Day 8:  8th July 2025  Den Bosch  - Hook of Holland 70 miles

My lodgings last night in Den Bosch were very pleasant, classy, and had lovely little touches like muesli and yoghurt for breakfast, coffee, and a fridge full of soft drinks and waters. I didn’t see or hear the owners throughout the time I was there, which is as I like it. I’m not very good at faux bonhomie with people I’ve never seen before or will never see again and who are charging me a great deal of money to stay. I like the ones that have a key box to let yourself in and you come and go without anybody noticing. Suits me. Anyhow, De Gulden Angel was a very pleasant stay. I had a look at the lovely cheese shop across the road, but wasn’t able to buy any to bring back because of restrictions on cheese, meats etc coming in to the UK. The pot cafe was open and doing good trade at 9 am. I guess people have coffee and a spliff before heading to work.

My route took me more or less along the Maas for the morning, along the flood defences, and through some lovely little hamlets and villages, with twee houses, many of them with thatch. A very bucolic and rural scene. There was quite a bit of bicycle traffic along the cycle ways, including lots of kids, in groups, all chatting away and laughing as they cycled along, the boys especially with their elbows on their handlebars and texting on the phone as they sped along. I guess they have good balance, better than mine at my age. I look to one side at something these days and I tend to wobble, so for me it’s eyes front. Anyhow, it was nice to see the young people out and about getting expertise and fresh air. Riding from place to place on the bike is something that it just part of their lives here, at all ages. The Dutch look fit and healthy on the whole.

From Dordrecht on, the riding was through suburbs and the outer reaches of Rotterdam, the city itself very busy and very ethnically mixed, compared to out in the countryside where everybody was white. I think Dutch cities, like English cities, are very mixed. Here, the newcomers seem to be Arabic / Syrian / Turkish. There’s a big Mosque in Rotterdam, which struck me as much better built and kept than the awful thing in Birmingham which looks gerry-built and very badly kept and untidy.

There’s a 20 mile ride from Rotterdam to the Hook of Holland, initially through some suburbs, but then giving way to riding along the banks of the ever widening Maas, with ship related industries taking place on either bank. At the Hook, I took a little detour to look at one of the Kindertransport sculptures, which is part of a series by sculpture Frank Meisler, himself a kindertransport child, who has done a series of these sculptures at places along the route he took to England back in the very late 1930s, including the Hook of Holland from where they took the ferry, and also Liverpool Street Station where they ended up. I’ll be going that way tomorrow, following the same route, and will have a look as well at the Liverpool Street sculpture.

I’ve enjoyed my Route Verte / EuroVelo 3 & 19 cycle ride, through Normandy, around Paris, along the River Meuse / Maas through Belgium and The Netherlands. Except for the last couple of days, the weather was set fair, and I was able to do some camping and enjoy myself en plein air. Food has been good in parts, in others it has just been to fuel the body with whatever was available. The summer is still young, and I’m sure that I’ll find other opportunities to head of my bike, especially if the weather is fine.