It’s Thursday, it must be Holland

We spent pretty much the whole day on bike paths today, which is pretty cool. Sometimes they were just the pavement with some paint on it, but often it was a purpose built track alongside a railway or canal. There were a lot of other cyclists too, of all different shapes and sizes. Mountain bikers, roadies, tourers and a lot of couples on their steel “sit-up-and-beg” bicycles, off for a nice cycle ride together.

Then, before we knew it, we’d ridden straight through Flanders and we were in the Netherlands — and it was only because we were paying attention to the map that we knew we’d crossed the border, there wasn’t even a sign to say we’d entered a new country. Obviously Holland and Belgium were founding members of Benelux, which became the EU, so this border has been open for a very long time.

So, we’re in Holland, country number 18, and our last before catching a ferry back to Blighty. Tiger found a ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle, so we’re going to take that one and ride pretty much the length of England on our way back to the south coast. It’s all pretty close now!