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Twenty-Fifth

PARIS....LIÈGE....MAASTRICHT....UTRECHT....ZANDVOORT....ALKMAAR....TEXEL....VOLENDAM....AMSTERDAM....ROOSEVELT....DUNKERQUE....CALAIS....VALLÉE DE LA SOMME....SENLIS....PARIS

For our 25th wedding anniversary, we packed up our bikes and camping gear and spent nearly a month biking around France, Holland an the north coast of Belgium.

This trip was awesome. Here we are a couple married for a quarter century and thumbing our noses at society, getting out of the traditional party and all.  Great times!

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle and brought all our gear into Paris by subway and put in in consignment at the North Station, leaving us several days to scout Paris.

On the following Monday we  boarded the train for Liège in Belgium. Out trip officially began here on a nice warm day and a leisure ride to Maastricht. We were enthralled. Then the rains came. Four days of rain, and the enthrallment became a tad less shiny. Nevertheless, we pedaled and visited everything we could and headed along the Juliana Canal and managed to climb the steepest hill in Holland.

It is amazing how clean this country is. The villages are the kinds that you'd like to spend a day or two visiting, but there were too many villages and not enough time.

Biking is excellent, no hills, but as we ventured north, we got more wind. Especially on Texel the island up north where it blew so hard we had to walk our bikes a bit.

Maarsen and Loenen are something. We ate more cherries there than the law allows! Beautiful place, Loenen and we spent a few days here.

Loenen to Haarlem to Zandvoort to Heiloo. The North sea is not the warmest place on the planet to swim, but it is refreshing. Heiloo is a neat town. Took the train from Heillo to Den Helder, and then the ferry to Texel. Very windy, but a very nice place also. Visited Den Hoorn and it was the farmer's market day. Went on to Den Koog and then back to Den burg, with those incessant winds in our faces. Friday is THE day to be at Alkmaar, and we were. 

Alkmaar was special and we appreciated the cheese market, the pastry and the way they accepted tourists. At 2:00 everything was over, so we headed out.

We stopped at the windmills, vindmollen,  and wound up in Edam for supper, where we set up for the night on the shores of Ijesselmeer.

Edam to Volendam under the clouds, on to Monneckdam and Marken. All these towns are well worth the time to stop and explore. Volendam and Marken are awesome! On Marken there are no automobiles and all the houses are painted the same color, green.

We decided to camp out at Durgerdam and commute to Amsterdam. A good idea but we hit the crummiest campground in all Holland! The place was  dump and they had a tent party until ...sunrise. On the brighter side there was this great family restaurant down the road a bit. It is also a short ride to Amsterdam. I won't touch Amsterdam here, take too much time. spent two nights in the campground.

Finally over a couple of Heineken's we decided to hop a train, and head for the Belgian border and continue on to France. the trian left us at Vlissingen, 15 Km from Belgium. Camped out near Zeebrugge. The place was full and the kids came back to the campground about 3:00 AM...as noisy as they were drunk. That's all right, next morning at 6:00 I was up banging the pot and frying pan while preparing breakfast.

Zeebrugge to  Dunkerque, pretty windy ride. I quickly learned that the predominant winds were from the South west, making for us a rough trip for several days. Camped at Dunkerque, nice place, and we visited the city.  Dunkerque to Bergues where we bought a bottle of wine, grabbed a campsite and set in for the evening. Not so. We took a walk and wound up in  Le Café de la Gare, which we closed...Those locals are very warm people. Next day we had a free meal at the Café...and headed out to Wardam. Very windy. Camped there and the next day made Calais. Beautiful city, very clean. Saugatte to Cap Blanc Nez, where we climbed six kilometers. We could see the white dunes of England. Camped at Cap Gros Nez.

From west of here we found some very interestng villages, where mussels are king, Wimereux among others. The Côte d'Opale is not really known for its beauty, however we found it very pleasant, and also somehat hilly as we pedaled into the winds. We turned left at the Vallée de la Somme and headed inland towards Picardy. The villages are out of the Middle Ages and you feel as though you might be trespassing into someone else's time zone. We went through many of these small hamlets, and wound up in Senlis, reknown for its equinine history   and still yet today, the horses are the big draw. Camped out in Ermenonville, from whece we  traveled on train to Paris to visit. One eveningthere we bought a baguette, some cold cuts, cheese and two eggs. We had half the baguette for supper along with the cold cuts, while keeping the other half for a breakfast of French toast. The whole deal, plus the campsite and a bottle of cheap wine cost us the equivalent of eight dollars.

Upon leavingthere ,we biked to the airport, biking through the sliding doors, with a Québec flag on our bags and right into the waiting room. Whatta trip................