September 11 - It's All About the Water and Windmills

Friday - Raamsdonksveer to Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel
Summer is back, at least for today. Last night the weather was predicting a chance of showers this morning but the weather guessers were wrong. Hurray! We will warn you that this is a long blog post as this was quite the day.

That's miles of greenhouses.

A cattle guard on the bike path. That can only mean one thing.

Well, it is really a sheep guard but the effect on the pavement is much the same. They see so many bikes that they basically ignored us.

 

Heading onto the Hollandsch Diep, which is 3/4 mile long.

Yes it is sunny but that crosswind coming across the water is keeping it cool here. We took off our jackets after crossing.

Could be a sister "state" to Oregon!

World War fortification

We are following LF2 The City route (long distance cycle route) north as it runs from Brussels to Amsterdam.

This was our smell of the day.....onions.

They may be small but they are REALLY fragrant.

Mailbox of the the day, maybe even the trip!

We stopped at a gas station in Dordrecht to get sandwiches and this youngster was there having a great time on her mom's bike.

We ate at this playground. They packed a lot into a small space, a miniature soccer field, a practice bike path.....

......a toddler soccer field, and a basketball court.

Yep....this bike path has switchbacks!

This is our first ferry crossing of the day. This one is called a water bus and took us from Dordrecht to Papendrecht.

It could be called the bicycle bus or, in Dutch, the Fiets Bus

This is just the beginning....near Oud-Alblas.

Kinderdijk.......windmills by the dozen. Actually there are 19 of them along this waterway. 

There were also little platforms along the bank which made this picture possible. Each one had a number so maybe you could reserve them for  fishing?

The windmills were built from the 1600's to the 1800's. As you can imagine, they are a big tourist attraction. 

And today is so pleasant that people were really taking their time, including us. It took us an hour to go 2.5 miles. Did not want to repeat our Belgium procrastination so we bought postcards at the gift shop too.

What it looks like on this really great map we bought yesterday in Raamsdonksveer.

Ferry ride #2 from Kinderdijk to Krimpen aan de Lek. Even though is also carries cars it is smaller than the Waterbus.

And Ferry #3 is even smaller. The skipper was painting when we pulled up and seemed a little grumpy that customers had arrived.

He did eventually stop painting and took us across. It took us from Ouderkerk aan den IJssel  to the very eastern edge of Rotterdam.

Our route took us along the north side of the IJssel where we found this statue. As we were contemplating its significance, a local runner stopped to talk to us (and wait for his wife).

On this date, there was a storm of historic proportion that caused a breach in the dike. The mayor asked the barge captain (statue above) to sacrifice his boat in order to block the breach. He did so and saved thousands of lives in the process.

Only a couple more miles of quiet to meditate on this very full and beautiful day before we get to the bustle of Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel, our stopping point for the day.