from that we managed to check in just fine, enjoyed a quick breakfast - including a stop at the chocolate bar, which was pretty heavenly for me - and then boarded our plane for home! Or at least, to Frankfurt, then Ottawa, then home. We managed to make all the connections and our friends were waiting in Winnipeg to pick us - and our bikes - up at the airport.


So that's it! We'll have one more post in a couple of days which will be our wrap-up post, so stay with us for just a little longer.

So long, Amsterdam! We'll be back for sure! 

Day 18: and then there was rest...

Sleeping at Camp Zeeburg was OK,  albeit a little noisy. It also looks like the weather is turning back to rain,  so we're glad to have found accomodations at Fleur D'Amsterdam,  a little B+B just outside the city center.

For whatever reason,  finding a place to stay in Amsterdam has been rather difficult and even Fleur had no space but offered us her son's bedroom (her son is currently traveling through vietnam). It means sharing a 1.2 size bed but I'm about 0.2 in size, so it should work out just fine.

We're going to take a little break from the blog while we explore Amsterdam and enjoy the last few days of our honeymoon. Don't worry,  we'll keep a list of all the fun things we do and update you after.

We're also working on a "if you want to do this trip  too,  here's what we would do differently..." post. Most of the information we got about routes/gear/planning,  we pulled from others' vacation blogs,  so hopefully we can pay things forward a bit by writing our own.

See you in a few days and thanks for reading!

Day 17: Victory!!!

Route: Rotterdam to Amsterdam
Distance: 93 km
Ride Quality: Hot and Textured
Accomodation: Camping Zeeburg

We made it to Amsterdam!!! Hurrah!!!!!

This morning we had a relatively leisurely morning on the deck of our houseboat enjoying some tea and hot chocolate. I say relatively leisurely since Saroja was eager to get on the road to our final destination. So we packed up and after a quick stop for breakfast we were off!!!

Enjoying morning drinks on our boat-for-a-day. 

The LF routes, as usual, were rather winding. At least we expected it by now, so the fact that the roughly 70 km drive by car was 93 km by bike wasn't unexpected. The signage definitely suffered more today though. Where there are no other light poles or sign posts, the route signs are placed on small posts about 2 or maybe 3 feet off the ground. But the gardeners need to do some trimming since more than once we had to backtrack until a gust of wind revealed the hidden post behind the foliage . We also had pretty much every kind of trail today, from smooth paved road to really narrow & bumpy paved road to gravelly/sandy goat trail to paving stones. And when I say narrow, I mean only room for one bike despite having bikes coming from both directions. This made things pretty hairy when you have an electric fence for cattle on one side and a canal on the other. Despite this, the last part of the ride into Amsterdam was quite nice - smooth, flat road along beautiful canals. The perfect homestretch for our triumphant arrival.

Along with the mixed terrain we did have some pretty nice scenery too, at least. We even drove through a neighborhood where the houses were just on the other side of the water, so that they driveways were actually bridges over the water to their home. Pretty cool!!!

We drove past some free range sheep! No fence in place to keep Saroja away from these little guys

An excellent shot of one of the scenic windmills. 

The sun today made for another hot day though, just like yesterday. We were sunscreened up and avoided sunburns, but we were sure feeling the heat. The next two days are supposed to rain, so even though we could have taken a more leisurely pace to get here, it's probably just as well that we avoided more biking in the rain.

Towards the end of the day I just wanted a short rest in the shade. Saroja said I should get up or people will think I'm dead, and she wouldn't know enough Dutch to explain otherwise to them. I think it was just more militant behavior. 

We had a bit of trouble trying to find accomodations in Amsterdam. Apparently lots of business people stay here in town to work during the week, then head home for the weekends. Even a lot of the B&Bs are booked. We did find a fairly nice campground though. It's on the east side of the city and right on the water. Way nicer than the sketchy campground from Antwerp. They even have Wi-Fi all across the tent field, and the vending machines sell non-carbonated canned mineral water. Mmmm... I think we've got some leads on nice places to stay for the rest of the week though!

-Penguin

Day 16: boats boats boats!

Route: Roosendaal to Rotterdam (via LF-2...mostly)
Distance: 95km
Ride Quality: good*
Accomodations: Logeerboot Visithor (it's a houseboat!)

After an excellent sleep last night at Hotel Central,  we enjoyed a lovely buffet breakfast with our first taste of gouda cheese on native soil. Yum yum! Then we hopped onto the bikes and were off on the LF-2 headed for Rotterdam. Normally,  it would take us some time to find the LF route again but Hotel Central is located literally right on the LF-2, so we had a pretty speedy getaway this morning. Astonishingly, the hotel staff were completely unaware of this,  in fact most of the locals we've stopped to ask directions from haven't known what the LF routes are. Instead, everyone here uses local 'node' maps,  where every intersection is assigned a number and you plan your route by following the nodes along the way. Penguin and I have yet to get our hands on one of these precious documents. Not that it would do us a lot of good since we'd need the local maps for a dozen municipalities a day... but if the Dutch authorities are reading this blog,  it would be totally awesome if you could upload the maps along with the LF routes online!  :)

It doesn't get more convenient than this: the hotel patio is basically the LF route! 

*Today, the LF route was well paved with long stretches of cobblestones and laid brick. Thankfully there was no dirt tract today. The route however was very meandering. I'm sure that the creators of the LF routes wanted to make sure that you get the full scenic experience but at a certain point,  the riders of the LF routes would also like to just arrive at their destination, too.

Signage on this part of the LF route was more sparse and we lost our way a few times. First of all, LF signs with a u-turn do not mean that you're going the wrong way and should turn around. They mean 'go over this bridge then turn immediately afterwards and follow the new path in another direction'. Also, the sign posting people occasionally mixed up the LF a and b signs,  which caused us some confusion until we learned to ignore them. Apparently, in the Netherlands, the LF routes are marked 'a' when going in one direction (North to South or East to west)  and 'b'  when going in the other direction (South to North or west to east). This is particularly handy in preventing you from going back the way you came after you've done a few loops around during the same traffic circle looking for your exit... except that they occasionally mix up the signs and then you feel like you've gone down the rabbit hole after so much circling.

Lastly, the signage at the 2 ferry crossings we took today was also less than ideal (read: non-existant). The first ferry takes you from Dordretch to Papendrecht, which is the port you can see just across the river (node 98 on the local map) and the first of 2 Papendrecht landing options. From this terminal,  you can also catch 3 other ferries,  one of which goes directly to Rotterdam (sorry legs, no shortcut for you!). It was unclear to us if you needed to pay for this ferry (the ones in Belgium had been free and we didn't see anywhere to buy a ticket). Fortunately,  no one kicked us off the boat and made us swim for it. The second ferry crossing was in Kinderdijk -  we took the ferry straight across the river again (to Krimpen aan de Lek), which at the time had looked like our only option. This, however, was a mistake. You are definitely supposed to take the ferry going to Slekkerveer, which uses the same dock and presumably runs along a similar schedule. Either way,  this ferry definitely has a toll (albeit a cheap one at 1.75 euros for 2 people)  and someone comes around to collect it,  so have some change ready. If you do take the wrong ferry it's no big deal. We navigated our own route to Rotterdam along some quiet roads and eventually found the LF2 again without having to recross the river.

And here we thought we'd chosen a luxury vacation with no carnivorous animals to worry about! 

On the bright side,  the weather was even better today and it was finally warm enough for Penguin and I to wear t-shirts! Hooray! We are both now sporting impressive cycling tan lines that I look forward to flaunting when I get home. Haha.

We had lunch today at a little cafe that appeared mysteriously at the edge of a forest along the route and it really did just appear out of nowhere. There were no signs and it was located in the middle of a long stretch of fietspad (bike path in Dutch). The food was decent and definitely kept us going for the afternoon. Also, the opportunity to use the washroom was great. During much of France, pee breaks were a side-of-the-road-off-in-the-bushes affair but ever since entering Belgium and the Blue Banana, these opportunities have been infrequent. And trust me, cycling over cobblestones with a full bladder is no fun!

The other great highlight today was seeing all the windmills in Kinderdijk. The LF2 takes you right down the center of the UNESCO heritage site where nineteen 17th century windmills line both sides of the canal. It really is quite beautiful. And popular! Sundays in Holland,  it seems, are the national everybody-go-ride-your-bike day and the fietspad was full of people all on our route! In fact, sometimes we found it easier to cycle on the road because there was less traffic! Despite this, it was really great to see so many people, of all ages and sizes, getting outside and getting some exercise. My favorites were the tiny kids who were all suited up in their spandex shorts and tops and pedaling like mad to keep up with mom and dad.

So many windmills! So sunburnt! 

Tonight, Penguin and I are staying on a houseboat in the center of Rotterdam. It is AWESOME. Definitely a little more money than our other accomodations but way too cool to pass up the opportunity. Our boat is moored next to another boat that is a floating restaurant (Gravy Daveys) - and they make some darn tasty British food! I had a goat cheese and sweet pea tart with minted potatoes for dinner and a lemon tart for dessert,  all rounded off by a Pimm's Cup. It was delicious! And now I'm sipping tea and writing this blog post from the deck of our boat next door while Penguin is down below singing this song.

Dinner was delicious on-board Gravy Daveys'

Followed by lounging on a beautiful, warm evening aboard our houseboat right next door! 

Soon to be followed by sleeping on said houseboat... Mmm sleep! 

Tomorrow will likely be our last day in the saddle since our goal is to arrive in Amsterdam. We're both a little sad to be done biking, despite the saddle sores and aching legs. I think it's the prospect of not being able to eat as much of- and anything we want without guilt that makes us the most sad. Haha.

We'll be arriving in Amsterdam a few days early (Penguin keeps muttering to himself about me being militant and if we'd just taken more rest days/done shorter distances blah blah blah)... which means that we'll get one full day to just lounge and 3 additional days to explore the city. Any suggestions for what to do?

Cheers!
Saroja

PS: Happy Birthday,  Mom! :)

Day 15: Road bikes can do anything - except ride through sand

Route: Antwerp, Belgium to Roosendaal, NL
Distance: 55 km
Ride Quality: Variable
Accommodation: Hotel Central

We woke up early this morning to escape from the sketchy campsite as soon as we could, although there was a delay while we washed all the bird poop off the fly. There were a lot of noisy birds overnight, and apparently they were loud because they were literally right on top of us. Heading back through the tunnel and out of Antwerp we kept an eye out for a breakfast place but the city was very quiet for a Saturday morning. Our last resort was a gas station at the edge of downtown, where we bought some food and ate it on the side of the street like the dirty hobos we were starting to feel like. Although to be fair, the gas station had good pickings. Croissants and other pastries, yogourt, juice, and even pre-made Starbucks drinks. It was almost on par with some of the other breakfasts we've had along the way, really.

The ride out was fairly slow since we were both still hurting from the extra mileage the day before. The LF route was again very well signed but often meandered off onto dirt or rocky trails. At times it was nice going through the scenic forest paths, and at other times it was just annoying. Saroja also managed to get yet another flat tire which brings her total to three - two on the ground and one (somehow) on the plane. Fingers crossed that's the end of it!

Still, the weather was warm and sunny and we were feeling good.  Lunch was a stop on a town called Kalmthout, where we ate milkshakes and sandwiches at a restaurant next to a small train station (Heide Station). Not a particularly European meal but it hit the spot and it was great to take a nice lunch break. We crossed into the Netherlands officially after that although since we were just on small paths there was no official welcome sign. The bike paths did improve after that though, inasmuch as there were no more dirt roads. In some of the towns there were even divided lanes for the bike paths with their own sidewalks for pedestrians - but no cars allowed anywhere!

The hotel we booked tonight is actually very nice. It wasn't done on purpose; there just aren't a lot of hotels and B&Bs around here to choose from. But we couldn't have picked a better place. Even though it's a bit expensive, the showers are great and the beds comfy. The restaurant attached to the hotel - Sistermans - was fabulous. We just had what was probably our best dinner of the trip. Bedtime is fast approaching since we're both still pretty beat, but it was a good day.

-Penguin

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures, it was a slow picture day.

Day 14: sunshine makes everything better!

Route: Ghent to Antwerp (via LF5 + LF2)
Distance: 95km
Ride Quality: terrific
Accomodations: Camp Du Molen

This will probably be a short post tonight because we're pretty tuckered out from today. When you punch in Ghent to Antwerp on Gmaps, it estimates about 65km for a cyclist. However, the LF routes definitely don't take the most direct path and our actual logged distance (without getting lost for once!) was much higher.

The said, we had the perfect day to spend clicking away at the kilometers. Warm,  sunny, with a slight breeze to keep things from getting too hot. Bluebird sky. Wonderful.

And despite not getting lost, the route was not without its own surprises. First of all, you have to cross the Schelde River twice by ferry on the LF5 before getting to the LF2. This came as a surprise to us and we thought we had taken a wrong turn when the signs directed us down to an empty dock. But a friendly Dutchman waiting at the bottom explained that the ferry was free and came every half hour. After this, we noticed that there were really quite a few opportunities to cross the canal by ferry, with docks spaced every 3km of so, if you were so inclined. And the service was well used, too! On our second scheduled crossing,  there were at least 15 other cyclists taking the tiny ferry across with us.

Penguin waiting for the ferry to cross the Schelde

The other surprise of the route was finding the tunnel across the canal once in Antwerp to reach our campsite. There's only one cyclist/pedestrian tunnel and we would never have found it if Penguin hadn't befriended a lovely lady on a bike who took us to the secret, unsigned tunnel entrance and then across the tunnel herself. The tunnel under the canal is 31m deep and 5km long! It's kind of a big deal!

The cyclist/pedestrian tunnel in Antwerp is 31m deep! 

Saroja zooms through the tunnel

The accomodations tonight are less than ideal. This well-rated 2 star campground is the worst we've ever seen. It's essentially a parking lot with a corner of drunk teenagers encircled by a ring of RVs owned by chain-smokers. Our little tent is set up under the neon lights of the adjacent Chinese buffet / windmill. It is a far cry from the serenity of the Algonquin backcountry. But at least it's only for one night.

The remaining highlight of the day was the number of sheep we saw along the way. There were so many! I knew my Wikipedia research about Ghent couldn't have been wrong! All kinds of sheep lined our path today: baby lambs to big rams, white and brown and black. I got a picture with some of them. They weren't very snuggly but they were curious. An elderly man watched Penguin and I do the sheep photo shoot and I'm pretty sure he thought we were nuts.

Hello sheep friends! 

Aww look at the little wobbly baby sheep!  So cute! 

Alas, our data and batteries are running low on the electronics - so I might have to upload this in the morning when we find a cafe. Tomorrow we cross the border into Holland! It will be sad to leave Belgium behind but we're excited for Holland as well.

Day 13 Rest day in Ghent

Location: Ghent
Route: Rest day
Accomodations: Camping Blarmeersen

We had a fairly restful sleep at the campsite last night, and despite the fact that it got a bit chilly overnight we managed to stay warm in the tent. Our 4 star camping site had nice showers, so we cleaned up from the road and made our way into Ghent for the day.

Breakfast was a Starbucks affair so we could have a taste of home (mostly) and also score some free Wi-Fi and charging outlets. We booked a few more nights accommodations in our upcoming cities- stay tuned to the blog to find out where we end up!!!

As you might expect from Saroja's post yesterday, she was very excited to see the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, so that was our first stop. The church that it is housed in is something like 700 years old, so it's pretty impressive all by itself. Saroja was very very very happy to see the Mystic Lamb and listened to the entire audioguide explaining all about each section. Mission accomplished.

There are also lots of advertisements here for the movie "Monuments Men", including large painted murals on the sides of buildings. The Mystic Lamb was stolen several times and moved many more times during the wars, so there's likely a connection there.

On our way to lunch we walked past the belfry and decided to stop in. That was also very cool! Only about 100 years or so younger than the other church and filled with the bells and carrolins and everything else your typical medieval belfry needs to mark time, warn of invasions, or cover up the sound of thunder. It had very winding spiral staircases that we used to get both up and down, which made it interesting when we ran into people coming the other way. Fortunately no one was injured.

The belfry also has a very cool dragon that was used as a weather vane back in the day. The old one has been replaced by a new dragon model, but the original is just inside the belfry which makes it much easier to see up close. Apparently, the original dragon even breathed fire during town celebrations way back when. We were impressed to learn that there were pyrotechnics in the medieval world!

Saroja is very taken with the medieval dragon

Lunch was a nice light veggie affair at a well rated soup place. Yah for veggies! Soup is apparently the "fast food"  of choice in Ghent, and we were not disappointed with it's tastiness. After lunch we went to the castle, which was VERY COOL! If I had any doubts about wanting to live in a castle before, I don't now. Although I could do without the display of medieval torture implements. That's one of the displays in the castle. I'll keep the armour, swords, daggers and guns though.

Penguin's future home

We took a boat tour along the canals after that. The boat tour was much better than the one in Bruges. Overall I think we both prefer Ghent over Bruges. Bruges has all of the old town and tourist stuff in one central place (The Bruges Egg,, as it's known to locals) which is convenient but makes it a bit over-touristy. In Ghent, the old buildings are more integrated into the city, which makes everything seem a bit more real and accessible. There's a spot from one of the bridges where you can see three of the church towers all lined up in a row. You can see the same skyline as it used to look in the 1500s,  which is really quite impressive! They call it Medieval Manhattan. Ghent used to bigger than LA and was considered the New York of medieval times.

Medieval skyline. Unfortunately the third building is being renovated (that's the one that has the lamb inside!) . 

Our understanding of Dutch is getting better, but very slowly. I still sound like the Swedish Chef trying to pronounce the street names and items off the menu. Still, we now know words like "exception"; for example, when it's a one way street but bikes are still allowed to ride down the opposite direction of traffic. Slightly terrifying.

Dinner, however, remains somewhat inaccessible. At least for veggies. There are a lot of well rated veggie restaurants in Ghent, as it is the veggie capital of Europe, but come dinner time those restaurants seem to close up and you're left with seafood and steakhouses. We did find a nice place in the end that had some good veggie dishes for Saroja and a tasty ice cream desert for myself, so at least in the end we prevailed.

Ghent makes a big mention of their lighting plan for the old section of town, so we stayed around until dark. The city does light up very nicely at night. There are lights built in underneath the sidewalks to light up the buildings and lights on all of the bridges. It was very pretty.

Ghent all lit up at dusk

Now we're back at the campsite, where the only obstacle to bedtime is finishing this blog. Saroja is very militant about the blog. Tomorrow we strike camp and head to Antwerp for another night of camping, although not a 4 star site this time...

Day 12: we found a happy ass, unfortunately it wasn't either of ours

Route: Brugge to Ghent
Distance: 48km
Ride Quality: variable
Accomodations: Camping Blaarmeersen

With some reluctance this morning,  we rolled out of Brugge and onto the LF5 route bound for Ghent. The reluctance was due to 2 things: first, the bed and breakfast we stayed at in Brugge was really very comfortable; second, a single rest day was not quite enough to make our legs (or our arses) forget the agony of cycling for hours.

Fortunately, the LF5 is relatively flat as it follows the canal system from Brugge to Ghent and the distance not overly long.  However, the route is of variable quality and we had a mix of everything today from smooth pavement to cobblestones to single dirt track. There was more of the last 2 than anything else, which made cycling with our road bikes rather interesting.  But for once it wasn't raining and we were pretty happy to soak up a little sun even if the weather insisted on being chilly (it has stayed between 5-10 degrees all day and certainly felt cooler than that with the wind).

The other positive thing about the LF routes are that they are well signed. We only took one wrong turn while out in the fields of farmland but it ended up for the best since I got to snuggle with a donkey. Yet another addition to my foreign farm animal photography collection.

I was keeping an eye out for sheep on the ride today because apparently the marshy fields around Ghent are ideal for sheep herding but no luck in that department yet. Sheep and chickens are the key farmyard brethren that have yet to be added to my collection of fuzzy friends.

Speaking of sheep, now that we're in Ghent, the thing I am most excited to see on our rest day tomorrow is the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. While you may be thinking,  'I've never heard of that one' -  in truth, you probably have since it's one of the most famous (and infamous) paintings in Europe. Go ahead and read the Wikipedia article about it (that's what Penguin is doing right now... I've assigned it to him as homework for tomorrow,  hehe). Wiki actually does a pretty good job covering all the important points of the painting without you needing an art history background to understand it all.

Tomorrow also just so happens to be Thursday, which is the official veggie day of Ghent. Ghent has the highest number of vegetarian restaurants per capita in Europe and on Thursdays the city has a special initiative to encourage everyone to eat vegetarian one day a week. Sounds like my kind of place!

Lonely Planet has called Ghent 'the best kept secret in Europe' and National Geographic has called it the 'most authentic historic city in the world' -  which is pretty darn cool considering we just came from Brugge! Penguin says that he is most excited about visiting the castle in Ghent. More details on all these cool Ghent activities and more coming your way tomorrow.

In the meantime, we're snuggled in our tent and sleeping bags here at Blarmeersen campground. It's advertised as 4 star camping and is certainly no backcountry Algonquin site! There are washrooms, showers,  laundry,  a restaurant and bar,  grocery store,  pool,  athletic complex, beach, and 5km running track all within 3km walking distance of downtown. Pretty impressive there, Ghent! And for 7.5 euro a night, we can't complain one bit about a little traffic noise in the distance.

I never thought I'd consent to 4 Star camping... But I'll admit that it's rather nice. 

One thing that I have noticed as we've moved further away from the French border is that Flemish is a very difficult language to pick up. As a result, we've both reverted to speaking in English first to people we meet along the way. After working so hard to speak French, it feels very self-centered to speak to the locals here in our language first rather than theirs. Belgians, however, are remarkable linguists and have all generally spoken excellent English back to us. But I'd still like to give Dutch a fair try - after all,  it is my heritage... so here's hoping I can pick up a little while I'm here and continue to work on it when I get home.

Cheers!
Saroja

Day 11 Part 2: Brugge

Route: Brugge to Brugge
Distance: We weren't biking so it doesn't matter
Ride Quality: Wonderful
Accommodation: See day 10 - two days in one place!!!

So I've been told that rest days don't apply to blog posts. But since I'm sitting in my room drinking free wine and munching on my giant block of Belgium chocolate, I can't complain too much. :-)

We had a great rest day in Bruges today. Breakfast was quite tasty and even had some boiled eggs, which Saroja greatly appreciated. As we had nowhere to be we didn't eat until later, so I appreciated the sleep in. Mmmm..... Sleep....  After a glorious morning we headed out to explore Bruges. I didn't even have to put in my contacts in case we had to bike in the rain, which my eyes were thankful for. Especially after I tried to readjust one of my contacts a day or two before, only to have it blow away in the wind...

Our first stop was the Historium, which tells the story of a day in Bruges back in the 1400's. It was sort of dramatic and not particularly historical, but still very well done. Afterwards we wandered around the town to visit some chocolate shops, of which there are SO MANY!!! And they all smell delicious when you walk in. Needless to say we have a good stash of snacks for the next few days.

There were a few other good stores too. Lots of lace stores, with curtains, dresses, bookmarks, underwear and pretty much everything else made of lace. Saroja fell in love with a tapestry of Klimpt's 'mother and child' in an art store - although as of now it remains in the store as the odds of it surviving in the trailer are fairly low. We also picked up a cute Christmas decoration, which is becoming something of a tradition for us when we travel.

After a quick snack of pommes frites for Saroja and a delicious waffle for me, we went on a tour of the Half Moon (Halve Maan) brewery, the only active brewery left in Bruges. It was a fun tour, and of course we had some tasty Zot beer at the end. The building was purchased in the 1600's so even walking through the building itself was neat. After the beer we went on a short boat tour along the canals and then walked to the Begijnhof which is inhabited by nuns and "single women" (according to the boat tour). They have a nice old church there where Saroja lit a candle and soaked in all the art and architecture. Next we went to the Minnewater, also known as the Lake of Love. The legend, which is based on the tragic love story of Minna and her warrior love Stromberg says that if you walk across the bridge with your partner, you will have eternal love.

A beer fridge chandelier... And this wasn't even at the brewery!!! 

An artsy photo down one of the canals of Bruges. 

We checked out a couple of restaurants for dinner before settling on a place that had some good veggie options for Saroja. It was like a pita place, but with fries instead of bread and a variety of sauces for your meal. We both really enjoyed it! They also had some very strong sangria that Saroja liked. We'll see if she remembers that part in the morning...

Note the difference in food types. Penguin is ready to devour his chocolate, ice cream and whipped cream-topped waffle... 

... while Saroja is very excited to eat vegetables and falafel. 

Dinner was followed by a short walk to see some windmills on the edge of the old town, then a stop at the oldest bar in Bruges from 1515 - which of course is closed on Tuesdays. Good thing there was still some wine at the B&B!

All in all it was a great rest day. Tomorrow we head to Ghent for two days. A mere 50 km of biking along canals will hopefully seem like a breeze! Now that the weather looks better we'll be doing some camping too. Saroja is very excited for Ghent as the city has vegetarian Thursdays and even hands out veggie street maps. And I'll have lots of Belgium chocolate and beer so I'll be happy to eat anything. :-)

-Penguin

Day 11: Rest Day

That is all.

-Penguin

Day 10: Au revoir France, Goededag Belgium!

Route: Dunkerque, France to Brugge, Belgium
Distance: 75km
Ride Quality: fantastic! I love cycling in Belgium!!
Accomodations: Con Ampere B+B

Success! Today, we made it to Belgium, the 2nd of the 3 countries we plan to cycle through. We crossed the border shortly after noon today (there really wasn't much of a border, just a sign-  which seems strange to my North American mindset)...

Goededag from Belgium! 

But before I talk too much about our first forays in Belgium,  let us pause for a moment to reflect on France.

Things I loved most about France:
- Paris: was wonderful and I would already like to go back some day with more time and a whole stack of guide and history books on hand to soak in as much as possible.
- the birds: holy crap! Compared to Canada, there are an amazing number of birds here and they are always in song.
- country lace curtains in Northern France: every house had the same style of white lace curtains but they all told a different story. Some showed cats chasing birds, some were ships and seashells, and they were all unique! I tried to find something on a Google image search that captured their style and this was the best I could do. It's not quite the same but it's close.
- the artistry and craftsmanship of the country homes: I especially loved the brickwork and the shutters on all the windows. Every house had shutters that were painted a different color from its neighbor and every town had a different pattern to how they laid their bricks.
- the language and the people: which are nearly inseparable. Immensely polite and friendly, I loved the French people and they graciously allowed me to murder their beautiful language daily. But at least, after nearly a week,  my french has slowly improved to something moderately passable.

The thing I liked least about France (aside from the weather,  which I feel is unfair to hold against it)  was the food. It was really very difficult to get food in France. Restaurants were open only for a few short hours a day and were often closed multiple days of the week (Sat, Sun, Mon, or Thurs? You're out of luck,  sorry). Markets were also sporadic finds and with no storage room on the bikes and no way to prepare or cook food,  we were limited to carrying just 1-2 days on sundry goods at a time. Lastly,  when we did find restaurants that were open, the food was usually a meat and a starch (most commonly pasta or potatoes). Vegetables were used solely as garnish and were of sparse supply. As a vegetarian,  this was the thing I found most difficult adjusting to.

Our diet in France consisted almost exclusively of bread. For breakfast, we would have bread (a croissant) accompanied by more bread (a baguette) and maybe a yogurt or piece of fruit, if we were lucky. Lunch was most often a baguette,  usually with cheese or jam. Dinner, if we couldn't find a restaurant, was the rest of the baguette and cheese/jam.  Don't get me wrong,  the French do bread very well but a girl cannot live on bread alone-especially not when cycling all day, every day.

So,  when I do make my future forray back to Paris,  I plan to come with a suitcase full of lentils and rent an apartment with a kitchenette so I won't have to worry about being hungry.

Thus, as we crossed the Belgian border close to lunch time,  we stopped shortly thereafter to look around for lunch options. It was with great delight that we saw multiple restaurants,  all open,  and with menus that offered veg-friendly options. Delighted, I had my first salad in a week,  which felt great after having had some eggs for breakfast at the hotel Penguin had found for us the night before when I had commented that even prisoners are fed more than just bread 3 meals a day.

After lunch, we cruised through the polders of Flanders on highways with their own special bike lanes! The Belgian drivers are wonderful and the whole highway will stop to let a pair of cyclists across, as we soon learned after making a wrong turn. After we reached Oudenburg, we hopped on the LF1 Route that took us straight along a traffic-free cycle path right to the heart of Brugge. It was truly lovely- especially after hugging the margins of French country highways that have no shoulder and drivers who don't believe cyclists need more than 4-6 inches of space when being passed by vehicle going 70km/hr. It was so nice to be able to let my left elbow use its normal position rather than being permanently tucked alongside my body for safety!

Penguin in front of a purple field. We couldn't figure out what this crop was at all- it looked like a field full of chives! 

Fantastic cycle route signage in Belgium

Taking the LF1 into Brugge along the Brugge-Gent canal

Just as we entered Brugge, the locks went up and we spent a very pleasant 30 min applying sunscreen while watching the barges move through. That's right: there was finally enough sun that we put on sunscreen! Cheers to that!

Tomorrow we're spending a rest day in Brugge to explore the city on foot. We did a cursory exploratory walk for dinner tonight and it looks like tomorrow is going to be a lot of fun.  Here are a few sneak peak pics.

This is my,  'please don't bite me Mr. Swan smile'... not the most snuggly creatures in the world.