From Eindhoven, we start using Benjamin Uitgeverij’s “Onbegrensd Fietsen” (boundless cycling) – a bicycle map/book that we found in Amsterdam that will take us all the way to Barcelona. Although the author himself has been criticized for not cycling the route himself, but instead using a motor-driven bicycle (almost like a moped), the map is quite well done and does show us some quite good smaller roads with less traffic.

External links

Onbegrensd Fietsen to Barcelona: www.cartostudio.nl/fiets/barcelona.html

We camp on a field next to some young man’s house. He invites us to do our cooking in his kitchen. There is a good law in the Netherlands that forces owners of houses and apartments to rent them for only about 150 euros a month, if they have been unoccupied for more than a years time. It is with help from this law that many students and young people in the country get their first independent living.

We spend a few days in Amsterdam with Joost (see 21 June). Barbecue on the balcony. Thanks!

We continue over the 32 kilometer long Afsluitdijk – a sea wall i northern Netherlands that separates the North Sea and the manmade sea Ijsselmeer. Through its construction, large chunks of land, so called ‘polders’, could also be drained and used for farming. In one of these polders, Wieringermeer, is the small town Wieringerwerf where we get to stay with Kor and Gea. They are the parents of Joost, a same-aged with whom I traveled through Namibia, Botswana and Zambia a year ago. Kor gives us a quick tour around the neighborhood, and teaches us everything about dijks and polders. Thanks to Kor and Gea!

We get to camp just outside the house of farmer Wiebe and his wife Gea. Tea and cookies by their kitchen table.

We get sponsored camping at Camping Lauwersoog (www.lauwersoog.nl).

In Delfzijl, a kind woman invites us to camp in her garden. Hanneke lives just next to a canal, so the setting is quite nice. We enjoy the evening over a cup of tea and some of her homegrown strawberries. Two young friends of her also pass by, and it turns out that they have similar plans to ours. They will pedal from here to southern France later this summer, and recommend us something called ‘the Green route.’ A guided map is supposedly available at well-assorted map shops in Amsterdam.