2001 Holland

Amsterdam circle tour – 2 Sept 2001 – 17 Sept 2001

This was our first European bike trip. We did have to pick the September of 9/11!
For years I have been meaning to update this trip but ….
It is now March 29, 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are healthy, but have time on our hands. Our feet have been reasonably busy as we have been walking & biking. Check that out at: 2020 Adventures

We were going through old pictures (digitally) and found the ones from this trip, so time to finish this trip off on-line!
We are pretty much pack rats so we had a lot of stuff to refer to:

• Judy had done a photo album
• I had scanned the photos
• we both had our own journals
• and we had the B&B guide with the places we stayed at.

In 2001 we did not have a cell phone for Europe. There was no GPS, no tablets.
There were maps and compasses! Oh, we did have a credit card.

Here is the route we took: 2001 Holland

Here is a summary of the bike trip:

Date	City	Dist km	Total
2 Sept 2001	Zwanenburg	20	20
3 Sept 2001	Heemskirk	31	51
4 Sept 2001	Alkmaar	33	84
5 Sept 2001	Hoorn	27	111
6 Sept 2001	Enkhuizen	23	134
7 Sept 2001	Lelystad	37	171
8 Sept 2001	Kampen	40	211
9 Sept 2001	Zwolle	20	231
10 Sept 2001	Zwolle	0	231
11 Sept 2001	Deventer	53	284
12 Sept 2001	Zutphen	54	338
13 Sept 2001	Velp	28	366
14 Sept 2001	Tiel	57	423
15 Sept 2001	Houten	50	473
16 Sept 2001	Houten	0	473
17 Sept 2001	Airport	57	530

1 September 2001: Toronto to Amsterdam

We flew Canada 3000 (remember them?) with the bikes in boxes. Our local bike store had done the boxing.
We took an Airways Transit van to the airport.

2 September 2001: Amsterdam Airport to Zwanenburg

Although leaving an hour late, we arrived only 20 minutes behind schedule at 11am.
The bikes take a while to arrive – 12:30. It takes 2 hours to unbox and assemble the 2 bikes.
We store the empty boxes at the airport baggage office.
Had lunch – BLTs called “Euros”. This was just before the Euro had arrived so nothing to do with that.
Once we found the right path, it was easy to bike out of the airport.
A little drizzle which stopped. Found our B&B. 3 story townhouse.
We are on third floor up steep stairs. We will have to get used to that.
Walk into town – Chinese restaurant is packed. Eat at cafe – very good.
Find phone booth – no cell phone! Can’t get answer at town we had picked for next night.

3 September 2001:  Zwanenburg to Heemskerk

Great breakfast spread. We made lunch from the table. We are using a Dutch B&B association: Vrienden op te Fiets (Friends of the bike). It is for hikers & bikers.
They charge $20 per person per night.

It started to rain as headed toward Haarlem. In center we found bike shop and got Judy’s brakes adjusted. Bought maps – no GPS! Had lunch in the central market by the town hall.

Haarlem Town hallRain had stopped – nice ride north to the Nordsee Canal. Took ferry across – free!

We met a family out for a bike ride.

Into Heemskerk, found phone, got B&B at short notice!
Great place, great people. They had biked 1000 km in 2 weeks the previous year.

Dinner out was Indonesian – great.

4 September 2001:  Heemskerk to Alkmaar

Another great breakfast – got a picture this time!

It was raining, but we finally left heading north. In Limmen got Judy’s gears fixed and had lunch. The sun came out for a while as we went through Heiloo.

Decided to go to coast. Into the wind. In the rain! Egmond By the Sea

Heading back inland with the wind, it rained hard. Found our B& B in Alkmaar.
It was raining so took taxi to/from Greek restaurant in town.

5 September 2001:  Alkmaar to Hoorn

Our hosts have no car, use bikes to get around the city. Their vacations are on a tandem bike doing 100km a day!

With no rain, we walked around the center of Alkmaar. The cheese weigh house was built in the 1400s.

We have great sunny ride to Hoorn. The wind is at our backs!

Hoorn is a busy port on the Ijesselmeer. Our B&B hostess greeted us with great angel food cake.

6 September 2001:  Hoorn to Enkuizen

We bike into Hoorn and find a lot of large old sailing ships crowded in the harbour.
They have large wooden side or bilge keels. With shallow waters, these sailboats can lift the keel when they come into port. It looked like there were a lot of students on the boats.

Met a couple of men from US who were on a bike/barge tour. They took our picture.
Sun out most of the time going to Enkuizen. For a while we followed a dike along the edge of the Ijesselmeer and saw the sailboats that were in Hoorn.

I noticed that one of my tires was getting a little worn. Should have noted that before leaving! Found bike shop in the village of Wijdenes and got it replaced.
Our B&B in Enkuizen is a beautifully restored 100 year old house. Our hostess speaks good English. After returning from dinner, we chatted with her until near midnight.

7 September 2001:  Enkuizen to Lelystadt

We biked around Enkuizen. Like Hoorn it has a bustling harbour.

From Enkuizen we cross the Maarkerwaard Dike which crosses the Ijesselmeer. It is 25km long.

Fortunately the wind was behind us as we crossed the dike going south east.
We cruised along at 25-30km/hr. Just before connecting to the south shore, the dike swings west. We were heading mostly into the wind. That reduced our speed. Thankfully that only lasted a few km.
Lelystad is a “new” city. It is built on land reclaimed from the Ijesselmeer. It was founded in 1967 after 17 years of engineering work to reclaim it. As a result the city has no old town and does not have a lot of character.
Our B&B was not the best as the owner was a smoker.

8 September 2001:  Lelystadt to Kampen

It was cool cloudy & windy – with us! We stopped in Dronten and had lunch we had packed at B&B. A storm came through. We sheltered under a shop overhang and watched the outdoor thermometer drop from 17C to 12C.

We arrive in Kampen early afternoon. It is Saturday and “monument day”. Museums etc are free. We park our bikes in a bike parking garage – $2.50 for the 2 bikes.
We walk around the city. Visited a church. Outside we took shelter as 4 or 5 bands went by in the rain. Went to a cafe for tea and a beer. A little smoky – the air not the beer.

We find our B&B. 3 floors in a 5 story building. Very Nice. We have a welcoming drink with our hostesses.
We borrow an umbrella to walk into the city and have an excellent Italian dinner.
Good thing we had the umbrella as it rained!

9 September 2001:  Kampen to Zwolle

With forecast for rain and strong winds, we decide to have a shorter ride to Zwolle today.
Fortunately, wind was with us. Through farmer’s fields we passed cattle & sheep and tries to dodge their manure on the path.

Rode into Zwolle, city of 100,000. Parked bikes at train station.

Our B&B is 3km from center, so we take bus to get dinner. Then go to cafe to have a tea & beer. The young waiter was very friendly. We had quite a chat with him. He shouted us a second round!

10 September 2001:  Bus to Giethoorn – stay in Zwolle

Forecast not so good so decide to not bike and stay another night in Zwolle.
We take bus (30km)  to Giethoorn, a small village with houses accessible only boat or walking.
It is called a Venice of the north.

We take a boat ride to get a better view of the homes.

Back to Zwolle by bus. Went back to cafe where we had drinks the previous night. This time had dinner. 

11 September 2001:  Zwolle to Deventer

Cloudy, rain threatened but we only had a few drops.

We ride 50 km to Deventer without getting tired. Must be getting fit! We bike for a while along the Ijessel River, then a few canals into Wijke for lunch – bought buns, meat etc.
Very pleasant ride.

Into Deventer, we see men repairing a cobbled street.

We have the whole ground floor of a building. The owners used to have a photo shop there, but retired and built an apartment.

We are close to the center of Deventer and eat at a Sicilian restaurant.
Everyone has their story of where they were when they found out about the towers coming down on 9/11. Our waitress told us about it. This was about 7pm in Holland, so 1pm in New York. She invited us to watch on the little TV in the kitchen. CNN in English. We were shocked. I had been to New York many times on business staying down near the world trade center. Fortunately none of my workmates where there that day.
We stopped in a bar on the way home and watched some more.
Back at our B&B there was a radio, which we listened to for a while.

12 September 2001:  Deventer to Zutphen

After breakfast our hosts invited us to watch TV upstairs in their living room. We got the latest on the twin towers coming down.
We crossed the Ijessel river and headed down LF3. This is one of the marked bike paths.
Coffee in Voorst. Into Zutphen for lunch of Krokettes. We are too early to check into our B&B, so we head east out of town to Vorder for a look around.
Our B&B is close to town. We have an excellent meal at a bistro where we had lunch.

 

13 September 2001:  Zutphen to Velp

Without a cell phone we had to find phone booths to make reservations. We did not have a fixed route to follow and were making bookings 1 day ahead. Always found a place to stay.

Rain off and on today. Not far to Velp and had lunch there. We met a couple from Vancouver at a bike shop. While talking to them, a lady came up and asked if we spoke English and was I David! She was our B&B host. Guess we did not look like locals!
Very nice lady who spoke good English. We went to her house. She let us watch CNN to get the latest news from New York.
Dinner was at a Dutch cafe. Had a ham hock – very good.
Back at our B&B we watched some more CNN. With air travel shut down, we were going to have to figure out our flight home.

14 September 2001:  Velp to Tiel

We watched more CNN while we ate breakfast. Crossed the Waal River at Arnheim.
We stopped at a memorial to the WW2 Battle of Arnheim. British & Polish troops had been hemmed in on the north shore of the river here. British & Canadian engineers made dozens of trips back & forth in their small boats. They rescued 2400 troops.

After an hour the rain stopped. It was a pleasant ride through small towns.
Flags all over Holland were at half mast to remember the fallen NY towers.
In Tiel we bought a map at the tourist office. We found a cafe and had a well deserved tea & beer.
Tried phoning Canada 3000 to find out status of flights. After long wait had to hang up.
Our B&B is excellent. We have a large room with a sink! Our hosts greet us with piece of home made apple pie & whipped cream.
A 30 minute walk into town and picked first restaurant after the rain started! It was Italian and very good. Even had dessert!
We had drinks with our host and had a great chat. He was a retired engineer. They had friends in Toronto and Vancouver.

15 September 2001:  Tiel to Houten

We used our host’s phone to reserve in Houten for tonight.
We head into strong winds as we go west.
Stop in the beautiful town of Buren.

Had left over pizza from last night’s dinner under bridge.

Apple orchards with columnar trees.

Went early to our B&B. Got there just before it started to rain.
We had a separate section of a house.
We walk into town and take train to Utrecht (15 min ride). We walked around dodging the rain. Saw tallest church in Holland. We climbed to the top on our 2017 trip (2017 Amsterdam to Venice) We were not able to climb it this trip as it was cordoned for a special service to remember those killed in New York.

We had a great meal at a Greek restaurant.

16 September 2001:  Stay in Houten for night – train to Gouda

Our flight had originally been for 18 September. We heard that flights were being delayed, so we decided to stay another night in Houten.
We took train to Gouda – about an hour through Utrecht.
Interesting town hall, cheese weigh house and museum.
We bought some cheese! What kind was it – not cheddar!

Back to Houten – Italian dinner.
Back at the B&B we have an interesting chat with our hosts.
He is a city planner and hydrologic engineer.
We got an education on water in Holland. How they were having dig wells deeper to get fresh water. How they were battling pollution runoff from farms.
We were able to use the internet and found that our flight was delayed.

17 September 2001:  Houten to Schiphol Airport

Our original plan was to bike to a B&B we had booked near the airport.
We biked into Houten and found a phone booth. I got through to Canada 3000 and was told that we could get on a flight that night – 11pm. So, we cancelled our B&B and biked 57km to Schiphol.
The weather was fine as we biked through Utrecht where we bought lunch to eat later. (Never know if you can find eatery when you want lunch)

Stopped in Wilnis to eat lunch. We had sunshine at this point.

It then rained off & on until the airport.
We made it by 4pm!

We got our bike boxes from storage, dismantled and packed bikes in boxes.
We washed up, got our panniers strapped together and were in the Canada 3000 line by 7pm!

Then the nightmare began. We got up to the agent to be told to go to another counter to on the standby list. Not what we were told on the phone! I got to the back of the line with the 2 bike boxes while Judy went to the “other” counter. We were standby numbers 9 &10!
So we had to wait as confirmed passengers were checked in. Fortunately we made it on.
We actually got home a day early. Sadly Canada 3000 went out of business a few months later. The victim of 9/11.

This was quite an introduction to biking in Europe. Even though we had a lot of rain, we coped. This did not deter us from going back as we have been back 10 times!
The B&B experience was great. Our hosts spoke good English. Most were bikers themselves and were happy to chat.