Thur., June 30 to home

Up at 4 a.m. To give us a fitting sendoff it was still raining. We had planned to take an airport shuttle but that would have made us walk a couple of hundred yards in the rain with our bags so we called a cab to the airport.

Our flight home was on British Airways via London. When booking the flight I made a terrible mistake by requiring us to change airports from London City airport to Gatwick. That meant we couldn't check our bags through. We had to go through UK Immigration and Customs and arrange our own ground transportation to Gatwick which was 50 miles away. Couldn't lug our bags on public transport and there is no shuttle bus, so we paid up (way up) for a taxi. Shoot me if I ever book an airport change again. At least we did have enough time for the connection. We suffered through it, and both got a bit of sleep on the flight home.

A good trip. Would have been better without the terrible weather, of course, but we adapted, and had a good time.

Wed., June 29 to Amsterdam

This morning we drove a few minutes to the east side of the island to a maritime and beachcombing museum. It is mainly a collection of artifacts which either washed ashore or got snagged in the nets of fishing boats. A lot of junk but also some artifacts from wrecks as far back as the 1600's. Overall it was very interesting and well presented. We spent several hours there.

We have an early flight home tomorrow, so this afternoon we took the ferry back  to the mainland and drove to Amsterdam. We turned in the rental car at the airport and a shuttle to a nearby hotel.

A few drops of rain at noon but otherwise a nice day until the evening when it started to rain steadily. It is the first day of mussel season so we enjoyed a good last dinner of the trip at the hotel's dining room.

Tuesday June 28th at Texel

The weather looked pretty good this morning, and we were envious at the sight of hundreds or thousands of people cycling on the island yesterday. Since our  tandem is already packed for the trip home , we rented a tandem bike for the day.  the bike , a Dutch Gazelle model, was a real tank compared to the bikes we are used to. But once it got going it had plenty of momentum and it did have one novel feature. instead of multiple gears it had a mechanism in the rear hub which gave it infinitely variable gearing with a twist of the handlebar grip. I have no idea how it worked but  it made riding the short hills in the dunes great fun. We spent about 4 hours on the bike , including a coffee stop and lunch stop, and we had a great time. We rode to the north  end of the island and back by a different route. After returned in the bike we drove down the eastern side of the island and stopped at one more harbor full of interesting boats. There were several old sailing cargo ships converted into charter vessels. They were larger than any Old Dutch boats we have seen elsewhere. One was 170 feet long. See picture.  it is amazing how many old steel Dutch boats are still operating.

We were wrong about the weather. It spat rain all day.  but we had great fun regardless.

Mon. June 27 to island of Texel

a.m. drizzling rain. Walked around the little city of Leeuwarden, saw their locally famous leaning tower, said to lean more than Pisa's. See pic and judge for yourself.

Drove across long die enclosing the Inland sea, and to the W coast of NL. Took 2 mi. ferry to Texel, the S most and largest of the Frisian Islands which stretch all the way up and across to the N German coast. 

Texel is abt 20 mi. long and 5 mi. wide, beaches and dunes on W side. Farms and marsh in the interior. Peaceful and rural. Many many people touring the island by bicycle, incl lots of rented bikes.ade us jealous but if we were still riding we'd not have reached here, and would have missed what we've seen and done the last few days.

After lunch the weather cleared. We drove to the nat'l park on the W coast. Too windy and cold to walk on the beach, but we took a good walk on a trail in the dunes. Man at a snack bar says afternoon's are usually clear here and Texel get most sunshine of anywhere in Netherlands. A comment now would be a cheap shot.

Nice little hotel in middle of the island.

Sunday, June 26 to Leeuwarden

We'd hoped to rent a boat today and get out sailing, but the forecast was 50% storms. The day's road distance was only 40 km, so to pass the time we drove up to the very northern coast of the Netherlands to the town of Lauwersoog. There we found a harbor with huge fishing boats,and many yachts including a lot of old Dutch boats. While we were having coffee and watching the boat traffic, a very large dutch boat came into the harbor and docked. We went to check it out, and that was how we happened to get an unforgettable sailing trip. The Willem Jacob is a 50-ton 1889 ex cargo carrier, now a passenger charter vessel. She carried stone on the Rhine under sail alone until after WW II. She is sloop-rigged, with a main boom over a foot thick and probably 60' long. No space to tell all the details, but we had a glorious afternoon of sailing on the wide bay sheltered from the North Sea by islands far offshore, with about 25 kts of wind. Sailing on such a large and powerful boat with such strong wind was a thrill. I  worked the whole time, cranking and pulling lines along with the mate and some of the other passengers. Sandy pulled in some neglected fenders and also pulled some lines back by the helm. Ck www.willemjacob.nl for good pictures and video of the boat. Just a fabulous time. And it didn't rain while we were sailing after all.

Saturday June 25 Bourtange and Groningen

In the morning we visited the small fortress town of Bourtange, by the border with Germany. The fort was built by William of Orange in the war with Spain starting about 1580. It was rebuilt and expanded many times before falling into ruins in the 19th century. Now it has been completely restored to what it looked like in 1720. It's very small, maybe 300 meters across, but a picturesque town. Several little museums, including one with artifacts found during the restoration. An enjoyable spot to visit, even though it was raining- rained all day today, in fact.

We turned west and drove to the city of Groningen. Staying at an excellent hotel in the old city center. had a hard time finding a parking place, but finally did. The happy surprise was an event bringing many historic Dutch ships and boats to the city. We enjoyed a couple of  hours walking the quays- despite the rain- and talking with the owners of the vessels.

Friday. June 24 Kamp Westerbork and Hunerbedden

OK, some geography- since taking the train Northwest from Luxembourg to Brugge, which is in extreme Western Belgium, we have been working our way to the east across Belgium and then toward the Northeast  corner of the Netherlands.

From our campground hotel this morning we drove to Kamp Westerbork, near the German border. This was Nazi transit camp where all the Dutch Jews were taken before being send off to Auschwitz or Bergen belsen. Not much remains of the camp itself, but the museum there does a devastating job of personalizing the horror of what was done. Lots of personal effects and stories. In the camp there is a memorial consisting of one beer- can shaped stone for each of the 107,000 Jews who passed through the camp. Taller stones for older people , small ones for the children. Many of the stones have accompanying photographs. The whole collection is in the shape of a map of the Netherlands. The camp closed in the fall of 1944 because they simply ran out of Dutch Jews. Anne Frank and her family were among the last to be transported to the death camps. Overall, fewer than 5000 survived.

We moved on, and stopped at the town of Borger which has megalithic tombs dating from 3200-2800 b.c. All the huge boulders there were brought down from Scandinavia by glaciers in the Ice Age. In many cases they are able to identify exactly where the boulders came from. Even if nature delivered the stones to the site , it is amazing how people were able to move them and build huge tombs so long ago.

Spent the night at a very modest b&b near the town of Bourtange, which we plan to visit tomorrow.

Thursday June 23 Het Loo and canoeing

In the morning we visited the Royal Palace of het loo, the largest of the Netherlands royal family's several palaces. Like Versailles it was originally a hunting lodge but was greatly expanded into a palace in the 1670s by William III and his wife Mary Stuart who became William & Mary, king and queen of England. It is not quite as large or grand as Versailles, but plenty impressive nevertheless. Also unlike our experience at Versailles, we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The royal family still uses it sometimes. There is a display of carriages and automobiles in what used to be the stables. Queen Wilhelmina 1880 - 1962 grew up at het loo and lived there for the last 15 years of her life, after abdicating the throne. Below is a picture of the back door and one of the garden. Hitler was very interesting and we spent more time there than we expected.

In the afternoon we drove to another National Park, Weeribben-Wieden, where we rented a canoe and paddled for two hours on canals in a grassy marsh. Not much wildlife but we did see two swans. Swans are actually very common in the Netherlands. Crossing a large canal in the canoe we crossed paths with a young couple in a beautiful Dutch boat. See picture.

Our hotel for the night turned out to be a large campground, but they do have rooms upstairs from the restaurant, and they served us a good dinner. This is the first evening of our trip which we would describe as uncomfortably warm. Fortunately our room has a fan and we can open the window so we have no complaint.

Another good day.

Wednesday June 22nd

A warm sunny day!

In the morning drove to the Netherlands World War II and Resistance Museum south of Arnhem. British Field Marshal Montgomery , after missing an opportunity to trap the bulk of German troops in Normandy , tried to do it in the Netherlands in the fall of 1944. Everything had to work perfectly for it to succeed but that didn't happen. It was a costly failure. (A Bridge Too Far) Not only were thousands of Allied troops cut off from reinforcements & killed, but hundreds of Dutch Resistance fighters mistakenly came out in the open to fight, and were captured and killed themselves. The huge museum, on the site of one of the largest tank battles of the war , has many photographs and memorabilia displayed. The photo below was like an arrow through my heart. The museum also has a huge building with tanks, airplanes and vehicles.

From there we drove to the Hoge Veleuw National Park, which is Netherlands largest National Park. A German industrialist wanted a hunting preserve and his wife wanted a place to house their art collection , so they got both. She started collecting art about 1909 and put together the largest collection of Van Gogh works anywhere except those held by the artist's family. The museum holds not only a van Gogh collection which rivals the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, but also a large collection of other modern art, including Picasso, Mondrian and others. There are also some impressionist paintings there, but that was not her main interest. All together she bought over 10,000 works of art over the course of about 20 years. The land and the art were donated to the Netherlands in the early 1930s. We don't know if the Nazis carried it off during the war, but they kept such good records that a lot of what they stole did get restored to museums and churches after the war. Of things stolen from Jews , not so much was never returned.

We drove to the town of apeldoorn, the site of the largest Royal Palace, which we will visit tomorrow.

Tuesday June 21 - Den Bosch

Since we can't ride because of weather we made a new plan. We picked up a rental car in Ghent this morning and drove to Den Bosch back in the Netherlands. The weather forecast was 0% chance of rain , so of course it rained all day.

Our particular reason for visiting the town of den Bosch was too see the Hieronymus Bosch Art Center , which has full size images of all of that amazing artist's known paintings. We've been fans of Bosch for a long time and have seen some of his paintings elsewhere but to see them all together reinforces our conviction that he was not only a wonderful  creator of  imaginative scenes obsessed with the devil and hell but also was crazy as a loon.

We also visited the St Jan's Cathedral, parts of which date from the 11th century, and is loaded with religious art from the 15th to 17th century. It is a marvel to us that so many cathedrals can be maintained and restored while providing security for priceless art treasures , while only a handful of people actually worship in them. We can't imagine where the money comes from.

After getting lost in the Maze of small one-way streets in the center of the town, which we fully expected to do, we made our way to a fine B&B, found a place to park , and found a good restaurant for dinner only a block away.

A good day. No pictures, you know what rain looks like.

Monday,June 20 at Ghent

Rainy and windy. All the museums are closed on Monday so we had planned to visit the botanical garden and take a boat ride on the canals. Forget that.

We did visit the nearby castle of The Dukes of Flanders. It dates from the 11th century but has been destroyed and rebuilt many times since then. Now it is a perfect castle for a movie set. There is an impressive display of instruments of torture , with many groups of small school children showing great interest. Sandy was appalled. I'll admit it is hard to believe such cruelty was ever condoned.

Rain kept falling. Nothing else indoors to do. After lunch we retreated to our room to read and watch tennis and a bike race on TV. Later, drinks and a good dinner made us feel less sorry for ourselves, and by 9 o'clock the rain actually stopped. At least for now.

Sunday, June 19 to Ghent

We took a short train ride to Ghent, and a taxi to our hotel in the old city. We left our bags and went to the Sint-Baafskathedraal, which has a special work of art, a multi-panel altar piece, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, started in about 1420 by Hubert Van Eyck and finished by his better-known son Jan Van Eyck. It is one of the earliest oil paintings, and people come from all over to see it. There is usually a long line, but we didn't have to wait. Beautiful and impressive. Google it and see for yourself.

After lunch we took a tram to the city's fine arts museum. Lots of old masters, but not so big a place as to make our eyes glaze over. Bought a little print of the Mystic Lamb, some panels of which we could watch being restored at that museum. The picture is an anonymous 15th century Adoration of the Magi we especially liked.

Tram back to hotel. After a brief rest we went back out. We'd had a big lunch- spaghetti- so dinner was gelato.

Ghent ' s old city is not as big or well-preserved as Brugge's, but still fun to stroll around.

A warm, sunny day for once.

Saturday, June 18 at Brugge

Wandered around the old city ,  visited a couple of museums. Did you know that all of the traditional images of witches: Broomsticks black cats boiling cauldrons Etc we're all inventions of pieter bruegel the Elder in the 16th century.

In the afternoon I walked up to an open Square where Belgian fans were watching their team on a large screen vs Ireland in an early round of the European championships. See picture.

At dinner I ordered Flemish beef stew. Take a look at the plate I was served before they followed up with the main portion in a big pot.

The weather forecast today 0% chance of rain today. It rained off and on all day.

Brugge is a beautiful old city, a labyrinth of medieval streets and canals lined with plenty of 17th century buildings and some older than that. A popular tourist destination, but not especially crowded today.

Friday June 17th to Bruges

Time for a change of pace. We have been riding for a month; we are tired and the bike is tired and the rain just does not stop. So today we packed up the bike and took a long train jump across Luxembourg and Belgium to Bruges. A taxi to our hotel in the medieval Old City. Water had gotten inside the frame of the bike so we spent some time drying out the bike and its packing materials. Drying things out is made easier by the hotel radiators which are available to turn on because of the cool climate. Tomorrow we will explore the city.

Thursday, June 16 to Echternach

After yesterday's wet, cold athletic event, today was a welcome easy ride in good weather and a great get-together with Sandy's niece Carol and her family.

Unlike yesterday, we did find the bike path not long after leaving our hotel, and it followed alongside the River Sure all the way to Echternach. The whole way was good country scenery, and for the second half of the ride, the river serves as the border between Luxembourg and Germany. I walked over to the German side at one point. See pic.

Echternach is the oldest town in Luxembourg, having been built around a Benedictine abbey which was founded in the 6th century. The Abbey still stands , having been destroyed and rebuilt many times over the centuries. It has a beautiful formal garden stretching down to the river.

The highlight of the day was a visit from Carol and the entire Tripp family, who came over from their homes where they are currently stationed in Germany. We had a great time catching up with them over drinks, dinner, and gelato. In particular it was good to see her grandsons who have of course grown a lot since we saw them last , 3 years ago. Carol and Brian are only about an hour away from son Ryan and his family so they are able to see the grandchildren frequently. Lucky them.

Wednesday June 15th to Ettelbruck

This was our over-the-top day, literally. It started as a typical ride for recent days, rainy and cold through beautiful countryside. Given good weather, it would have been a beautiful route and enjoyable ride.

When we reach the outskirts of ettelbruck we took what we now know was a wrong turn. It took us through a tunnel and onto a busy limited access road. We stopped and pulled into the grass to reevaluate our situation; we couldn't go back because of the tunnel and couldn't go forward because of the highway, which had no space to ride beside it outside the high-speed traffic Lanes. The only other option was to go down the Steep grass embankment onto a small road which passed underneath the highway. The problem with that was a 6-foot chain-link fence bordering the highway. We took our suitcases out of the trailer cases and detached  the trailer from the bike , and believe it or not we lifted all our gear and our tandem bike and our selves over the chain link fence. It was harder than I make it sound , but the important thing is we made it with no injury to our souls and no damage to the bike or equipment. In the previous sentence the software said Souls when I said selves but I will leave it that way. The picture below came out blank. You will have to take my word for it that we really did this. We are sore all over but feel we got off easy and took the only safe option out of our predicament.

Ettelbruck, in the very middle of Luxembourg, is a small, pretty town but we have no opportunity to explore or enjoy it. We had lunch at our hotel, showered, napped, and watched 3 soccer games of the European championships. The rain stopped later and we walked a couple of blocks and had stiff drinks, burgers and ice cream.

The weather forecast tomorrow is not great but better.

Tuesday June 14th to Gaichel

We started in the rain today and rode a few miles out of our way to reach a bike shop which said they could work on our bike right away. It turned out to be the most complete Pro Shop I have ever seen. Caters mostly to racers. We got good news and bad news. They were able to overhaul our front derailleur and enabled us to shift between the chain rings. But they said the problem with brakes was that the rims on both Wheels are pretty much worn out and there wasn't anything they could do about the brake problems. That was discouraging news and made us think we may have to make a new plan for the rest of the trip. But I asked them to reconfigure the rear disc brake to work from the brake lever which I control. That is a brake which Sandy normally controls and uses only occasionally on Fast descents. They worked very hard and quickly, and only charged us a little bit for parts. The disc brake works so well it gives our tour a new lease on life. When we get home we will still need new rims but I may have a disc brake put on the front wheel as well.

By the time we left the shop the rain had mostly stopped. We rode a short distance through the city of Arlon, and then a few kilometers more across the border into Luxembourg and the four star hotel at Gaichel. We aren't Four Star kind of folks but the reason we stopped here is for lack of an alternative but more importantly because it is our 51st wedding anniversary and a good time to treat ourselves well. Our anniversary dinner was in the hotel's dining room. Excellent food, unusual extra tidbits, and a good bottle of wine.

 

Besides the rain it was chilly today which seems about normal for this region, but the terrain was beautiful and the riding was very comfortable in our rain jackets.

Monday June 13th to Louftemont, still Belgium

Got up early to work on the bike before breakfast. Having trouble with the brakes and shifting.

Leaving Han Sur lesse we retraced a few miles of yesterday's route and headed south. The rain started shortly after we did, and fell continuously almost for the whole ride. Ironically, it was cold enough that we could wear rain jackets and even rain pants without being too hot. Today's route 65 kilometers, which doesn't seem too much by Florida standards but was actually a long day. Our route was hilly but none of the grades were more than eight or 9%. We are still having trouble with the brakes. The front brake grabs and thumps even though there is no distortion in the rim. The rear brake is largely ineffective. For starters, I think we need new brake pads when we can find a bike store. Fortunately we have the drum brake controlled by Sandy so we were able to slow down on descents and stop when we wanted to. Shifting continues to be a problem. When we started today we could shift into any of the three chainrings but very soon it would not shift out of the smallest chainring. That meant we could climb butt had to Coast on even a very slight downhill. Very frustrating and I have not been able to figure out what the problem is. Touring is hard on a bike, especially a tandem.

Our stopping point for the day is a B&B in the countryside, and we could not ask for a better place. The view is terrific - see picture. Our room is large and has plenty of places to hang up wet clothes. Our hostess cooked up a delicious meal for us for the evening. Better and cheaper than most of the restaurants we have sampled on this trip.

It was a long hard day, but we were never discouraged and actually enjoyed ourselves. After a shower and a rest and a good dinner we are doing great.

We learned today of the terrible shooting in Orlando.It's a sad waste of lives and leaves so many broken hearts. It is beyond comprehension that anyone could harbor so much hate, and I have no realistic idea what could be done to prevent these things. 

Sunday June 12 to Han-sur-Lisse

We started off from the 9th using Google Maps which provided us with a long cue sheet of many turns on small roads. The first significant turn out of did not took us up a vicious small hill and then back down the other side. We missed the next turn and when we went back for it we found it was a farmer's driveway which wound around behind his barn and then drifted off on a single animal path into the pasture. Google says that their bicycling rooting is in beta version and they aren't kidding. We have a Garmin GPS which is supposed to be specifically for bike touring and it's just as bad. So we spent the day , the next two days actually , following secondary roads 2 hour destinations without the helpful suggestions of Google or Garmin. It turned out to be a good strategy since the terrain is hilly and the secondary roads have been engineered to smooth out extreme grades. The ride took us through very attractive Countryside of pastors and small towns. The weather forecast was threatening but we did not get rained on during the ride.

Han Sur lesse is a very small town but is a tourist center because there is a popular cave near by. By the time we had lunch and caught our breath the weather was deteriorating and we did not want to take a tram ride on an open-sided vehicle in the rain in order to see the cave. We do enjoy caves and have visited many before. By early evening it was raining steadily and rained most of the night.

Saturday June 11th to Dinant

If yesterday's route was long and hard, today's was short and easy. We rode along the Meuse River, on a bike path the whole way. The river runs through scenic gorges and Hills, and the path was mostly paved. There were a couple of short sections of cobblestones (French: pave.  Dutch: kinderkopje (baby heads)), and the last couple of K were gravel but not hard to ride. The weather was cloudy and cool, but not more than a drop or two of rain.

We reached dinant  by noon. The only place we had been able to book ahead to stay turned out to be very interesting. It was a nineteenth-century mineral spa resort, but in 1914 the invading Germans took it over as their headquarters for the region. It was a ruin for a long time after that but the owners, a religious order of priests, have refurbished it as a hostel specializing in groups. Very Spartan, but clean. Our room has 6 beds.

After cleaning up, we walked 1/2 Mile to the town center. Dinant is a Charming  small town consisting of a couple of streets on either side of a bridge across the river. It is dominated by a large 15th century  Church  and a citadel on top of a cliff behind the town, which has been a part of one sort or another since about the year 1000. After lunch we took a cable car up to the Citadel which has historical information about the fighting which took place here in 1914. Although Belgium tried to remain neutral, Germany invaded Belgium anyway. Because France had guaranteed Belgium's neutrality , French troops came to resist the invading Germans. Dinant was miltarily portal as a river crossing spot and a place to control boat traffic on the river. Charles de Gaulle was wounded in the fighting here. The battle lasted for a couple of days of fierce hand-to-hand fighting. But the Germans prevailed. Afterward they massacred over 10% of the town's population in a mass execution men women and children , and burned down a large portion of the town.

Adolph Sax, who invented the saxophone, came from this town. There is a lot of saxophone stuff around town.

We went to church in the town in the evening. There were only a few people there but they were friendly. While we were at dinner it started to rain, and we got back to our room good and wet.

A good day.

Friday June 10th to Namur

A long day, 75 k. The first half was pleasant enough through Countryside and small towns. But the reminder was on a bike lane alongside a busy high speed Highway. Don't mind the capitalization errors , the programmer slept through English class. Anyway it was not dangerous riding but not much fun either. When we reached namur, we had two problems. Number one we had a 1K very steep climb to our B&B. Number two the derailleur had gotten out of adjustment and we could not get into our small chainring for a good climbing gear. How were we to know? this was the first steep hill we have encountered on the whole trip. We finally reached our  B&B too tired to do anything but shower and rest. A white tablecloth dinner and a bottle of wine improved our morale , but still it was a rough day.

We are now in a completely different area than the Netherlands and Northern Belgium. We saw one Hill before we reached leuven but the roads were dead flat until today. The terrain today was  Rolling Hills  until the difficult Hill at the end. Also, once we left leuven we left behind the Dutch language. Everything now is French and they do not speak any English as a rule.

Thur., June 9 Day trip to Brussels

We made a short visit to Brussels by train. Knowing that we would not do justice to the city we saw a few select things.

As usual we visited the city's Cathedral, st. Michael and Gudula, which is the Maine Cathedral for all of Belgium. The kings of Belgium are married and buried there.

From the cathedral we walked to the Central Square which is surrounded by ornate Guild houses from the 17th century. See picture. Unlikely  main Square in leuven , the one in Brussels is jam packed with tourists and school groups.
We had a leisurely lunch at a cafe on the square and spent a long while talking with a French couple. Like a lot of people here they want to know what the story is on Donald Trump. We gave them an earful.

After lunch we opted to pass up the Museum of Fine Arts in favor of something different. Brussels has a fine Museum of musical instruments and we spent quite a while there looking at odd folk instruments from around the world and hearing then played on our audio guides.

Overall impression of Brussels : a bustling modern city with vestiges of a rich history.

Easy train ride back to Leuven.

A warm, sunny day. Some people tell us the chilly rainy weather we had until recently is an aberration. Other people say that the weather in Belgium is usually bad. I guess there are optimists and pessimists everywhere.

Wed., 6-8 at Leuven

A busy day. Although Leuven was already on our itinerary from the cycle touring guidebook we're using, the real reason we are here now is for a scheduled injection in my eye. Anticipating this I made appointment 2 months ago with one of the few retina Ophthalmology specialists in Belgium. The appointment was not until early afternoon so we had the morning to kill. We visited the cathedral here which had a rich treasury of Art and silver and gold religious items. Many of the items were plundered by the Nazis but later recovered. The rest of the morning was spent strolling through the Old Town and the Central Square dominated by the town hall. See picture.

In the afternoon we went to the nearby hospital for my eye appointment. The retina Clinic was very professional and efficient. The doctor was a woman who looked younger than some of our grandchildren. Evidently Belgium has a national health program because they were not sure how to handle a paying customer. In the end we gave them a deposit versus an estimated bill and a final bill will follow us to the US.

After some down time we walked back to the Central Square where there is a Long Street lined with restaurants of all types. We had a good and imaginatively different Mexican dinner, after which we waited in a long line for gelato. See picture. 

Misc.observations: a noticeable difference between the Netherlands and Belgium is that some bicyclists wear helmets in Belgium. In the Netherlands only racers do. Also: small-wheel folding bikes are popular here. People take them on buses and trains.

Tues. June 7, to Leuven

Up early, picked up pastries and coffee, and breakfasted back in our room. On the bike, carefully made our way across town and out of Antwerp. There is a bike path all the way from Antwerp to Mechelen which they call the Fietsostrade (fiets being Dutch for bicycle). An easy-to-follow route alongside a rsil line. Reached Mechelen too early for lunch so we spent time in their cathedral. One more collection of priceless 17th century art. There is also a painting of St. Damian of Molokai, who was born nearby. That was especially interesting to us since we have visited Molokai and the leper colony at Kalaupapa. Lunch at a cafe on the Grote Markt, main square, and back on the road. We had never heard of mechelen and it was just a stop on our route today but it is a beautiful town and I'm glad we visited there. We learned that mechelen had been the capital of the Netherlands way back when it was united with Belgium. The photo is their stadhuis, town hall.

The route to leuven was alongside a canal the whole way so we had no opportunity to get lost. Shortly after we reached our hotel and tucked the bike safely underground in their garage, the heavens opened up and a steady rain has fallen on into the evening. We managed to get a very good dinner at a restaurant run by a family from Nepal.

Mon. June 6 at Antwerp

Tram to old city center. The big museums are closed on Mondays but we wandered around the old city and saw plenty. The huge Cathedral dates back to the Middle Ages, but the artwork has been pillaged and plundered repeatedly so what is there is mostly excellent 17th century Flemish baroque paintings and statues , including some iconic Rubens paintings. We really enjoyed looking at it and spent a couple hours there. After lunch on the main Square we walked a few blocks to the Church of st. Charles Borromeo , a Jesuit Church built in the 1600's. The Jesuits were suppressed in this area at one point and the Habsburg Emperor's grabbed the best art and took it to the end up where it still is. More recently the Germans stole everything in sight but fortunately they kept good records and the belgians were able to reclaim the art after the war. The church is being restored and we were able to see a couple of art restorers at work.

While making our way to the waterfront to see a maritime museum , we stopped at another Baroque Church, Saint Pauls. Again, spectacular artwork. Any of these churches alone would make Antwerp worth a visit to anyone who loves art.

We did reach the Maritime Museum, but it is associated with the large Mas art museum next door which was closed today. Even so we were able to see a beautiful collection of old boats through the fence. The Mas is in the Steen castle , parts of which date back to the ninth century. Even though the museum was closed we were able to walk through part of the castle.

Then a tram back to our b&b for a break before dinner.

Sunday June 5 to Antwerp

We picked up some breakfast items to share with Romano, and then road to the cathedral for 11 o'clock mass. Finally on the road at 12:30 under warm and sunny conditions. How's that for a change. El route to Antwerp followed along a bike path on the side of canal the whole way. Once in Antwerp Kama a fairly large industrial city, we made slow progress through the city streets. We tried to use a Garmin GPS but it had us going through circles in neighborhood where we did not feel particularly comfortable. Young man spotted recognize start confusion, cross the street, and got us back on track. Finally reached our B&B comma in a nice neighborhood and immediately next door to a gelato Shop with a bakery on the other side and a small Italian restaurant on that. Who could ask for more.

On the way to Antwerp our path went past a horse enclosure where a man was exercising beautiful silver grey horse over jumps. We spent a few minutes talking to him and he confirmed our impression that the horse was very special. It is now six years old and competes at the highest level internationally.

Sat., June 4 to Turnhout

Got behind on blog, writing Mon. a.m.

After a fine breakfast at b&b in Chaam, relaxed there til nearly noon because not expected at Turnhout until 5. Rode S using the system of cycle paths and waypoints of the Netherlands and Northern Belgium. , during the course of the rally we had become accustomed to this system and it makes navigating and bike touring easy and enjoyable. The route to turnhout was lmostly past large cow pastures and corn fields. At Turnhout Thomas nice medium sized town, we checked out the cathedral for Sunday Mass time (11), visited the castle of The Dukes of brabant (pic) and also walked through a large enclosed convent  complex, a UNESCO world heritage site, which now is an old folks home. At 5 we arrived at the apartment of our warm showers host , a young Spaniard by the name of Romano Pla. He is an enthusiastic touring cyclist, and went out of the way to make us feel comfortable and welcome. After we went out to dinner , we spent a pleasant evening comparing travel notes. He has us thinking about a possible future tour along the Danube starting somewhere in southern Germany and ending maybe in Budapest.

Friday, June 3

Said goodbye in the morning to Graham and Edie, who were catching a train to Haarlem, and to Rob and Nancy, who were heading off by car to Antwerp. Enjoyed the week with them: interesting and companionable people. Hope we get together with them again.

We headed to the rally HQ to meet up with our Bike Friday friends for a group picture (attached). Six couples, incl 3 Aussie, one Tasmanian, a French Canadian couple and us. Rode with 2 couples of Australians. Good ride, but in the town center of Breda I caught a wheel on a low sidewalk and dumped us on the sidewalk. Sandy was banged up but after a few minutes she was pretty sure nothing was broken, though sore.

In the evening was a barbecue to wrap up the rally. We joined a large group of Aussies, Brits and others, and had a good old time. (Pic).

Since our cottage rental ended at noon Friday, we had arranged ahead to stay at a nearby b&b. Daylight was no problem: it stays light until 10:30 so we rode there after dinner. The place turned out to be an old farmhouse attached to a mill. Beautiful; too bad it was just an overnight stay.

Thursday, June 2

Weather threatening. We wanted to get in at least a short ride, but our housemates had enough right-stuff riding yesterday. We rode about 55 k, mostly alone, on a variety of trails paths and roads. The weather turned out to be better than forecast. We got dripped on but nothing worse. A good ride. In the afternoon we did laundry.

When you order coffee in the Netherlands you always get something extra. It could be a cookie or a piece of candy. We think that the cafes try to outdo one another. One place down in Belgium gave us a small shot of Kahlua on the side. Today our coffee came with a muffin and also a small amount of liqueur topped by whipped cream. See picture. We think this is a good custom and hope that it spreads to the US.

Wednesday, June 1

No ride tiday. Along with most of our rally-mates, we took a bus trip to Willemstad, an hour away. It is a small, intact fortified town at the entrance to the Holland Diep river. Built in late 1500's during the war with Spain to control access to the interior by sea. Town has never been successfully invaded. Napoleon and WW2 Germans both occupied the town but only after the Netherlands surrendered. Germans built artillery bunkers on the ramparts, still there, along with tiny cage - like cells used by the Germans  to punish and intimidate townspeople. A volunteer gave us a walking tour of the interesting little town.

Our two housemate couples did a bike ride instead and had a bad time of it- rain, difficulty finding shelter or food, and a flat tire on one of the bikes.

Pics: our cottage at the rally, flood marks on the wall at Willemstad, German cells, a memorial to Belgian soldiers lost when a POW ship was mined offshore (town saved and hid many survivors), and Hotel Mama- see if you can translate.