Thursday: Rotterdam to Oegstgeest

Rotterdam to Oegstgeest
~39 miles
Evening accommodations: Bastion Hotel Oegestgeest
Route/Ride Analytics:
https://www.strava.com/activities/593620248
https://www.strava.com/activities/595116088

Today was scheduled as an easy day.  We wouldn't move the pin too far on the map from beginning to end, because very simply, we needed extra distance from the start to stretch the ride to five days and wanted to see the Thursday Gouda markets.  We left Rotterdam around 11am, with the goal of making it the 17 miles to Gouda by the time the market started to close up at 1:30.

Today's route, in the back of the GoPro case for easy reading.  Approach an intersection, point the camera down, figure out the number, and keep moving!

Rotterdam Centraal Station on the way out of town

The morning riding was a lot of suburbs.  Really, most of the way to Gouda was posh Rotterdam houses, all surrounded by cool canals and some pricey cars. We reached Gouda before 1PM, but ran into a draw bridge.  we then proceeded to sit for 20 or so minutes while a few boats piled into the locks, meaning we got into town just as the market was closing down.

Nice neighborhood 

There are windmills everywhere

More riding alongside dikes

Here comes the first boat

Lots of the boats here carry cars on them.  Never figured out why

Bikes queued up for the birdge

Thankfully, we still had time to walk around and buy some cheese, at significant discount because they didn't want to take it back with them to boot!  The town is fairly historic, and we spent a couple hours eating lunch and walking around.

Street organ

Farmers carts with cheese in  front of the city hall

All of the buildings on the square are fairly historical

Delicious croquettes for lunch!

City hall from the other side

More of the square

Leaving Gouda and heading back towards the coast, we took a path very popular with adults and children leaving local schools, before getting into more farmland once again.  We were routed down quite a few roads that were heavily utilized by farm equipment, and pulled over for a few tractors before making our way onto dedicated bike paths and seeing more windmills.  It was during this phase that I learned the importance of finding and replenishing the water supply when possible, every village we got to had no obvious shop to buy more, or they were closed.

School's out!

More polders with grazing cattle 

Tractor

And more polders

There were a lot of old American Chevys over there

More grazing land

Carissa with a windmill 

We passed many raised canals like this

We reached Leiden around 6PM.  I had originally wanted to stay here, but last minute hotels were scarce and expensive.  We strolled through the city center (unfortunately picking a road that we had to walk our bikes), and stopped for a beer at a little beer bar staffed by a friendly, knowledgable hostess.

Gate to the city

The canal in the town.  Seemingly every Dutch city is built on a canal

Loved this little boat. That is all

Haarlemerstraat

Nice little beer bar

Jumping back on our bikes, we rode out the last few miles to our hotel.  I was worried, as tonite was the first night our bikes had to stay outside on a bike rack.  Luckily, my fears were alleviated when I woke the next morning and the bikes were still there.  Dinner and drinks were had at the hotel bar, and it was off to sleep to prepare for our last day's ride.