July 9, 2012
Harmelen to Barneveld
To get to our hotel in Harmelen the day before, we had to leave our planned route to Utrecht, but it wasn't at all difficult to find a perfect bike path which followed a canal to the city. Utrecht is fairly large and its old part of town by far not as impressive as Leiden's. We spent some time looking around, had a sandwich and coffee and continued on our way.
Again today we had a fair amount of rain. It rained and drizzled intermittently, occasionally the clouds parted for a few rays of sun and a patch of blue.
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The route I had planned to Amersfoort wasn't great, there probably would have been a more attractive way. We almost always had bike paths but we were next to a large throroughfare with much traffic. When we were on small roads, it felt like we were cycling through endless suburbs, not really countryside. The Netherlands is a densely populated country.
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Looking at the map now, I see I could have easily planned a different route, but I wanted to go by way of Amersfoort. I had read it would be a pretty little town. Which it was - and a good place to stop for our afternoon coffee and a piece of appelgebak, Dutch apple cake.
Sometimes I see appelgebak translated as apple pie which I find very misleading. I like appelgebak and I like pie, but pie is pie and to call appelgebak pie just isn't right. Just like you can't really call a gracht a canal. Some words are best left untranslated. They lose their original connotations and assume new ones that don't belong.
After we left Amersfoort, we had small country lanes and no bike paths. Also no pictures. But the grey skies and flat countryside weren't inspiring. Finally, we passed a windmill and got our cameras out, last stop before we reached Barneveld where we found a pleasant and friendly B&B.
Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 216 km (134 miles)
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