Fine, warm and sunny 20-32deg, 77km, av. 16.6km/h, tot. 1617km.
It was already fairly warm when we left the motel at 8:25am . Wendy had obtained all the required standpoint numbers for the route on her phone the night before. All we had to do was locate the first one, which we did, and away we went to the next and the next, etc. An easy 10km to get clear of the city and then it was rural, forest or small towns all the way. Not a hill to be seen anywhere, although we did have a slight headwind for most of the day. The dominant crop in the fields was maize, with the next being hay for silage. We also spent a pleasant 10km on a canal path. The only glitch was a closed road, the detour of which ended up in the middle of a traffic jam caused by too many people trying to get to a recreational lake to cool off. We survived and we were checked in to a very nice motel, Golden Tulip, by 2:30pm. It's just so easy when you're not battling traffic or rough paths. Hats off to the Belgian and Dutch cycling network. The entry into Holland was completely seamless, there was nothing at all to indicate we had entered our seventh country for this trip. Now we are really in the land of the bicycle.
Breda is a lovely city with lots of character and history. Like many cities in Europe it has belonged to many countries including Spain, France, Germany, Italy and now Holland. The city centre is a pedestrian haven with many pubs, cafés and restaurants. The huge cathedral towers over the city. Although still a warm 32deg at 5:30pm we enjoyed our wander around.