Partly cloudy with a late afternoon shower, 18-23deg, 58km, av.15.3km/h, tot. 1880km.
We felt the need to ride so after brekky we got the bikes out of the monster bike park (capacity 4,000) and went riding . First we took a trip to the Airport just to make sure there will be no hiccup finding it on Monday. As soon as we reached the southern edge of Haarlem we found a well signed separate path which took us all the way to the front door of Schiphol (Amsterdam) Airport. While there we confirmed that they had plenty of bike boxes at the baggage store. Got chatting to an Italian guy who was just putting his bike together out front before heading out on a bicycle tour to Copenhagen. He had some packing material that he was jettisoning so we put it in a pannier Greg had on board. It will come in handy on Monday.
Then took a ride into Amsterdam where we had lunch (chicken & salad) at Greg's favourite restaurant, Le Place at the dept store V&D. Wendy calls it Vomiting & Diarrhea, which seems a little unkind as neither of us has got either after eating there.
We quickly confirmed why we didn't stay in Amsterdam this time, it was chaos, and felt much busier than two years ago. Or is it because we are two years older? So we located the bike path sign that showed 'Haarlem' and escaped the rat-race. The late afternoon thunderstorm forecast for today turned into an early afternoon thunderstorm so we rode the last 10km in the rain with our jackets on. By the time we reached Haarlem the sun was shinning again. However that didn't last long, we just had time to park the bikes and clean up when the rain started again.
At 6pm we met a friend (David) from the UK for dinner. David has been working in Amsterdam for 5 years, but unfortunately his wife has been unable to find work here so she is still living in the UK. Luckily airfares are very cheap here so they are able to see each other regularly. It was great to catch up with David after 8 years. The steakhouse he chose for dinner was excellent.
Another great day in Holland.