September 11, 2022 to September 12, 2022
Back to the Flatlands: Arnhem to Utrecht to IJmuiden
For the second time on this trip, I woke up on a train to find myself not quite as close to my destination as I should have been; this meant -- again -- that I'd miss my planned onwards connection. This turned out to be moot, though, since a message from DB revealed that the fast train towards the Netherlands which I was aiming to catch in Hannover had been cancelled anyway. Not a disaster: an assortment of local trains would take me westwards, and none of them needed a bike reservation; so the only challenge (for my German...) was explaining to a sequence of baffled ticket collectors why I was trying to get to the Netherlands on their very much not-going-to-the-Netherlands train. I'm not sure if any of them really understood, but none of them kicked me off (or made me buy a new ticket), so I counted that as a win.
By shortly before noon I was over the border (witnessing the strange sight of an almost instantaneous shift from nearly 100% mask-wearing to nearly 100% mask-non-wearing...), and by lunchtime I was in Arnhem. This seemed like a good place to escape from the railway: slightly easier said than done, because Dutch rail ticket gates don't recognise e-tickets issued by any other rail company, nor do they have any staff on duty to help people who are trapped by the barriers. (The solution -- in case anyone else finds themselves in this predicament -- is to tailgate...).
Getting out of the station was almost the hardest bit of the next two half-days' riding. To be fair, this eastern edge of the Netherlands wasn't entirely flat; but it was quite a lot flatter than the terrain I'd left behind.
A very pleasant afternoon's cycling got me as far as Utrecht, where I stopped for the night. Utrecht is one of my favourite cities -- though also heaving with students: a foretaste of what was waiting for me back home. Perhaps it was good to start to re-acclimatise, though.
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The next morning brought even easier riding: the land now really was properly flat, and (now that I'd turned north) I also had the wind behind me. So I made very good time through the polders and along the canals.
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2 years ago
By shortly after noon I was in Spaarndam, where I stopped for an early lunch at a cafe I'd earmarked as a good-seeming spot when riding in the other direction a couple of weeks ago. Two Weeks Ago Me turned out to be quite right: the place (the Cafe De Toerist: recommended!) served up an excellent Uitsmijter, and an equally good slice of apple cake, and generally provided a fine conclusion to my brief Dutch interlude.
Or rather, not quite conclusion: there were still 10km to go to the port; but these passed very easily. This time, I was waved straight onto the boat ('all of this area is for you!', said the cheerful deck-hand, waving at a platform at the back of the car-deck), where I tied up the bike and went off to enjoy my last night of holiday.
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2 years ago
Today's ride: 139 km (86 miles)
Total: 1,049 km (651 miles)
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