Back on my own bike and a night at a historic hotel

 We've been without WiFi access for the last couple of nights so I'm a little behind on my entries. This one is for Sunday May 15th.

Wijk bij Duurstede - Wageningen  35 km

The high point of the day was Bob driving from the Hook of Holland, over an hour, to meet us at our campground at noon to deliver my fixed bike! Although we had planned on a train ride back to switch bikes, Bob being keen for us to be able to continue riding, made the drive and got us on our way again much faster than we otherwise would have. We are truly indebted to this man. Thank you Bob 😊and Jose 😊

Bob with my repaired bike. He drove a long way to get it to me. What a guy.


Leaving W b D we rode through Netherlands only drive-through windmill and set off for our afternoon ride.


We stopped for quite while to help these three ladies fix multiple punctures. A little "pay-it-forward time.

We're now beginning to see official signs for EV15 Rijnfietsroute


We opted to get a hotel in Wageningen and the first one we found happened to be of great historic significance. Hotel Werld is the place where Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces Canadian Corp led by General Foulkes in May 1945, marking the end of WW2 for the Netherlands, and where the capitulation agreement was made.

Hotel Werld in 1945

Hotel Werld today (where we stayed)


Poster in the Hotel's lounge

Breakfast in the room where the surrender agreement was made in 1945




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big Plans Ahead! Another European Bike Tour

Image
 The count-down is on for our next cycle tour! On Sat Aug 24th (that is tomorrow!) we leave for yet another cycle tour in Europe. This one will see us flying to Frankfurt and riding from there south towards the Alps via Bavaria, a little part of the west of Austria (Tyrol) and on into Italy, eventually ending up in Venice. Lots of similarities to our last tour two years ago, but quite a different route. We have set aside six weeks for this journey. The main goal of this tour is to cycle a route called the Via Claudia Augusta . This route starts in Donauworth, Germany (located on the River Danube) and ends either in Venice or at the Po River south of Verona (depending which fork of the road you take). The attraction here is that it follows an old Roman road that once connected the northern part of the Empire via the River Danube, with the Adriatic Sea via the River Po or the Venetian lagoon. So there's lots of history attached to it, and it takes you through a lot of beautiful scene...
Read more

Complications at Reschen Pass: Italy here we come!

Image
 Monday morning Sep 9th Pfunds, at the foot of Reschen Pass, the route to Italy Before leaving home, I had read about a road closure here at Pfunds that would affect the main road, causing the diversion for traffic to use the minor road up the pass that is the official Via Claudia route for bikes. So it sounded like our bike route would not be affected, although it might have a lot of traffic. However, at breakfast this morning we learned that it's actually the cycling road that is completely closed for the building of a rockfall shed, effective Sep 1st. There is apparently an alternative signed diversion for bikes that follows a really rough gravel path. Not the best for heavily loaded bikes, although we did it over Fern Pass in good weather. Fortunately, there is a Via Claudia bike shuttle service, and we've just secured ourselves 3 spots at 12.00. This will save us a ton of hard, unpleasant riding in damp weather up the pass, and get us to the town of Nauders, several km bel...
Read more

Cycling the River Po route: a suprise campground

Image
 We might not have the Romans with us anymore, but we're still riding and slowly making our way towards the Venice Lagoon. This route we have planned will take us along the Po River and eventually northwards towards the outer islands along the famous Lagoon, a distance of a couple of hundred kilometers or so. Our planned route from Ostiglia towards the Venice Lagoon We left Ostiglia and the terminus of the Via Claudia on Sunday morning and started making our way along the River Po. This is a huge, wide, slow-moving river that at first was very impressive. We saw next to no boat traffic on it - a couple of pleasure boats and one river cruise boat moored along the bank on Sunday. However, after a few miles, the path, dare I say it, became a bit boring. The cycleway was on top of the flood- control levy, and on the river side, we were often separated from the river by a wide swath of tree plantations (looked like tall skinny poplars), presumably to stabilise the soil in the flood plai...
Read more