I am exhausted.
According to the info we’d read online when we booked our trip, there was one long day when you bike 42 km. When we boarded, our guide, Marjan, told us that Sunday was our long day. Then it turns out today was a 46 km day. I know I’m not good at math, but….
We started early… or at least woke up early when the captain sailed to Delft. The engines on this barge are not quiet.
In Delft we first biked to the Delft factory. We got to see how the pottery is made and painted. Then we got to see the eye popping price tags in the outlet store. I wasn’t leaving empty handed, but had a hard time spending that much money. We finally settled on a small bell with a windmill on it. Seemed appropriate. And I’d better not find out later this bell wasn’t made in the factory I’d just toured! (see 22 March entry)
A second tour guide joined our group today. Roolie’s here to help with the tulips. So the idea was that today (a non-tulip day) we could split into two groups fast and slow. What it came down to was no one wanted to ride with the Spanish family. Everyone said they’d go in the fast group. But they spared us by going off on their own and skipping the entire ride. They still slowed us down, we had to spend 45 minutes in Delft souvenir shopping while we waited for the guide to return from taking them to the train station or wherever she took them. (It wasn’t time wasted, though. I bought postcards and Kaitlyn got slippers that look like wooden shoes and a t-shirt)
All in one big fast group, it was back on the bikes for a ride to the beach. I did a great job of being the slow one. I don’t know how far that ride was, but by the time we got there I was out of energy and tired. It was 1:00. Normally, we’d have eaten well before then. (at least a snack break for a banana) Not today. It made an unpleasant difference.
At the beach I bought french fries with mayonnaise from a snack bar type place on the boardwalk. They were some of the best fries I’ve ever had. Maybe I was just hungry. We ran out of time to buy more. And, yes, french fries with mayonnaise is good. Very good. But the mayo is more like Miracle Whip than regular mayonnaise.
Kaitlyn convinced Bill to take her out onto the sand for a few minutes before we set off on the next leg of our journey. The sand dunes. The only hills in the entire country, and we get to bike up and down them. The guides said to go at your own pace. So I did. Slow. I was the last to finish but it’s not as though the others waited a half hour for me.
After 6.5 km of that torture, we got a break at another beach. Bill and Kaitlyn and I walked along the sand and collected sea shells while the others went to a cafe for beer. (How you can drink beer in the middle of such a long bike ride, I don’t know) The shells we found are fascinating. The stripes are much more distinct than the shells we’ve collected on the beaches in NC.
Roolie offered to take me on a shortcut back to the boat. It skips the rest of the dunes. At first, I was insulted. But walking in the sand I realized my legs were turning to mush. Bill offered to go on the shortcut with me and after I managed to swallow my pride, I agreed.
We were both so happy we did that.
Instead of biking up and down more dunes that would have looked just like the ones we’d just sweated through, we biked alongside a bulb field. There were tulips and hyacinths. The color was beautiful. The smell was enchanting. Roolie had us stop to take pictures. She went into the field and asked the farmer if she could pick two flowers for Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn was thrilled. Then around the corner she stopped to buy bunches of tulips to take back to the boat. There was just a sign with the price, some tulips neatly wrapped in paper bundles sitting in buckets of water, and a little tin box where you left your money.
Make no mistake, though, Roolie may have taken us on a shortcut. But she didn’t go slower. Still, the tulips, the lack of dunes, her information… it made the rest of the trip to Leiden ideal.
After dinner it was Bill’s turn to put Kaitlyn to bed while I went on an evening walking tour. He strapped his big camera around my neck, but I don’t think any of my night pictures turned out. The walk was a brisk pace (everything with Marjan is) but filled with information. It ended at a jazz club I wasn’t interested in going to. Luckily, it was closed.
Tomorrow is a bike free day. Good for my legs. Hopefully the numb spots I’ve developed on my rear won’t go away in a single day.