Ride report: Going Dutch Day 4 – Rotterdam to Amsterdam

It’s time to continue my account of our recent trip to the Netherlands, this time our ride up to Amsterdam from Rotterdam.

It’s been a week or so since my last report, during which time we’ve been hit by unseasonable heat in the UK. With temperatures nudging 35°C while technically still in the last throes of Spring, it’s been too hot to do much at all.

We could have done with a little more warmth on our Dutch tour. Most days hovered around 14°C and day 4 was no different. If anything, it was even colder!

Route options

A fine breakfast at a local cafe in the mall opposite the Wilhelminaplein tram stop set us up nicely for the day ahead. I’m glad it did, as it turned out to be a long day after leaving Rotterdam around 10 o’clock over the Erasmusbrug.

At this point, our route for the day was a known unknown.

In the spirit of exploration our whole trip took a flexible approach to route planning. Seeing that both Delft and The Hague were close to our intended route gave us the option of a little detour to visit these places.

At that point no decision was made, just a possible outline considering the purpose of the trip was to see what makes Dutch cycling so amazing.

Leaving Rotterdam

First, we needed to negotiate Rotterdam on a Monday morning.

As with all urban places, multiple modes of transport vie for the same road space; and as with most Dutch cities, priority is given to bikes and trams. There’s a LOT of bikes and e-bikes around, with e-bikes being rather sprightly (and probably surfing the grey zone of e-bike vs. e-moto – especially for delivery riders).

Even so, my advice above all is, don’t argue with trams!

In fact we had an easy time navigating out of Rotterdam. Even busy roads had plenty of protection and signage for cyclists. Passing through the Rotterdam business district, then past Rotterdam Centraal railway station and ‘The Hague’ international airport (giving Mark a bit of a buzz) are all areas likely to attract crowds.

Pretty soon we’d left the centre and were crossing the polders that merge Rotterdam, with Delft, with The Hague, interspersed with pretty residential housing and broad cycling tracks.

Exercising an option

Our progress was a nice steady pace, just right for me.

After ten miles or so we were riding on quiet gravel paths through the nature reserve near De Grote Plas lake. A look at the map showed we were only a mile or two from the center of Delft and a shrug and ‘why not?’ seemed the only logical answer.

Relaxed planning, see? So we turned left and headed into town…

A visit to Delft

What a lovely town Delft turned out to be!

It’s quite small and typically modest despite a simply enormous Nieuwe Kirk (New Church) in the town square. I was ignorant at the time but it turns out it houses William of Orange’s tomb. A missed cultural encounter for us.

At the other end of the busy market square is the Town Hall, outside which a large family were helping a young couple celebrate their wedding day. And, to our left was a Henri Willig cheese shop! I feel I missed out not spending time in there…

Moving on, we left Delft headed north along – what else – a very pretty canal. The pretty town gave way over the course of the next five miles to research campuses and wooded parks, before things turned a little more municipal near The Hague. After that, it didn’t take long for things to switch back to residential again.

In this part of the Netherlands everything you need to live, work and relax is in easy reach.

Off to The Hague and lunch

Eventually it was clear – with the route passing within touching distance of The Hague itself – we may as well detour the extra three miles for lunch!

As cultural sophisticates (despite our ignorance of William of Orange’s tomb), we spent a bit of time navigating a very loose route taking in the royal Noordeinde Palace to ultimately see the International Court of Justice building. Let’s hope none of us ever end up there for real!

I feel there is much to see in The Hague and maybe that might include the coast and a more interesting route back up to Amsterdam?

But I had no idea where I was really, stomachs were rumbling and Dave said ‘I’ve seen enough!’. This was our cue to head back into the centre for a rice bowl and chicken tempura at NikoUdon on Prinsestraat.

I told you we were sophisticates!

A long afternoon ahead

By the time we had worked our way out of The Hague and picked up our original route again, we’d covered just 24 miles, had a good look at how Dutch cycling works in towns and had a nice lunch! But we still weren’t in Amsterdam and it was 2:30 in the afternoon!

By that time the day was brightening but if you told me the temperature was better than 12° I wouldn’t believe you. Fortunately I was wearing 3/4 bibs which helped and so long as we kept moving it was OK.

What followed was a near straight north east path up to Leiden and on toward Amsterdam. Even alongside busy roads we had well separated bike lanes but it was all rather featureless.

Nearing Leiden we found quieter riding and got within touching distance of the centre as we negotiated around the city, passing the large Leiden railway station on the way. I would have felt better I think if I’d studied the maps more closely, as it was I spent a lot of time following Gordon and JR. With my eyesight it’s hard for me to see the Garmin mapping on my device too clearly these days!

For all that, there’s no question the cycling infrastructure is top notch. Personally, I think I like Belgium at least as much because it comes with better driving standards. A couple of times as we neared Amsterdam we found ourselves on painted lanes on straight roads and got buzzed by cars at high speed. Always scary.

In need of refreshment

We were also riding into a steady wind that we had no way of avoiding. That was until it got to about 4:00pm and a spur of the moment suggestion from Gordon saw us nip into a cafe at Nieuw-Vennep for coffee and apple pie all round!

Gordon couldn’t have chosen a better time. Sat under the Schipol flight path kept Mark happy and helped stave off a growing liklihood of bike throwing. The apple pie was ideal and lifted our spirits at just the right time, at least temporarily.

I was feeling quite sore personally, with the long day not making my bruised sit bones any more comfortable. It’s a long time since I rode a decent saddle; my best of all time was a Specialized Riva (before they became women’s saddles) and my WTB Rocket gets unfriendly on long rides. It isn’t helped by some nerve pain on my left side hamstring/sit bone, but which is cause, which is effect is hard to tell.

The long and short of it

All this was to say we had about 16 miles left to go, it was 4:30 and we needed to find our hotel and park our bikes before relaxing for the evening. With the head wind and general rider tiredness plus an Amsterdam rush hour to negotiate the general mood was resigned to the last grinding miles. Thank goodness there were no hills to worry about!

We continued following the Hoofdvaart canal which is long, straight and relatively exposed. Our Garmins kept flipping us from one bank to the other which was frustrating and we ended up on those roads with painted lanes I mentioned. It was a rare part of the Netherlands where the bike provision was just not that good. That part of the day was not much fun!

The route actually started to improve as we neared Amsterdam, passing under part of the runway at Schipol before we were finally able to leave the blessed Hoofdvaart canal behind us and head toward the city centre.

Organised chaos

The last five miles were a compound of no clear idea where I was going plus busy roads trying to make space for bikes, trams, buses and cars. It was a little fraught trying to keep Gordon and JR in sight with evening commuters and I suspect the Vondelpark just north of us would have been a better route. Once we had passed through the Rijksmuseum I had a better idea where I was, which helped enormously.

Crossing the several concentric rings of canals, we simply rode straight up to the hotel on Damstraat in the centre of Amsterdam. After checking in to the serviceable but austere hotel – think the shabby tiredness of the Grand Budapest Hotel but without the glamour! – we took our bike round to park them in the excellent – and 24hr supervised – bike park underneath Beursplein which was 2 minutes walk away.

By the time we had showered, found a place to eat and topped ourselves up with beer our only regret for the day was not having enough time to spend exploring Amsterdam itself (although I have visited before). We definitely slept well that’s for sure. I return to Amsterdam in the autumn via the Eurostar with my wife, so I will save the tourist stuff until then.