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.
A varied day’s cycling to take us across the border: main road to the Maas and then, after the ferry crossing, a green route beside the river and through woods on an old railway line (the Boxteler line) into Germany. Then a main road again for coffee in Goch – which seemed much less middle-class than towns in the Netherlands somehow. Main road again (good for covering the miles) and the Boxteler Bahn and green roads to Xanten.
This time I had just enough time to walk to the market square and admire the cathedral behind and the Gotisches Haus – which apparently re-used tufa blocks from what was left of the nearby Roman town founded by Trajan. That rather pleased me.
At breakfast I watched storks fly over the hotel towards the Waal. Later we saw several of them in a flooded field – presumably eating their breakfast. Rain was forecast, so we made it a short day via route one. Rain started to fall after the ferry to Lith and then continued to get heavier. Like the proverbial frog in heating water, we didn’t realise how wet we were getting until we were fairly soaked.
At Ravenstein I remembered the cafe we had found last year, so we refreshed ourselves there. The rain had almost stopped by the time we arrived at Beers early afternoon but there have been a couple of downpours since then.
Old Shoe Box 