clairedavieswriter

For my 29th and last full day of riding, the Netherlands seemed determined to serve up a complete Dutch experience.We had the amazing cycle paths (have I mentioned those?): With their brilliant signage and knooppunt maps: We had the bike shop (with a wonky church tower thrown in): We had the canals… The ingenious swing…

It’s a final double bill of blogs from Team Bernard, you lucky people.Today, our three-country end-to-end cycling challenge came to an end, when we reached the North Sea coast of the Netherlands: In five days of riding, we have pedalled 409.8k from the Belgian border in the south to the northernmost point on the Dutch…

All was not well in Team Bernard this morning. To be fair, it was our 28th, and if all goes to plan, our penultimate day of cycling, so perhaps we’re all just a little tired.It started with Guillaume, who has been increasingly cranky of late. As I was getting ready to leave, he crossed his…

I know I keep going on about how good the cycling infrastructure is – and today once again there was plenty to be impressed by, from the clear signage: And the generosity of the cycle carriageways (in red on the right) To the ubiquity of them, whether in town or not: And the fact that,…

Before I reached my B&B tonight, I knew it was on a working farm. But it turned out that the work it does is rather different from what I imagined. Its relatively new owner, Pierre, a 30-something former logistics manager with no farming experience, explained that it’s what the Dutch call a ‘Care Farm’.How it…

Inspired by a tourist map at my guesthouse, Bernard and I set off this morning for a gentle tour of the city. We hadn’t gone far when I was lured off track by a nice looking café. Well, it was important to restore my caffeine levels. And I appreciated the details – the little cube…

Happily, I didn’t need my waterproofs after all. To many people, my destination today is still synonymous with Operation Market Garden, the daring attempt by Allied forces, commanded by Eisenhower and Montgomery, to capture a series of bridges, including at Nijmegen and Arnhem, in September 1944, and thereby hasten the end of World War 2.Bernard…

After all the train-related excitement (see part 1), by the time I reached Maastricht I was more than ready to get back on two wheels. And of course the obvious thing to do on a boiling hot day was to ride away from my destination, so I could start my Netherlands end-to-end properly.However, I found…