Holland by Bike

Much to our surprise and the approval of many Dutch locals, we must be the only travellers visiting the Netherlands who didn't go to Amsterdam! Instead we decided to base ourselves in Utrecht, which is a beautiful city with plenty of canals located pretty much in the centre of the Netherlands. We made a decision to get more involved in couchsurfing and figured our 10 day stay in the Netherlands was a perfect opportunity. We found a host (Lars) in Utrecht with whom we stayed initially and left most our gear with when we embarked on 3 main trips within Holland:

Trip 1: Riding to Deventer

After everyone told us how flat Holland was, the logical thing to do was hire some bikes to get around. We weren't sure how far was a reasonable distance to ride each day given we are bludgers, but we decided about 100km a day was suitable. 100km/day wasn't suitable....it nearly killed us. Well to be fair, what people hadn't told us was that riding from Utrecht to Deventer through the national park was actually one of the only hilly parts of Holland, and with a strong headwind for about 90km (in EVERY direction we turned) we struggled. We eventually did make it to Deventer (it was looking shakey at one point) and met our next host (Mathieu) who looked after us really well and his spaghetti bolognaise was most appreciated. The next day we were planning to cycle around the area but couldn't bear the sight of our bikes so we just stayed local, and Mathieu showed us around the beautiful little city of Deventer and introduced us to some of the traditional snacks eaten in Holland, most notably the Kroket. We spent that night with another host (Alex) who is a sound engineer and a generally all round interesting guy with a love of tea, well...and beer too which we did have first at the Witches Hex bar. The next day we headed back to Utrecht and met up again with Lars.

Trip 2: Sailing in Freisland

As it tured out, Lars actually was co-owner of a little sailing boat which he kept up in Freisland (home to the Freisian horse). He'd lined it up so we could all go up sailing for the weekend. We drove up there through the reclaimed land which is an amazing project really....in a nutshell they built huge walls to retain the sea and then pumped out all the water to leave a huge amount of farming land that is actually below sea level. The saying God created the world but the Dutch created the Netherlands seems to have a litertal meaning! We sailed around for the weekend, with beautiful weather and beer in hand while Lars and his friend Marc did most of the "work" although both Anita and I had a go at sailing which was pretty cool. On the Sunday we sailed to another town, tied up the boat and had lunch. We had a very relaxing weekend and still managed to see a lot of Holland.

Trip 3: Utrecht to Leiden, Haarlem, Zaanstad

The nicest ride in my opinion was between Utrecht and Leiden....along waterfronts, back roads, fields and small towns. Now this was flat...we rode 50km and barely broke a sweat, which was most welcome after our near death experience of the last ride. This was the kind of riding I had in mind...easy, pancake and Amstel filled, and beautiful. We spend that night in Leiden with our next host (Ellen) who showed us around the town on bike which is a great way to sightsee...its really quick and easy and you can see more in a short space of time.

The next day we rode north to Haarlem along the Tulip trail stopping at the Keukenhof along the way. This is the most amazing flower show I have ever seen and although Canberra's Floriade is also nice, it makes it look like an amateur's copy of a masterpiece. There were so many people there and we were at least 40 years younger than 97% of the visitors.

The next day we rode to Zaanstad and visited the Zaanse Schans...a village recreated in traditional Dutch style, including a mustard mill, saw mill, oil mill (literally windmills!), wooden shoe craft shop, cheese shop and heaps of other things. Although we were a bit worried that we were going to be paying through the nose for such an obvious tourist activity, we were surprised that everything was pretty reasonably priced and really relaxing. We ended up staying longer than expected and this is why we never made it to Amsterdam, and had to view it from the train as it sped back to Utrecht.

All in all we got to see a lot of the Netherlands and got to experience many 'typical dutch' foods, activities and sights. We couchsurfed with 4 different hosts and had great experiences....it's really good knowing someone in each place who can show you around a bit, point you in the right direction, and speak the language if you need help. It really takes some of the cognitively demanding aspects out of travelling. Also, there is the chance to do something that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to - such as sailing - and helps you get a genuine experience, otherwise you just wouldn't know where to start! As an added benefit we paid for accommodation on 2 of 9 nights in the Netherlands. I think we will be doing a lot more couchsurfing through Europe.