Cycling on the dike

(note: this is a recount of events on July 1, before we headed for Bruges, despite the specified date)

(disclaimer: all of these blog entries are being written on my phone, so please bear with any grammatical mistakes)

Took out our rented bikes for a little longer ride to countryside north of Amsterdam.  That meant hopping a free ferry across the IJ (an inland bay of sorts, freshwater I think) and then some residential navigation before we were cycling along the seaside, on a dike.  To our left was land reclaimed from the sea by the industrious Dutch and to our right was that sea. Even in the middle of the countryside, we had our own bike paths parallel to roads and our own numbered bike expressways and maps posted at every intersection.

Eventually we stumbled into a beautiful little town named Holysloot, with a meandering bike route. All of the sudden, the route seemingly came to an end, but for a sign indicating to go right into a lake. Waving us on from a lake was a man (and 4 other cyclists) with a boat just large enough for six bikes and a sign saying “1 euro”.  We hopped on and he ferried us across. Note that cars in this situation would have been out of luck! 

Once the other side was reached we were in the middle of a series of fields separated by narrow canals, each of which had a special bridge designed field pedestrian+bike.  See picture.

We worked our way back to Amsterdam, having ridden about 35 miles. However, in that time it felt like we were much further away from the city. Certainly more than fifteen miles from the center of one if the world’s great cities.