The Netherlands has gone all out on pollinator-friendly planting, so you come across lovely flowers against less lovely backgrounds.
We did a pleasant loop today to stretch out the short distance from Maassluis to the ferry: Brielle (so pretty) then dull farmland until the pines and dunes around Rockanje.
I looked out of the hotel window this morning at the Nijmegen commuters and thought that they were dressed for March or November. Where is summer?
Anyway, train to Dordrecht, waterbus to Rotterdam, bicycle to Maassluis, ferry tomorrow. So simple. It’s fitting to finish the holiday beside the river again, with all its movement and interest. From our corner room we have the local ferry, barges and the dock.
Again. Along the Rhine embankments into a headwind. Sheep were penned into small plots, and one small herd looked particularly comical with their stern expressions and dropping ears. The landscape was flat and rather dull, and again I noticed how high the river was, covering the trunks of willows. Nijmegen was comprehensively bombed so it’s rather dull too.
I assume that peacocks are not early risers: we were woken only by rooks and cockerels. And heavy rain. Which eased off before we left the hotel, thank goodness. This evening we’re back in Emmerich am Rhein.
More bucolic cycling – this time to spend the night in the Netherlands. A street in Dinxperlo is bisected by the Dutch-German border. I don’t think it is a town with anything else of interest. Except maybe for a wildlife park next to where we are staying: I can look forward to a night disturbed by peacock calls and cockcrows.
I thought I’d factored in religious festivals – days when shops close and even open cafés can be hard to find. I knew we were safe from Himmelfahrt and Pfingsten this holiday, but Corpus Christi (Fronleichman) caught me out today in this Roman Catholic part of Germany.
Not that it mattered. It was a repeat ride from last year with no other surprises, and there were enough cafés open for two coffee stops.
Oh, and I think I’ve discovered that roadside wind turbines interfere with the working of cycle computers. So that’s 200m to add to today’s tally.
Looking out of the hotel window this morning, we noticed a discreet needle exchange point opposite the church – which explained the mix of people in the little square and perhaps some of the noise at night.
Squalls of heavy rain today interspersed with warm sunshine, so we came to Coesfeld on as short a route as I could navigate. Thanks to a handy rural bus shelter, we hardly got wet at all. It was quite a hilly route in comparison to what we have done so far, and it felt good to look out over undulating countryside as we gained height.
Even just 12 miles out of Münster we were in a different land. It wasn’t just that it was agricultural, with farms the size of small complexes, but that the political placards were for right-wing parties again and some of the farms had “no farmers, no food, no future” slogans. Welcome to the secular Kulturkampf.
Old Shoe Box 