Day 77 (16/8) - to Paris... if we get there

With a few days up our sleeves we had the choice to go to London earlier or visit Paris. Reuben was not so keen on Paris but Anne-Marie convinced him otherwise. Given the terrible head winds of the past few days we were loathed to punish ourselves further and cheated by opting for a train. We made it to the train with minutes to spare, travelling on a Belgium train to Lille  We boarded our second train, a french one, and attempted to get to Paris, ten minutes into the journey and the train encountered problems, 3 hours later we were back on our way. Once again failing public transport making good friends of strangers, we struck up a quick friendship with a young Dutchman from Amsterdam traveling to Paris to study. We finally arrived and were immediately greeted with assault rifle wielding soldiers nonchalantly patrolling the station, quite confronting. We cycled through Friday night rush hour traffic past Moulin Rouge and arrived at our hotel near the Arc De Triumph, air-conditioning broken. We visited the Arc itself, which was bigger and more impressive than we thought, and had a late dinner on the "quiet" streets of Paris Reuben still unhappy to be there.






On the train again

Show us your AR

The Arc

Day 76 (15/8) - In Bruges and not one coked up racist Dwarf

After riding around and exploring Bruges we did some lame tourist activities, a fry museum and a chocolate museum, a bit of a waste of time really. We visited a Picasso exhibition and then meandered through the streets with the other thousand tourists looking at the hundreds of chocolate, lace, beer and nic-nac shops. Bruges is a lovely place but at this time of year it is completely overrun with tourists. For dinner we delved into the world of Michelin hats again, enjoying another degustation menu with matching wines at a one star Michelin restaurant, very comparable to many of the good restaurants in Melbourne. Riding back to our hotel we saw swans on the canal in the moonlight, just like in the movie "in Bruges"; unlike the black swans of Melbourne's Albert Park lake they weren't trying to attack us!

Fools

Reuben uses a convenient convenience, very space age

A fuzzy snap of the canals at sunset, stay still when I'm taking your photo swan

One of Picaso's bulls

Day 75 (14/8) - To Bruges and too many hats

We said goodbye to the seaside town of Vlissingen and caught a ferry across the river to the mainland. With about 30 other cyclists on board the ferry, we were impressed. We decided to forget Hollands junction riding system, again, and follow Google's more direct bicycling navigation system. Again riding with a strong head wind we passed through pretty towns and farmland as we made our way to the bottom of Holland and into Belgium. (Tip for future cycling in the Netherlands, ride from bottom to top, the prevailing winds are generally going that way).

The view did not really change but we sadly noticed a reduction in fellow cyclists, the quality of bicycle paths, signage and tolerance of cars to cyclists. We made it to Bruges just after lunch, explored the town on bike and climbed the Belfry Tower (the cool one from the movie). Before it closed we spent an hour in the Dali museum, Reuben's appreciation for the ridiculous and absurd is tickled nicely by Dali's style.

As Bruges is full of Michelin hat restaurants we decided to attend our first and probably last three hat restaurant. We enjoyed a degustation menu with matching wines, truly amazing, lots of unique food, yummy flavors and interesting ingredients, and each of the 8 dishes brought out by three staff. The only problem is we might have to eat baked beans for the next few months to pay for it.. But It was a fantastic to experience gastronomy and service at such a level.

Windmills in Holland

On the ferry

Into Belgium

The wrong focal length, the buildings behind Anne-Marie was pretty impressive

Deceptively few tourists in these shots

More pretty canals, but after Venice, Strasbourg and Amsterdam we are not so impressed.

Particularly inspired by Dali's sculpture

Day 74 (13/8) - Wind! Rotterdam to Vlissingen

Leaving the ship we once again attempted to follow the crazy way-point system. and again within five km we were mucking around at roadworks for half an hour to find our way. More frustration as the way-points directed us down horrendous lumpy cobbled loops for no apparent reason, when on review, a perfectly good smooth sealed direct route was available.

On our first ferry just out of Rotterdam proper we met a fabulous Dutch cyclist, who despite more unforeseen roadworks lead us on a nice direct route down most of the way to Zeeland (New Zealand's namesake, no similarity at all, what where they thinking?),  Thank you Dirk.

The painful headwind from yesterday had intensified to a solid thirty five km/h unrelenting barrier to be overcome. We abandoned the waypoint system at about the 75km point and let the dulcet tones of Google's voice navigation system bring us the last 50km to Vlissingen.  Our toughest day so far.

Goodbye ship

Rotterdam has some cool buildings

Canals too

AM and Dyrk

You can see which way the wind is coming from

Day 73 (12/8) - Follow the dots + another ship!

Headed off towards Bruges with a hastily printed list of the waypoints the Dutch use to navigate their enormous complex bicycle network. Each waypoint has arrows to the next possible waypoints. The map looked like a black and white,  blurry, Where's Wally. It lasted all of three km before a closed road with no obvious alternative threw us through a loop. Google maps, some lucky guesses and a lot of backtracking to find overgrown, hidden, or straight out missing waypoint markers. We made it the 80km through a steady but manageable headwind to Rotterdam in a lazy six hours. Due to our last minute decision to go to Bruges we missed the chance to catch up with an old friend Wendy in Rotterdam. Next time for sure!
As Anne-Marie was still keen to spend another night on a boat Reuben couldn't say no when she found ssRotterdam, an old cruise ship turned into a hotel berthed in the harbour. They had renovated the interior 50s style, removed walls and combined two cabins into one. The rooms were lovely and the restaurant amazing. There was a pool with deckchairs and a bar. They were slowly renovating sections of the boat but as the furniture and fittings were old and expensive most parts could only be seen with a tour guide. Arriving at 7pm we missed that opportunity but we still enjoyed the experience.

Lots of horses and ponies along the way

Working windmills

Some awesome sculptures

Paddle boats shaped like swans

And we stayed on the SS Rotterdam a retired cruise ship, now 50's styled four star hotel

I'm on a boat

Day 72 (11/8) - Coffee, Beer and the Old Masters in Amsterdam

For a taste of home headed to Little Collins a very popular Cafe founded by some ex-melbournites trying to bring some of Melbourne's Cafe culture to Amsterdam. Best breakfast in Europe.

Next to the Heineken experience, an impressive big budget affair with a good balance of beer history, beer drinking and beer pulling.  Reuben came away suitably soused and Anne-Marie with a new appreciation of the liquid gold.

Finished of a lovely day checking out some Rembrandts, Monets, and Van Gohs for good measure.

Anne-Marie is brainwashed by a Heineken mind-washing video

Reuben admires the stills in the old Heineken brewery

An animated wall of green bottles, more than 99 (but less than 9000). It was quite impressive.

Concentrate, you only get one shot at this (actually 3 if you stuff them up enough)

Anne-Marie, like a professional

Captain Pants certified and all

Reuben's likes a little Van Goh, he always has

Outside the Rijksmuseum all the stoned locals enjoying the sun (I'm sure they aren't all high)

Day 71 (10/8) - Loveland, Hardcore porn and second hand smoke. (Festival 5)

You'd be forgiven for thinking we would be over festivals by now, but they are all different. They all have their own style and atmosphere. Loveland was no exception. Where Tomorrowland is your international big budget blockbuster movie, Nature One is an intense gritty Sci Fi, and loveland is a laid back romantic comedy.

Although Reuben felt quite at home being on the younger side of the audience at a dance music festival for a change (not something he ever expected to see again), it was not quite our normal cup of tea with it's relaxed house style.

Not to say we didn't enjoy the festival with it's free party boat, face painting, origami classes and speech bubble making tent but its numerous bean bag chair areas should have been an early warning.

There was a decent set by Felix da House Cat and then Fedde Le Grand, but we realised at 9pm, when we were considering going back for seconds to sit in the Tee Pee and listen to the Dutch School Madame (with horn rimmed glasses and a tight blonde bun no less) read hard core porn in Dutch, that perhaps it was time to cut our losses and cycle our second hand dope smoking selves back to our fancy futuristic hotel.

Festival parking done right

Banana (phone) for a dollar? I'll take 2

A is for Anne-Marie

And then he Vijixsckled his Mkjrstblickjested in Veronica's Klijmingfalderholdenkaj

I'm on a bean bag, on a boat

Dancin girls, not sure what they where selling

Some music and fun was had

The prettiest of the 8 stages as Fedde pumps out a good set