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Wednesday, May 6, 2009
We started out on Wednesday morning by going to the local Farmer's Market that is held weekly in the Markt - there were wonderful herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables. Vendors also sold waffles and cooked meat, was great fun to walk through - it looked like it was a weekly MUST SHOP adventure for all the locals.
We headed out of town, going North - so we rode along the canal that we had previously ridden to Damme and then kept going to Oostkerke. Jean had forgotten her water so we did a 5k circle around town, no water for sale, but a nice tour of the town!
We continued north along the canal to the northern western shore of Belgium - an area called Knokke-Heist. It is a group of 5 seaside resort communities that have a population of about 35,000. It was absolutely delightful, reminded us of the eastern shore of the US. There is a large board walk and high rise vilas, definatey looks like where people go to vacation. We tucked ourselves against a storage unit that was on the beach in the sun and out of the wind, and enjoyed a
picnic lunch and a rest.
We continued east along the seaside, enjoyed the ride along the Het Zwin - an arm of the sea that silted up with an abundance of channels and meadows - it was a delightfully quiet ride with the smells of the sea! We got so lost in thought enjoying the steady cadance of cycling that we wondered how we ended up in Cadzand Bad. Some where along our riding we had crossed into the Netherlands! The ride back down to Sluis was 10k of wind in our face doing our best to just keep going!
Sluis was a great town (still in the Netherlands) built along a canal with a center square with lots of activity. We enjoyed hot chocolate and a waffel (Jean had a whole apple cooked in a light pastry) - it was GREAT!
We found our way back into Belgium, and followed the Damse Vaart (canal) back through Damme and home again. It was our longest ride so far - about 70k.
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Wednesday morning market 
