July 25 – August 2 Haarlem to Nicolette’s aan de Vecht
From Haarlem we had smooth pedaling and fair weather. As always the red cycleway at Het Hart’s doorstep was busy with cyclist move swiftly about their daily lives. As I said Het Hart is right on the bus line from Schiphol to Haarlem Station, so on their side all traffic is northbound. We pushed our heavily loaded bikes to the crossing to reach the southbound bike track on Gedempte Oude Gracht (old filled-in canal) – the main street through Haarlem. It was very busy down and across the bridge, but then thinned out a little so we could enjoy the ride along the canal. Lots of interesting boats but we didn’t stop to photograph until we got to the familiar llama pasture. This year no llamas or other interesting animals, but still a good quiet place to start and get our travel-legs and bearings back.
This year instead of an over-night stop in Aalsmeer we booked a 2-night stop on the westeinderplassen (Lake) so we followed the canal from a very long time – the same canal we had traveled with our family and friends when we chartered the barge 4 years ago. Our stay in Rijsenhout outurned out to be a delightful airy place with secure covered bike storage, a large cottage with glass French doors to the courtyard from both living & bedroom, superior cooking facilities, and even a washer & dryer! A real find if we ever come back. So we had lots of time to walk & cycle along the lake and go into town, taking the bike ferry across, for a delightful lakeside lunch at Brasserie de Haven.
From there it was a longer ride to our all-time-favorite ‘Nicolette’s place’ right on the beautiful Vecht. It was raining in the morning so but we waited for it to stop and had a perfect ride all day following Komoot. Because Komoot is brilliantly crowd-sourced ‘she’ is able to find the best and most scenic routes that avoid Google’s through-town routes that require a lot of tiring dismount/restarts.
It was much cooler and we had a few sprinkles but no real rain. We crossed the famous ‘original Brooklyn Bridge’ over the ship canal at Breukelen, and then the little lift bridge over the Vecht and followed the beautiful Zandpad past the view of the Logement aan de Vecht (see photo) where we stayed while traveling with Frank & Michael years ago. Just as we pulled up at Nicolette’s doorway it began to rain in earnest – so all in all a perfect ride for us.
Since Nicolette’s is one of our 2 all-time favorite places we booked an entire week. Nicolette’s family is traveling now, so no boatrides. We spent our days enjoying the beautiful cottage, the lovely back yard (even caught some tiny deer frolicking in the field), wine on the dock watching the boat traffic, and cycling familiar an new routes in the area including a long ride around the lake to Loenen an de Vecht. We enjoyed lakeside lunches there and at our favorite Thai this side of Thailand restaurant Same Same in Bruekelen, and Le Brasseur in Maarssen, and The Riverside just a short ride from our place. The days flew too fast and we wished we had booked longer and hope we can return. We even investigated bike rentals and RR access – just in case we get too old to do the whole cycle tour thing again.
