AND SO TO THE NETHERLANDS

After our rest day exploring Brugge - which was not that relaxing as we walked for 8 hours instead!!
We were back on the road again and heading for The Netherlands.

 As we ride along we find lots of interesting things and always like stopping to investigate.  This building was really interesting but we could not find out for sure what it was - think it was something left from the war:

As we choose to travel along canal paths and rivers where possible we are always riding through beautiful little villages on the water:

Now with the EU it has become so easy for everyone to travel from country to country and so it is not always easy to know just when you have crossed over the border from one to another.  That was the case for us going from Belgium to the Netherlands and before we knew it we had our first view of the Dutch coast.

And lets not forget them - my favourites - you guessed it! - The bathing Boxes!!!

Of course we knew for sure it was the Netherlands when this unmistakable building came into view!

 But when we came across another one we were a bit surprised by its neighbours - didn't know grain was so valuable to warrant such protection:

The Netherlands is truly a cyclists utopia, with the flat landscape and the system of cycle paths, which is really apparent when the cyclists have more road space than the cars!!!!

It was not only dry when we were in The Netherlands, it got quite hot and I think half the population decided to head for the beach!

And I'll let you guess how they got there - hint.....

We found another strange construction along the road to investigatebut this time it was confirmed by an information sign.  Definitely a bunker from WW2.

As The Netherlands is such a small country and is reclaiming more land from the sea, the dyke walls and bridges built to hold back the sea, make for wonderful cycling.  The bridges to connect what were once islands along the coast are very impressive.

They are even more impressive close up!

Dave is very observant and is always noticing strange thing - check out the great locking up job on this bicycle - NOT!!

Not sure whether they have 'Grey Nomads' in The Netherlands, but there seem to be a lot of motor homes that just like free camping on the beach.

You can just see the red path in the photo above, this is what we traversed the dykes upon - absolutely amazing!

One of the problems that we are having since coming across the channel is the language problem.
As we do not speak anything other than English, it sometimes becomes a little difficult when encountering new things or signs in another language.....

What the hell??? While we were looking around for mad birds in attack mode, We didn't realise there was a CATTLE GRID beneath our wheels!   Guess what cattle grid is in Dutch??  Crazy language!!

We continued on along the coast but still managed to find some lovely little country paths as well.

It has taken a bit of getting used to the different lifestyle over here, with a lot of small villages not having any shops at all, and sometimes when they do have them it is not always obvious!  We thought that this little street was just one of houses until we asked if there was a bakery in town.  See if you can spot it??

And of course when we found it - it was closed for lunch.  yeah so many of these little businesses just shut up for an hour at lunchtime. But I guess we were lucky - if it was France it would have been 2 hours!!!  Sowe found a nice little spot just up the road to wait for the bakery to open:

We also get kept waiting for other things as we travel, and Dave often takes the opportunity to get the camera out as in this case where we are waiting yet again........for a train????

Nope!!  A Boat!

Then there was yet another bridge to cross, sometimes it got pretty windy going across these bridges, but lucky for us the wind was just keeping us cool as it was a really hot day ( at last )

And the sunset at our camp  that night was just beautiful, but hard to do justice in a photo:

There are some other unusual sights we have seen over here that we don't get at home.....
Cycle lights:

And working bicycles... you see bicycles used for every conceivable use over here.  This is just one example and they are for hire to anyone.  The people we stayed with in The Hague do not have a car and hired one of these to transport some furniture that they bought to their house.

 We also thought this was worth showing - bet you will never see a parking lot like this at an Australian Train station!!!

And Dave is continuing to try and embrace the culture of each country that we visit, last time it wasthe Belgiun Beer, This time it is the Dutch delicacy....

Herrings...................going....................going................................................................

GONE!!!!

And so are we until next time................Stay Tuned!!

B IS FOR BELGIUM, BRUGGE AND BEER!

We almost missed our crossover into Belgium, but noticed this sign at the last minute.  Guess we won't be getting stamps on the old passport on this trip!

One thing that suprised us on arriving in the first Belgium town was the public transport.....Haven't seen these things since we were in Melbourne:

The Belgium Seafront was remarkably similar to France (suprise suprise)

even down to the - guess what?

As we were passing through places along the coast we always stopped to check out the boats either anchored up or in the Marinas: this one was just lovely:

We came across this lovely statue which even though the inscription was in Dutch, we knew it was dedicated to all the the men lost at sea!

Belgium has such a small coastline that they really try to make the best of it in a small area. these are the views from the road we were traveling along- 

firstlylooking to the coast:

and in the opposite direction- which would you prefer?

There were some great buildings.  This one just took our eye and even though we have no idea what it is or what it was built for it was pretty fascinating!

We again chose to travel where we could down canal paths and found some pretty good ones...

It was just so nice to be cycling along good trails, meeting nice people, preferably in in good weather, and checking out beautiful scenery - this is what this trip is all about!

Every day seems to bring with it something different and interesting..... this was the first time we had seen this way to let boats passs by..........

Firstly a road in the air:

Note the curvy side pieces and the boat coming through underneath.

and now on the way down:

and back in place ready for business.

We were told by people back in the UK that we could not go to Belgium without checking out Brugge..which seemed to be pronounced Brushe (like bruise with a shh) or bru gg ah, clearing your throat while you say it, depending on who you speak to.  Anyhow you say it, it is just a wonderful medieval city and we spent a couple of great days exploring.

the canals were just wonderful.

While in Brugge we decided to lash out for a B & B as we could not carry all our gear with us and still are very wary of leaving everything in a tent while we go away. The people in this place were lovely and Rene' helped a lot with his local knowledge, but the ensuite had to be the smallest one in existence and was not even given a room of its own but just had a corner with a curtain....check it out:

As with most cities that we have visited in Europe there are statues in all the city squares.  This one though was a bit more modern. And relevant!!

They also had some more traditional transport still happening along the city streets.

Since arriving over here Dave and I have also become fascinated by the views down all the little side streets and our collection of these photos is becoming rapidly larger..

We also like to check out the local food and beverages wherever possible.  Dave decided to sacrifice himself in this case for the taste test:  What a guy!!

The canals in Brugge just seem to be threading their way in and out of the city and around every corner it seems that there is another branch going somewhere.  We happily got lost a couple of times but always found some wonderful shots.

We took so many photos in Brugge that I could fill this Blog, but some are really interesting and noteworthy, but leave a comment if it all gets too much won't you.  I can ramble on forever!!!

This door that we found in the courtyard of an old medieval church has been defaced, but we decided that it was pretty interesting and would be fascinating to know the circumstances under which it was left.  Post WW2 graffiti.....

During the day we were entertained by music from a bell tower in a church.  Not just a couple of rings

but a carillon, it was incredible!  This is the tower that held the bells:

As always the statues kept us fascinated and again we always wished we could find out the stories behind them.

In this case though i'm not so sure - - - I'd hate to think what this guy had for breakfast!!!

There were also some more modern statues which were interesting to say the least - any clues on what you think this one might represent??

But again we were drawn back to the buildings....they are absolutely incredible, the size, the age, the detail,  just blows you away...

And when you get inside.................................................OMG...words just can't begin to describe...

Too soon we had to get our bikes packed up again and head off, but one unusual thing we did find in of all places, this church - was the whole Irish blessing that we first saw as two lines in 'Uncle Charlies' bar in Northern Ireland....We will leave you with these great words - especially for cyclists! 

OVER THE SEA TO FRANCE
With the shores of England behind us we were looking forward to the next and more testing part of our journey.  With next to no French bar yes, no, cat, dog and thank you - we were hoping that either most people spoke or at least understood English or we could perform charades to explain what we meant.
We arrived after a fairly quick crossing and cycled out of the ferry terminal and into Calais where Dave added a Gold Coast touch to the Calais sign!!

The French countryside was really lovely, and we were graced with good weather - AT LAST - It was a pleasure to be cycling and we came across these two locals just outside some houses in a street, but they weren't very talkative:

The French Beaches were totally different to the Shingle beaches of the South coast of England, and this was our first view of them.

The buildings here, as in the UK are really something else.  It makes us really want to know the history behind them as you can't help wonder who has been there and how were they built so long ago to the exacting finishes and elaborate details!

We were lucky enough in some circumstances to be able to find the information in English so that was a bonus!!

We headed South from Calais and into 300 mile an hour headwinds - Well it felt like that!!
Maybe 50 miles an hour, but it was heavy going over this terrain.....

We stayed the night with a young French couple hosting us and checked out the forecasts.  They foretold of nothing but headwinds if we kept a southward path, so being the intrepid travelers we are we said "bugger that"" and decided that the North of France was the place to be, so it was with the wind that we headed off the next morning feeling pretty good. It's so nice to be free!

 As we were travelling we passed by what we thought might be a council type caravan park, as it seemed to be pretty crowded and with no specific order about it.  We later found out that it was a Gypsy encampment.  We had seen a few of these in the UK, where the Gypsies just arrive 'en masse' in a park or wherever and just set up camp.  Within a couple of hours they can populate whole parks etc and then the authorities have to go through their procedures to get them to move on which can take a few weeks.  But none of the English ones were like this!!

As we cycled we came across a lot of religious statues.  Both in the towns and even way out in the countryside where there is nothing for miles.  Typically in the country they seem to be erected on the tops of hills.

They also had some great street sculptures.  These were representing each country's flags and you would not even guess that anyone would come up with an idea quite so novel.

We also noticed that so many of the houses in the little villages had window boxes full of flowers in their windows and the larger towns had beautiful gardens in public areas like this one.

The beaches were typically  Cafe's then the obligatory beach boxes - not everywhere but in quite a few places, then vast flat sandy beaches.  We tried where possible to cycle along the waterfront, amongst all the hustle and bustle of the tourists, and getting all the wonderful smells from the different cafe's:

These two items were interesting so just thought i'd throw them in before I sign off from France......
They are displayed for posterity along the road and are remnants from the building of the channel tunnel.  This one is part of the machine that drilled out the service tunnel:

And this is one of the machines that drilled out the tunnel that the train now passes through from France to the UK.......pretty fascinating:

Then after we spent a couple of days relaxing and catching up with washing etc in Dunkirk it was off on our way again and heading for Country no 8 - Belgium.