bird reserve on one side and yachts sailing on the other. We pose for farewell photos with Amsterdam in the background.
Mike and I spend a happy hour watching thousands of ducks and geese before continuing on through a forest track to UTRECHT.
The city centre is heaving with students (and their bikes) at their Freshers Week, but we manage to squeeze our bikes onto a small gap on the pavement and people watch, before heading out to the suburbs and the flat of W. Showers host, Sake. Recently returned from cycling in China, he made it sound really straight forward but he does understand some Mandarin, a great advantage. Next morning, on the way to his primary school teaching job, he leads us on a route through attractive villages. A row of smart barges, moored on the river, however, turn out to be brothels, with ample young ladies advertising their assets in the picture windows. There are potential customers, even at 7.30 in the morning, with window shopping pedestrians and kerb crawlers.
We are heading to Leiden to stay with friends but take a detour to GOUDA. The route takes us over a large lake, on a narrow causeway. Little bridges from this connect to tiny islands, each with one house and a couple of sheep or goats to keep the grass down. Gouda has a beautiful old triangular cobbled town "square". In the centre is an ancient stone Cheese Market Hall. Stalls crowd around selling mostly cheese, there is a "guess the weight of the cheese" contest and a cheese museum. After eating our lunchtime cheese sandwiches we head into LEIDEN.
This is one of the oldest university cities in Europe , and you've guessed, it is their Freshers Week too. The speciality here is the beer bike bus, a wagon like contraption with 10 students sitting around a bar drinking beer and pedalling away. We could not work out who was steering but they were merrily whizzing around the narrow canalside cobbled streets.
There are 3 enormous bike stores by the station as this is a commuter town for Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Apparently there are more bikes outside this station than all of London's stations put together.
After dodging a rain shower, we are welcomed by our friend Paul, 2 of his graduate sons who now work here, and 2 of their Uni friends.
We remember from a previous visit there is lovely 1920s cinema near their apartment and take ourselves there to see the latest H.Potter, in English but with Dutch sub titles. The owner sells the tickets at the door, operates the projector, then the bar at half time and says goodbye at the end. A wonderful, cosy night out, with no adverts!
Miles to date 3,893
Location:LELYSTAD to LEIDEN
