In June of 2020, we were all set to do a bicycle tour of the Loire Valley to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, COVID hit and we had to cancel and reschedule for September of 2021 but COVID had made a strong resurgence and we rescheduled for September of 2022. I broke my collarbone at the beginning of August and we could not bicycle but did enjoy the Alsace and Burgundy regions of France (videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhykU7rY16iGJ1RtJRoOx8vuNIz5HniJs&si=QclXyJTJakpMJ8Mj ). We decided to skip the Loire Valley and try a ride in the bicycling mecca of the Netherlands. Since we had a sizable credit with Discover France we booked our trip through them and their partner Tulip Cycling.
Over five days of riding we went from Bruges Belgium to Leiden Netherlands enjoying the wonderful bicycling infrastructure and scenery of the Netherlands. So many canals, windmills, beautiful towns and countryside. Our fifth and final day of riding was a shorter day of 28 miles from Delft to Leiden. Our route took us out of Delft along canals (surprise!) and through The Hague, which was a bit busy and nerve-wracking. After winding our way through The Hague we entered into a beautiful set of nature areas (Meijendel Nature Reserve) that contain many sand dunes and nature trails if one wanted to stop and walk a bit. After 9 miles in the natural area at mile 20 of our ride we finally saw the North Sea and stopped to enjoy lunch. Leiden is yet another beautiful city to wander around and explore. After returning the bicycles and gear to Peter of Tulip Cycling we relaxed with a bottle of wine before heading out to another amazing dinner (we only had one so-so dinner during our three weeks in the Netherlands!).
Ride with GPS:
https://ridewithgps.com/trips/136543175
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Music by Hotham
Stream: https://linktr.ee/hothammusic
Free Download: https://hypeddit.com/hotham/acrosstime
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Video/Photo Equipment
Osmo Action (with Windslayer wind noise reduction case)
Lumix FZ80
Pixel 3a
Video editing with DaVinci Resolve 18.6 on Windows 10 https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
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Rich and Julie
http://www.themnmoores.net
Well start of our last day we’re in the uh parking structure at the Del uh train station got our bikes heading up top well good morning we’re here in Del we’re going to do our last day of our tour here we’re going to go to uh Leen
And uh about 25 26 miles along the coast it’s a little bit cloudy I think it’s supposed to burn off but uh it’s been a good trip so far huh Julie yes have been very nice hopefully not too busy as we leave town because it was very busy
Arriving yeah it was busy bike busy very stressful we were warned by a student not to go before 9:00 in the morning otherwise it’d be wild it’s pretty uh calm so should be easy to get through town we’re going to stop at the market and then head off come along with
Us yeah we must have hit Rush Hour bicycle time yesterday this place was packed and wild through here now it’s nice and easy well nothing exciting there so we’re just going to head out of town and on our way out to the uh through the heg and into the uh ocean
Area Del is a beautiful little town busy though it’s a college town but it was a lot of fun I’d come back Here On our way out of Del we saw many different rowing teams going up and down the river out enjoying a beautiful Morning We were passed by many different groups of riders that day out riding quickly and enjoying the day I wasn’t sure if this boat would make it under the bridge without hitting it but it made it by a few Inches I think we’re in the heg here and it’s pretty busy riding on the streets not exactly our comfort Zone over there is a city center we’re a little bit removed like the Oldtown part of it been a little bit uh busy getting through here with the uh cars and the buses and the trams and so Forth we decided to stop for a croissant and a bathroom break and then we headed to the peace Palace where the international court of justice is Held it’s l pretty Here had to divert through the park here because of the uh construction with the road being torn up And just like that we’re out of the city and we’re uh some sort of Natural Area and I think we’re close to the beach one of the signs said Beach I see some sand dunes over there to the left at uh wow it’s amazing you go through the city
You think it’s never going to end all a sudden it’s just done but the egg’s a little crazy imagine Amsterdam I think That’s I thought the ocean was just over the hill here it looks like it goes quite a ways this is kind of a natural area I know there’s some ponds and stuff out There There’s all sorts of little ponds here people out there taking pictures of wild fou waterfoul and I think we’re kind of out of it now hold the B the H Against oh yeah Y the guy we were catching up to here must have rented a city bike in the heg and he wasn’t a tough time with the hills here in this Section yeah we finally get to see the North Sea today he looking a little rough it’s pretty windy out a windy for about 3 days so this looks like our lunch spot here on the North Sea yeah we were looking for some bathrooms and spoted this kind of a rarity to see a a bunch of ouses so when I pulled up I thought these were handwashing stations Julie pointed out they’re actually urinals but I think I’ll use the uh portapotty House Oh well a bit confusing back there no bike sign and bike signs and and you got to go through these little things which I almost crashed into while I was filming we got tile roofs and then of course the canal beautiful flowers you got a thatch roof Here Coming into L they’re uh just kind of keeping track of where we’re going but that’s the train station back there where we need to go to go up to Harlem Tomorrow After riding through the beautiful town of Leen we ended up at our hotel the last Hotel of our bicycle trip in the Netherlands the he van Leen it was a nice hotel and a nice location since we got to lead early and Peter from tulip tours wasn’t supposed to be there for a
Couple hours we explored the town and went in particular to the moland de vul Windmill and went through the museum there a very nice museum where you can see the inner workings of a flower Mill after wandering around we met Peter and we turned our bikes and said our goodbyes and then we enjoyed a bottle of wine to celebrate our wonderful bike trip that we had we went out to dinner and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at lot Dave walvis another beautiful restaurant with great Fruit our bicycle tour the Netherlands far exceeded our expectations and we really enjoyed this tour as we look back on it we really had a great time the food was great the accommodations were great the route was great and the recommendation to ride from south to
North in the fall time was also a very good recommendation With the Wind we’d highly recommend tulip tours and Peter and his company and thank you very much for watching our tour thank you for watching our video like it if you liked it please comment below and subscribe so
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9 Comments
Beautiful place
7:37 that's called dunes not hills 🤣🤣
Richard, this has been a great series !
5:34 I can imagine this specific moment must have felt quite liberating after some two days through ports, alongside industry, through a bunch of towns, cities, and agro-industrial areas.
My family's roots are there and I spent my childhood there.
The area has a rich past, oh and the entire area where you cycled is 3 meters or 10 feet on average below sea level in case you're wondering where all that water comes from.
7:12 Mooi heh? Indeed 🙂
I always smile when Americans use the word ocean when in fact they refer to the North Sea. Their own shores are invariably overlooking either the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean.
That river is a canal from Roman times that was the inland and pirate free connection between the Roman castellum at Leiden and the naval base at Naaldwijk. There was a large regional market in Voorburg.
What a nice tour!
I enjoyed watching all the episodes.
Thank you.