Blogs from Friesland, Netherlands, Europe

Hallo Ihr Liebenn. Am 13.05. sind wir von Brügge nach Callantsog, Holland, gefahren. Auf diesem Campingplatz haben wir uns für 3 Tage eingeschrieben. Am Montag sind wir dann mit dem Roller zur Fähre nach der Insel Texel gerollt. Die Fährenauffahrt brachte kleine Probleme, da wir beim Kassenhäuschen zurückgewiesen wurden und uns erklärt wurde, dass wir mit unserem "Schnapper" die Fahrradspur bzw. die Fussgängerpassage benutzen sollen. Den Anordnungen haben wir selbstverständlich Folge geleistet und bekamen auch zwischen all den Fussgängern keine Probleme. Die Insel selber ist wunderschön und wir konnten die letzten blühenden Tulpenfelder bestaunen. Zu unserer Freude erblickten wir in De Koog, Touristenstadt auf der Insel, einen Coiffeursalon. Da wir mit unseren "Löwenmähnen" kaum mehr zurecht kamen, entschieden wir uns den Friseur zu besuchen. Das Innere des Salons überraschte uns a... read more

A reasonable night's rest and a mediocre breakfast (although can't complain for the price) and I was ready for my Waddenzee adventure. Turned out to be a calm one but as I'm winding down my holiday, that seemed like a good idea. Bought a ticket that included both train and boat and made my way past the cows to the coast. Took the lunchtime fast boat from Harlingen and sat next to a guy who quickly realised he was on his way to the wrong island. Luckily, you can island-hop here so he wasn't too stranded. As I only had a few hours on Terschelling, I went to the tourist office to ask what they recommended. They told me about the nearby beach, which I wanted to see anyway. And I was so blown away that ... read more

Day 7 20160823 Groningen A quite day today, after konking out at 8.30pm last night, and sleeping until 7am! All the bike riding is catching up with me. I must have about 400km (250 miles) in my legs now, which, with a couple rest days says I’m cycling on average 50 miles a day, not a huge amount really. It’s a life of sorts. After my 45 minute run this morning, in anticipation of the Chippenham Half week after next, I walked into Groningen, pronounced GroNINGen. A bit like pronouncing Chippenham, ChiPPENham. Unless you at least try and say it properly people don’t know what you’re talking about. I bought my train tickets (me + bike) and was given yellow & blue tickets; yesterday they were red & white. Being hugely smart I quickly realised that ... read more

Day 6 20160822 Makkum to Groningen Today I covered the 135km from Makkum to Groningen. I’d like to say I rode all the way, but I didn’t. I covered the 45km from Makkum to Leeuwarden on my bike, then caught the train from Leeuwarden to Groningen for the last 90km. I reckon the ride would have been about 10 hours, in the rain, across the pancake flat polder; which becomes a kind of desert slog after a while. Anyway, the 45km ride was very pleasant, especially as the tower blocks of Leeuwarden loomed through the misty rain at ‘knoop 56’. The knoop system is brilliant, we need it. Someone start a campaign! When I was in the south I showed the folk I was staying with the Fietsknoop app, and to be honest they were a ... read more

We were pushing on as it was the end of September and our original plans were to get to the marina in Lelystad, Netherlands in early October. Unfortunately Janice was having some medical problems which caused her problems with doing too much on the boat so we were taking it slower than normal. This gave us an excuse to make a few stops on the way. Our first stopping off place for an overnight was the village of Grou. We weren’t there long, but did take the time to walk around the town. It was pretty quiet when we were there so we had a relaxing evening in the marina. We did get a chance to meet cruisers from the Czech Republic – that was a first for us – hopefully we will catch up with ... read more