Our Friday evening farewell dinner, fond goodbyes and toasts with champagne:

By 9 am on Saturday, we were all off the boat and headed in different directions.

Four of us went to a hotel near the airport, hung out in our rooms, and tried to get well enough to test negative – a requirement to get back into the USA. Our Amsterdam until that happens:

Most of the group went for a 25-mile bike ride into Amsterdam. The first day with sunshine, blue skies and no wind.

Me? I stayed in my cabin with a positive Covid test.

By barge. At breakfast, Pietr announced there would be no riding to our next destination, the weather was worse than yesterday.

Once in Purmerends, our barge docked before the lock which couldn’t be raised because of the gusty wind.

A short e-bike ride (for some people) didn’t happen either because tree branches blocked the path for the bikes to come off the boat.

We walked into town.

Long ago, this square was for the beef cattle traders:

Vlaamse frites = Flemish fries. Thick-cut, freshly made, salted and served in cones with a side of locally-made mayonnaise.

A lazy afternoon on the boat playing cards, reading or taking a nap in your cabin. A few of us have a bit of a cold – this rest day helped.

A VERY windy day with occasional rain made for a challenging ride. Headwinds at 29 mph slowed some riders to about 3 mph. As we rode toward the North Sea, we had a rest stop in Castricum.

Riding through the forest:

The dunes at Castricum aan Zee:

The North Sea. Kite surfers in the distance.

Our lunch stop. Lee and Amal:

Riding north along the dunes was somewhat better because the winds were from the southwest:

Egmont Huys – the site of a castle first built in the 1100s, destroyed and rebuilt a few times.

We continued on to Alkmaar – another picturesque Dutch town – which we should have explored but most of us were too exhausted. 25 miles today. Tomorrow’s forecast looks worse than today: a high of 49, periods of light rain or showers, winds 25-35 mph with gusts to 50 mph.

We’ve been riding south of Amsterdam, today we motored north to Amsterdam for the next part of our bicycling adventure. Someone spotted a speck moving across a lawn – a Roomba-type lawnmower! Great idea.

We docked in Aalsmeer and got ready for a “little” walk

to Flora Holland, the world’s largest international trade center for flowers and plants supplied by growers and purchased by traders. This auction is 24/7 all year long, the building is 1/2 mile long and 1/2 mile wide. Flowers by type are on one side (of the walkway we followed).

On the other side, workers on carts deliver plants to specific buyers. Many many carts scurrying around in a well-organized dance.

We walked to and from Flora Holland (14,000 steps!, got back on the barge and motored past Schipol Airport, through the canals of Amsterdam

past the big-ship docks

to a good place to begin our day’s bike ride.

Even though we weren’t in the central part of the city, there were still many challenges to riding on crowded streets with cars, pedestrians, confident Dutch cyclists, and scooters (which are allowed to use the bike lanes!).

We rode to Zaanse Schans, an historic village and location of the first Albert Heijn – a grocery store chain with many locations.

Perhaps a “tourist trap” but a totally enjoyable stop for us.

At the cheese shop, there were many samples available for tasting and a presentation about cheese-making.

We continued our ride on the bike path behind the windmills

to where Claire de Lune was docked in Wormerveer. Wormer is actually across the canal, “veer” means ferry, so we’re on the other side of the canal accessible by the ferry (but it was actually a bridge). 10 miles of bicycling + 21,000 steps in rainy windy weather. Everyone will sleep well tonight.

Too much rain and wind today for a bike ride so the barge stayed longer in Leiden. Originally, Leiden was known for making linen.

We went for a wet windy walk into town.

Stores were mainly closed Sunday and don’t open on Monday until 1 pm.

The Citadel of Leiden:

87 steps later, we were inside and ready to look over the wall.

Leiden is the town where Pietr was raised. His father was a caretaker at this church and told Peitr the church had been named after him.

We found an open shop to look for a few more essential items. Gloves, rain pants, raincoats, potato chips.

Back to the barge for a cruise to our next destination. We were all happy not to have ridden in this awful weather.

An afternoon of watching the countryside and villages

and playing cards – cribbage, spades, euchre, rummy.

Anne: big winner and the best at calling out “Rummy.” Thankfully we found a deck of cards with American markings because we couldn’t remember the Dutch face cards: B=Jack, V=Queen, H=King. The beer and wine might have been a factor but switching to the Detroit cards made things easier. I lost, by the way.

Chris the chef, Lidia who has many tasks, Pietr our cycling tour guide.

Breakfast at 8, riding at 9.

To the right, the natural water level. To the left, the land is obviously much lower. 1/3 of the Netherlands is below sea level.

Our first glimpse of flower fields. These are hyacinths.

We had a nice rest stop at Plantage:

We spent almost three hours at Keukenhof – truly a beautiful spring garden.

The number of pictures I could have included here are innumerable. Beauty at every turn.

One of several unique water crossings:

There was a huge building with indoor tulips – an amazing variety, some about 3 feet tall, all labeled with great names.

We ate the lunch we’d made after breakfast and made our way back to the meeting point. There were many areas of Keukenhof that we weren’t able to see. Next time!

We rode another hour frequently through flower fields. The scent of hyacinths was heavenly.

We parked and locked our bikes near the docking area and took a short walk into Leiden to buy a few essentials and wait for the barge to arrive.

Our landmark to find our way back:

A wonderful day of riding, some light rain to deal with, and 27 miles in the saddle.

Kathy, Anne, Amal and I took the tram to Centraal Station.

We walked about 10 minutes, dragging our suitcases behind us clattering on the brick and found a place to wait to meet the barge. Or so we thought.

However, we were not in the right place and decided to try the other location some of us had in our info packets. Eventually we found our barge, Clair de Lune.

After one more round-trip walk for me to find the last two members of our group – who had taken a taxi to the correct dock, but I didn’t know that – we assembled in the salon. Pietr (red jacket) will be our cycling guide.

We settled into our cabins. Small but comfortable! I have a double bed, others have twins which criss-cross at the feet, one bed being higher than the other.

We motored out of Amsterdam and left the big city behind. At a canal-side stopping place, the bikes were unloaded (10 e-bikes and 4 bikes not). All bikes had been labeled with our names – a good idea because they all look alike.

Our first stop was Spaardam – the home of Hans Brinker. There are so many bicycling paths all labeled with arrows and mileages to the next destination. We stopped at a church in the country

where, Pietr told us, a giant had once lived. He was about as tall as Pietr (6’3) but his arm span was much wider – to the gray rectangles (where he was chained, for thumping people on the head but that may have been a joke by Pietr).

Dutch bikes take a while to get used to. The seat to handlebar space is narrow and the front stem is quite long. You sit up quite tall as you pedal along.

A newly-built windmill to replace the one that burned down.

To say the least, it’s COLD and windy. We are all bundled up.

We took a circuitous route to see more of the countryside before entering Haarlem, then it was a matter of finding where Clair de Lune was able to dock. Today was our short riding day, 10 miles.

There are 12 in our group + Dominique and Francois from France (front left table). Back left: Kathy, Anne, Amal, Sharon. Front right: Marsha, Cheryl, Jane. Back right: Rupert, Jeorgianna, Barbara, Lee. Almost time for dinner and we are all hungry.

Especially delicious, the Creme courgette (cream of zucchini soup):

After dinner, we walked into town to the square.

A wish fulfilled. Anne really wanted to see the house of Corrie Ten Boom, one of her favorite authors.

The town was quite alive with people in restaurants, enjoying late dinners and drinks. However, our group was happy to head back to the barge and tuck into bed. **Note to Tom (Anne’s husband): So sorry I’m a bit late in this post. There is no wifi below deck so I prepped all the pictures but had to wait to finish in the salon the next morning. Thanks for keeping me on my toes!

It did snow last night, this morning it was quite cold and windy. We all put on more layers to stay warm. As we walked to our morning destination, we spotted two adults having a snowball “fight”.

Today’s main event was a food tour in the Jordaan district – previously a slum, today just the opposite. Our tour guide from Eating Europe was Aileen – she did a great job.

Our first stop was Cafe Hegeraad for coffee and Dutch apple pie.

Next, was Vishhandel (fish market) for raw fermented herring with onion and pickles – yuck, at least I tried it –

followed by battered deep-fried cod – delicious!

Lots of walking today.

As we walked from place to place, Aileen shared local information and history and pointed out things that a person might not ordinarily see like this wire sculpture high on a post at a canal crossing. The artist of Mermaid Bubbles is anonymous.

Anne, Kathy, Cheryl, Amal, me. Not in this picture but part of our group was Jane and Marsha.

At JWO Lekkernijan, we tasted Gouda cheese 3 times, each one aged a bit longer. The final sample was paired quite well with a sweet nutty tidbit.

Then we tried two types of sausage:

Another great story from Aileen as we stood beside what used to be the Lindengracht canal. You can read about the Eel Riot of 1886 here: https://www.24oranges.nl/2016/09/11/the-eel-riots-of-1886-ended-with-26-people-and-1-eel-dead/. What isn’t mentioned in the story is the final punishment for the Eel Riot was filling in the Lindengracht canal. It is now a very wide street with a grassy area in the center.

This is one of many “charity houses” in Amsterdam now converted to apartments. This one was for widows. The entrance leads to an inner courtyard.

Our next stop was Swieti Sranang for a sample of chicken satay, a traditional food from Suriname by way of Indonesia. Suriname and Indonesia were both Dutch colonies. People from Indonesia were sent to Suriname to work as “indentured laborers”.

On to Tom’s Bread and More for stroopwafel:

Our final stop: Cafe ‘t Small.

Another typical Dutch food: bitterballen – a ball of beef gravy with a crumb coating and deep-fried –

and a glass of lemon brandy, traditionally poured into a tulip-shaped glass and filled to the very top forcing the consumer to bend over to take the first sip.

You’d think that would have been enough food for the entire day, but no! After walking more streets to look at shops – including a stop at The Tulip Museum and shop –

and dropping off our purchases at the hotel, we went around the corner to a bakery to pick up something sweet and then had dinner at

Full tummies and tired legs – a good night’s sleep is assured. By the way, this food tour was one of the best I’ve ever done. The price was quite reasonable, the tour lasted almost 4 hours and there were 12 tastings. Aileen was an excellent guide.

Amal arrived last night, much later than expected. Airplane problems before leaving Phoenix meant a missed connection in Philadelphia. Then the entire computer system was down in London for several hours but she finally got an evening flight out. We took a morning walk through the Museumplein – a small park near the Van Gogh Museum and our hotel –

and discovered a bakery that we will definitely visit again (if we can find it).

We decided to walk to our afternoon activity.

This is how you get big things into (or out of) houses. The workers were testing how the cart moved on the track, then leveled the container and opened the front part.

It was cold and raining today, especially waiting for our reserved time at the Anne Frank House and Museum.

The presentation before the tour was very good, then we toured the annex where Anne and her family hid for 2 years, followed by a narrated tour of the museum. The Anne Frank House is just around the corner from the modern museum entrance:

On the walk back:

We stopped for an early dinner at Hard Rock and got a table under this sign:

Anne was so excited to discover the flatware on the table was quite warm, a joy for her very cold hands.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked through a small section of Vondelpark:

Snow predicted for tonight!