We both looked at each other this morning and said, enough is enough. After 3 months, we need hair cuts and Barry needs his beard "mowed" back. After yesterday's memorable ride to the dunes and the North Sea, we are eager to explore this region again on our bike. The time is winding down very quickly - we fly home this Saturday, and our final ride is tomorrow to the home of our hosts, Hans and Mieke in Amstelveen, where we will dismantle our bike and put it away in its bag, ready for its flight home to Canada.
We have found the nearby community of Sassenheim to be quite enjoyable. It is a small community, surrounded by rural country, and bustling with locals going about their daily business. It is definitely off the beaten track and it is refreshing to be a part of a community like this for a few days. People are very friendly. Yesterday, Bert at the restaurant commented that in Sassenheim, it is not usual or expected to see Canadians.
We dropped in to a Hair Salon and they were able to take both of us with just a short wait. We both feel like new people - and look a lot better too!
The ride to Leiden passed through Warmond, a village with a delightful old town centre. Leiden also has a very historic old town, but it was overshadowed by the arrival and set up of the circus all over the city. It was hard to navigate around the streets with the chaos of the circus and it was equally hard to appreciate the beauty of the old buildings. Stages and beer gardens were being erected all over the the city as well, in readiness for a 3 day annual festival this week. Like Delft, the city has many picturesque canals with stately old homes and arched pedestrian bridges. Riding in these cities is quite perilous for people like us who don't know the route as the streets are full of cyclists and scooters careening around you at full speed. As much as we liked visiting Leiden, we were happy to move on and ride in the country again. It is more our speed. One of the cuisines in Holland that is exceptional is Indonesian food. We haven't had any since our feast with Hans and Mieke at the beginning of our trip. In Sassenheim, we discovered a "Wok to Go" featuring Indonesian food. We brought it back to camp and once again had a feast. Vanilla slice from the bakery finished our final camping meal of the trip. We will be sorry to leave this campground as it has suited our needs so well.
We discovered this wonderful cheese shop in Sassenheim. These amazing shops are typical in Dutch towns, big and small, where locals obviously appreciate fine cheese.
The woman working in the store had worked in the cheese shop for awhile. She was very excited because only two days earlier she had become the owner of the store. She obviously had a passion for cheese.
This area of Holland is known as the green belt, with the countryside filled with fields of flowers and produce. We are seeing fall flowers - earlier in the year, tulips and other flowers create beautiful vistas.
The bike route to Leiden followed a pretty tree lined road. We are trying not to take for granted the rights and amenities provided to cyclists in Holland. This quiet road with the separate bike lane is one of the many reasons we love to cycle here.
We are fascinated to see so many bikes and it is wonderful to see such good facilities for parking them securely under cover. Typically, we see better parking for bikes than cars.
A quiet side street in Leiden. We enjoyed walking along this picturesque canal. Typically these streets are too narrow to allow for cafes, so barges provide canal side eating places. These narrow streets are shared by bikes, cars and pedestrians.
It is early October and the evenings at camp are really cold - close to zero celsius. We are sleeping in all of our warm clothes. Perhaps this is why we have the campground to ourselves. We love our Hilleberg Anjan 3 tent - the vestibule provides an extra room for us to stretch out in.
