Europe 2018 - July 27 - Maasdam to Gouda

Friday - July 27
The little air conditioner in our room barely kept the sleeping area cool and the bathroom was still hot when we got up. It was already 73F at 7 am with a relative humidity of 73%. The forecast is for the high temperature record to be broken today and it is a blood moon tonight. What a day it promises to be! 

This is one of those tunnels that goes under a canal (Dordtsche Kil Canal). Only in The Netherlands have we ever done this!

The biking infrastructure is also very impressive.

This fellow tempted us with his splashing water just outside Dordrecht where we found an ANWB (Dutch equivalent to AAA) store. 

We picked up the new version of the Fietsroute book that came out earlier this summer so now we are all set to use knooppunts to guide us around the country. We know...there is an app for that...but we still prefer paper.

Those are some impressive green roofs.

Looks like we will be waiting to get over the Beneden Merwide.

The four sailboats that passed through. Afterwards, we opted to eat inside at a McDonald's in Vinkewaard even though we had bought lunch stuff earlier. Shade, coolness, and having a bathroom handy won out.

Our next stop was Kinderdijk, an UNESCO World Heritage site, with its multitude of windmills (19 to be exact). We visited here in 2015 and were very happy to be here again and that we could share it with Lori.

There are sooooo many pictures opportunities!

The ice cream cart was doing a VERY brisk business on this hot afternoon. He was in a prime spot as well.

This fellow said that Lori could try on his fancy wooden shoes if he could be in the picture too.

The ferry that will take us to Krimpen aan de Lek.

From there, the route took us through miles of pastures....

.....laced with water channels and LOTS of water fowl.

We saw geese, grebes, coots and so many swans.

We reached our hotel in Gouda at 5:00 and the temperature record for the day had indeed been broken.

We still wandered around a little bit after a really delicious dinner.

During our walk we discovered these sidewalk memorials to people that were killed during the Holocaust. They are in front of the houses where they lived before being taken to a concentration camp. The plaque has their name, birth year, deportation date, the camp name, and the day they were killed at the concentration camp. It was sobering to see how many homes had plaques like these in front of them.