We had an early breakfast at 8 am as we wanted to start cycling early due to potential rain. Tueny and her husband had a wonderful spread of food for us, and once again like so many, enough for us to pack a lunch as well. We were packed and on the road just after 9 am.
We followed a path today all along the water, also through quite a bit of parkland that was always referred to as the strand. We passed many parking lots, camping spots, boats, beaches, and playgrounds. I can imagine that this is a very busy place in the summer when hot.
We got a text last night from cousin Hans who wanted to meet with us today. We haven’t seen him since the 70’s when he came to Canada with cousin Willy. So this was a nice surprise. Also a surprise for us (well not really since cousin Henny warned us) was that everything in Spakenburg is closed on Sunday. They are a very religious conservative village. No stores or shops, and no restaurants (other than one Chinese one) are open on Sunday. Since we arrived to Spakenburg by 12:30 pm we dropped our bags at our destination. Henrietta and Henk recommended Eemlust restaurant in the next village. Once again, even though we got directions from their son, we ended up in a different village, on a different street, in front of a tea room that was closed. lol…. ”sorry Hans we will be a little late”.
We found the Eemlust restaurant in Baarn. And there was Hans and Wilma to greet us. We were able to get a seat by the water, and when it started raining, they moved us in side. After lunch the 5 of us loaded into Han’s little VW and they took us on a short driving tour around. They were going to take us over the dijk where the water is quite wide but it was closed for construction (haha we are used to that from the beginning of our trip!). We look forward to Hans stopping in Canada when he sails around the world! It was so nice to connect with more family!
We then got in our rain gear and cycled back to Spakenburg. We took a ride through the center of the village. When things are open, we could imagine how nice it is. There are these very old sailing ships, that we found out last week were all on the water during a town festival of sorts. We will have to remind others not to go to Spakenburg on a Sunday. We sat and had our own drinks by the water, in the rain!
We arrived at our hosts just sfter 5 pm. Henk and Henrietta are members of the Friends op de Fiets organization. They have a beautiful home just outside of the centre. We sat and had a drink with them and chit chatted which was very nice to learn a bit about the area. We had very nice accommodations. Henk offered to drive us to a restaurant, and called 7 in other villages and all had no availability. So he made reservations at the Chinese restaurant for us (the only thing open in town). It was so nice of him to drive us and pick us up. The food was good and I loved it that we could have a little sushi. When we arrived back we had a nice sitting area in our room, and they left us some chocolate, wine and tea so we were happy! And we were happy to crawl in bed to sleep to get ready for our last day of cycling. Yikes to get back into Amsterdam on a holiday! Jasper has agreed to meet us at the edge of town and guide us back to Wouter and Zu’s where we have our luggage. It seems like we have been gone for a very long time. We have seen so much in the last week, and at a way better view from a bike! I saw cousin Vonnetje sent me a link the other day for a cycle trip – I think near Rotterdam – hmmm…..maybe I see another one in the future. 😀
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