We stayed with Tanya and Jennifer at a hostel in Scheveningen (the word that Monique always makes you say to test out your guttural ‘G’). We decided to have a classically Dutch day and hire bikes.
Holland is undoubtedly the bike capital of the world. There are people on bikes like flies around a BBQ on a hot summers night. The extent to which un-helmeted cyclists buzz around is dizzying (especially when driving). They are the undisputed kings of the road, always having right of way over pedestrians, and often having right of way over cars. Seeing the thousands upon thousands of bikes piled up at train stations and tied to every lamppost, fence, gate and wall in every city is almost beyond belief. The great irony is that despite the popularity of cycling, they all seem to ride around on gearless, dilapidated and barely road worthy bikes. Go figure.
With this knowledge, we hired our bikes with great excitement, and a little trepidation. While we started cautiously, we were soon rolling along enjoying the beautiful Dutch countryside throughout the region of Delft. It was classically Dutch – beautifully green pastoral fields, countless canals, windmills, old villages and flat. Unbelievably flat.
In the five or so hours that we were cycling, we didn’t face even so much as the slightest of gentle inclines. Cycling through Holland almost feels like perpetual motion. It feels like you can just roll on forever as if following the curvature of the earth.
It was a sensational day seeing the Dutch countryside.
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