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Willemstad

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 There are many nice things about riding in Holland.  It's flat...very flat...We're experiencing less than 150 meters of elevation change every day.  A 40 kilometer ride in Ardrossan by comparison will see around 250 meters of elevation change presuming one doesn't intentionally seek out hills to climb.  On one day in Portugal the elevation change was over 1000 meters - 10 times what we're experiencing in Holland.  Secondly, about 95 percent of the riding that we're doing sees no vehicles other than the odd scooter and other cyclists.  To be honest I expected much of our riding to be in areas that were significantly built up.  Holland's population is a lot higher than Canada's; it's land base is much smaller; and about 80 percent of the population lives in the areas around Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague and Haarlem.  I've been completely surprised (pleasantly so) by the areas of park land, farms and other rural areas through which we've ridden....
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From Haarlem to Dordrecht

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 Three days of riding - 1) from Haarlem to Leiden; 2) from Leiden to Gouda and 3) from Gouda to Dordrecht.  We set out on Sunday morning and went west to the coast of the Netherlands.  I'm personally falling in love with the Netherlands simply because I am in awe of their transportation systems; road networks; bike paths.  The buses are frequently on dedicated roads and lanes which means that they move from location to location quickly and efficiently.  One one of our bus rides the bus stopped and announcements in dutch and english informed us that the bus would pause for two minutes because it was ahead of schedule.  We've now ridden about 150 kilometers - none of those were on roads of any particular significance.  That is not to say they are irrelevant - for the few residents and cars that travel along them, they definitely are not - and for us cyclists they provide excellent ways of getting around.  Much of our riding has been on dedicated cyc...
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Leaving Portugal and arriving in the Netherlands

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 The first group of five headed off early on Thursday morning for the train back to Lisbon.  Some of them were going riding in France for a week.  One is headed to a cruise - meeting her husband in Lisbon and sailing north with stops in Spain, France, Belgium, Holland and Britain (if I remember correctly - and one is headed home.  Huw and Carolyn dropped them and returned to the hotel for a final farewell before they headed south to Lagos to return the van and prepare for their next adventure taking a group through the Historic Heartland.  The rest of us, Sandy, myself, Sig, Tilly, Marni, Diane and Barry, were to fend for ourselves with our bus into Lisbon departing at noon.  It was an uneventful journey back into the big city and at the bus station we headed in slightly different directions.  Sandy and I were booked at a new hotel in the old city - Alfama - while everyone else was returning to the Vila Garden where we stayed at the beginning of the tr...
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