August 5, 2023
To Elburg
A magical day of cycling
Today was a really magical day. When we came out of the hotel we turned straight onto the canal. it was to be a day of 7 moveable bridges and 1 ferry crossing. Meppel is a city of boats, it looks as if there are more than there are cars and the all looked as if they were very much in action. There were beautiful old Dutch barges but also more modern ones which to me dont have the same charm. As we came out of the town we saw factories that were clearly boat builders
The whole ride today underlined how important these waterways have been to the country Although we did not see many commercial vehicles there was plenty of evidence of continuing commercial use as we rode along and the towns appeared to be pretty serious ports. We hadn’t done more than about 10km when we came to a wonderful bakery where we had a coffee and a delicious almond creation
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9 months ago
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It was just after this that we came to the ferry. It was an extremely efficient operation just going continually from one side of the canal yo the other. I was really surprised how quickly it filled up - 2.40E for a person and bike
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Kampen when came to it seemed a good place to stop. With difficulty we mastered the tricky bridge and sat in the pedestrian only square (no bikes) and had our lunch listening to the bells above us pealing continuously. This was a rather difficult town to get out of but we were put onto a perfect cycle path which ran along the water all of the 12 km to Elburg. We thought that the water we were riding beside was probably an inlet of the sea. It was wide had sail boats playing about and we passed a yacht club. The track itself is clearly very popular by training cyclists and these fit young people were zooming past us in both directions
When we came to Elburg it was very clearly a holiday town with a huge marina and also lots of beautiful wooden boats giving people rides. We were told that the government subsidises their upkeep. The old town is through gates and our charming hotel is here. Our room is extremely cute its only problem being that it is up a flight of ver steep spiral stairs. I am just glad we are not on the second flour
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Looking at the map it seems that we have been biking all day on the island of Flevoland
Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 346 km (215 miles)
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9 months ago