Day 88: Badhoevedorp to Edam

June 22, 2018

We had fixed up with Erika and Marvin to start the day at 6 a.m. So at 6:00 a.m. they were at our door, raring to go. It reminded us of the grandkids on Christmas morning. As now grizzled veterans of 88 days on the road, we still have a lot of enthusiasm for each day's ride. But Erika and Marvin, on Day 1 of what will be about 60 days and 3000 km, right now have that extra charge of get up and go.

The Ibis Budget, despite being a study in economy facilities, still had a good quality breakfast buffet. Best of all, there were a lot of people in the large breakfast room, and the staff did not care to ask our room number or if we had included breakfast in our room rate. That meant we could easily augment the supplies in our food bag, and avoid having to search out or pay for a restaurant later in the day.

At the breakfast, seeing me eating Nutella straight from the little packet, Erika asked if I knew how great Nutella was if combined with a banana. That led us to slice a banana in half and spread it with Nutella. Erika then had the idea of topping that with chocolate sprinkles. So we turned this nutritious European breakfast into a birthday party. Great for a first/almost last day on the road. Probably chocolate bananas would not power a whole long trip. But maybe they could!

Erika's smile was encouraging, at 6 a.m.

Chocolate sprinkles were actually not a good idea - too crunchy!

(The white bar in the above photos is coming from a scratch that mysteriously appeared on my lense some weeks ago. When the light is just right (wrong) this is what happens.)

The plans was for Erika and Marvin to train into Amsterdam while we would cycle. We would meet up at the bike rental place, where two bikes were waiting. The four of us would then strike off on a tour of the region just north of Amsterdam, ending the day at the town of Edam.

On today's ride in from the airport area, through Vondel Park, and through town to the Central Station, we tried to take the calmest and most direct route. At the same time I was trying to reevaluate and fend off the rather negative reaction I had had to yesterday's foray into Amsterdam. So I will begin with a photo that encapsulates many of the city's great aspects: greenery, canals, boats, bikes, buildings, and bridges.

On the other hand, the sheer number and intense usage of bicycles does result in a sort of disrespect for them. Scenes like this are common:

And then there is the continued effort of businesses to keep from being overwhelmed by the endless tides of cycles:

A common sentiment from businesses trying to keep the ways clear.

All in all Amsterdam was enjoyable today. It is still great, for instance, to see everyone in the Vondel Park:

Vondel park this morning, and every morning.

Erika and Marvin had made it in by train in about the same time we had taken to cycle, so we were able to collect and arrange the two ebikes we had managed to collar, through Star Bikes. The bikes, in truth, were outdated - with front hub motors, cadence sensors, and large heavy batteries mounted on rear racks. On the other hand even these looked elegant to me, with classic Dutch looks and reasonably shiny finish. (You can also rent even more classic dull black one speeds, which seem to me of dubious origin. Well, maybe a bike that has been circulating through the Amsterdam underground for some years is the most classic of all.)

Quite nice ebike - $15 per day - a good price. Note low step through, Dutch chain guard, and Dutch style panniers, with Dutch graphics.

Soon we took off, heading east at first on what was planned as a two day circle route. The Netherlands has 12 Provinces, only two of which have names that include the word "Holland" - North Holland and South Holland. Amsterdam is technically in North Holland, but it is kind of a world to itself. "Holland" mostly conjures up for me an agricultural land, full of flowers, birds, cows, sheep, cheese, windmills, and doll's house cute buildings. That is to be found in the region north of Amsterdam, and maybe even more so in the adjacent province of Friesland.

Our circuit would just skim into the southern reaches of North Holland, but hopefully give a reasonable peek at what it is all about. Dodie and I have ranged over a lot of the Netherlands, but we are hoping to extra enjoy it by watching Erika and Marvin's process of discovery.

The outskirts of Amsterdam have some large modern buildings, but still nicer than most large cities.

Our itinerary will hit towns (highlighted in pink) just north of Amsterdam. "Edam" of course is famous for cheese. You can also see the Beemster area on the map. This area also produces a famous cheese, but we will not quite reach it this time.

The earliest part of the ride, ok, much of the ride, was on top of the dike that protects against the Markermeer. This is the huge "lake" created by the 32 km dike that joins Enkhuizen to Lelystad, slicing off a piece of the former Zuiderzee. The dike is called the Markerwaarddjik. Try putting that in your spell checker!

Up on the dike we had a "stiff breeze". According to Marvin, a sailor, it was bordering on a "gale". It made us glad of the ebikes. Even flat land is not flat when you are bucking a wind gradient.

Dike riding is what you often end up doing in Netherlands.

Although the land and buildings were nice enough, things did not seem to really ramp up in terms of iconic Holland until we arrive in Monnickendam. This little town featured many tall boats in its harbour. Looking at the clues we could pick up, we decided that this could be a tall boat convention. Monnickendam also had a historic church, and a clock tower/carrillon with moving figures, similar to what we had seen in Gouda.

In the Tourist Information building they had preserved a "room" which actually was a "box bed". A sign explained that poor people might not have a full bedroom, but only a "box", which could be disguised by curtains during the day. The granny that they portrayed sleeping in their diorama looked very comfy

Looks like good book - but I checked, it's in Dutch

We learned at the the TI that many of the houses in town, rather than have addresses, had sculptures depicting who lived there, in terms of occupation.

We then spotted a lot of these. Here are a couple.

Just beyond Monnickendam, near Katwoude, we came to two very entertaining if touristy attractions. The first seemed so blatant that I was a little surprised Dodie pulled in. Actually, we like touristy things. This one featured the words "Cheese + Clogs" boldly on the roof, and a rather "cheesy" logo.

It actually turned out that they were seriously making clogs from scratch here, and that their cheese offerings were very creditable,hiThe man who makes the clogs was very outgoing, and was proud to talk, for example, about his pet pig, Charlotte. Charlotte has been the subject of many newspaper articles, which are posted on the wall. She would for example, spin in a circle or put her foot on the man's foot on request, and go to bed when instructed. However she requires treats of pears to do any of this. The pears are not ripe yet, but the man got some from the tree and Charlotte gave a demonstration.

Also in Katwoude was the rather more extensive cheese farm of the Henri Willig company. Henri Willig has cheese shops on seemingly every corner in Amsterdam, and this was a very well rehearsed presentation. There is nothing fake about it though, and we soon also came to large dairy farm, also run by a Willig.

The Willig cheese farm had ladies in traditional dress, explaining how cheese was made. After the brief presentation, I jumped up with some questions. What bacterial culture is used here? How does this differ from other cheeses, to produce the unique regional flavour, what is the rennet made from, what is the difference between Gouda and Edam cheese, does the cheese use pasteurized or unpasteurized milk? The presentation lady really did not have these answers, and I was hindered in interrogating her by Dodie poking me in the ribs. Dodie later told me that in this she was not trying to rescue the lady, but rather to get on with the tour. Fortunately, I later found the man who really knew, and he answered all my questions. In the interests of getting on with this blog, though, I won't try to create a tutorial here. However I will throw in one tidbit. There was a couple who joined us for the presentation who were from New Delhi. The real cheese man, in talking to me about rennet, pointed out that his use of engineered rather than natural rennet had opened the Indian (vegetarian) market to him. The rennet and of course the cheese is still an animal product, but no cows die in its production.

The cheese presentation lady - nice costume, not too much information

Climate controlled room for aging cheese

I don't like goat cheese, but maybe this lavender flavour would hide the goat.

From Katwoude it was a quick hop, again by the water, to Edam.

Like us, Marvin notes how great these roads are for cycling.

Dodie got a lot of help from someone in a bar, to locate our B&B. Our room was large, as often happens with B&B as opposed to hotels, and this allowed us two couples to install ourselves very easily. However we could not convince our host to put forward his breakfast at an early hour. We are on vacation, he argued, what's our hurry. Clearly not a cyclist! We ended with a negotiated 8 a.m. solution. All we have to do it keep Erika and Marvin from bouncing off the walls 'till then, and we're cool.

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 5,875 km (3,648 miles)

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Erika PaxmanIt was a wonderful day and a great start to our adventure!
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6 years ago