After breakfast I walked around Gouda while it was quiet and dry. It’s stereotypically Dutch – cobbles, canals, gables that look good reflected in those same canals. The town hall, the cheese weighing house, the grote kerk, the fish market arcade beside the canal (like Delft) that I remembered from a previous visit – I walked round them all.

I caught the train to Rotterdam (a headwind and memories of the dull ride decided me) and started cycling from there, and now I’m in Maassluis again.