Ronde IJsselmeer – Day 2: Gaasperdam-Volendam

23 June 2007 in Netherlands, daily summary, ronde ijsselmeer

So Peter posted about yesterday’s adventures, crashing rain and all that excitement. Today it’s my turn. This morning we woke up at Gaasper Camping, just outside of Amsterdam, very glad to be just slightly damp:

instead of completely soaked, like the people who had to move their tent out of the spot next to that light pole (later seen occupied by — I swear I am not making this up — a happily quacking duck):

Peter started slowly breaking down camp, and I went for a shower (campgrounds in the Netherlands have “modern” bathrooms but the hot water is pay-to-play, in this case with tokens purchased at the registration desk) but returned in time to stuff sleeping bags and hand things over to the Suitcase Master in a somewhat-orderly fashion. Then we checked out of the campground a little after 9 and headed off, along the outskirts of Amsterdam, where we followed the Amsterdam-Rhine canal north:

until we met up with the Zuiderzee Route! (Along the way, we passed a fire truck pumping water from a canal in the Diemerbos up into the Amsterdam-Rhine canal — I guess our campground wasn’t the only place flooded by last night’s downpour!)

Are you sick of pictures yet? I bet you’re not as sick of them as I am of obnoxious German tourists. Turns out I freaking hate those guys. Especially the really loud drunk ones partying outside our pension house and getting in the way of our walk back here from the fabulous Café de Poel, whose staff were kind enough to host us, a few regulars, and quite a few random other tourists who wandered in off the street to watch the Netherlands under-21 national soccer team thoroughly trounce the Serbian opposition to become the 2007 youth champions of Europe tonight. Awesome! Also, Hertog Jan beer is pretty delicious. But that’s getting way ahead of the story. (And if you’re not sick of pictures, you can see plenty more by clicking on any of the ones that appear in this entry or over in the sidebar to the right.)

So. We followed the Amsterdam-Rhine canal north to the outskirts of Amsterdam, where we took a bit of a wrong turn towards the heart of the city that felt nigh-disastrous when our fricken trailer FELL OFF THE BACK OF THE BIKE! Holy crap, were we ever not expecting that eventuality, let alone prepared for it. However, after a few confusing encounters with friendly-ish police and city traffic direction workers, we stopped for brunch at Eetcafé Langenblik, where we took shelter from more pouring rain, ate really well (I have quite a bit of TracyFood to write about our meals on this trip), and got directions to a nearby bike shop. From there, we were sent to a hardware store a few doors down, where Peter found The Guy (you know, every hardware store has at least one) who actually made us a reasonable facsimile of the part we needed — that and a roll of duct tape cost us 2 euros. Fan-fricken-tastic. You can see the repair job on Flickr, and it should be fun to tell the Green Gears guys all about this little adventure — especially since it ended well. (Oh, and the Belgian UEFA under-21 team’s tour bus passed by while I was on bike-watching and rainstorm-dodging duty outside the hardware store, which was pretty cool in a random brush-with-sorta-fame way.) At last, after some twists and turns revealed us to be deeper into Amsterdam than previously suspected, we got back on the route.

We crossed the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal three hours after our fateful turn into the city, glad to leave the denser urban areas for more rural parts interspersed with wildlife preserves. Of course, we stopped in the very next little town for coffee and broodje paling (a roll with smoked eel — yummity yum yum yum!) That was Durgerdam, and the place was called Petit-Restaurant Westend, and they lured us in with a sign:

There’s more pictures on Flickr, oh yes. After Durgerdam, we turned inland for a short ride through a little place called Ransdorp (blink and you’ll miss it) and into a stretch of road between fields populated by some very happy, healthy dairy cows and sheep. Many Dutch dairies proudly advertise which companies buy their milk, and this is how I learned that some of these farms supply products to the makers of Henri Willig goat cheese, which I used to sell at Sundance. So that was exciting. Eventually we passed Henri Willig’s main production center near Katwoude — I keep wanting to call it a factory, but “factory farm” has a very specific negative meaning for U.S. readers, and this was not at all a bad scene. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and anyway I have some serious TracyFood to write about how the Dutch farmlandscape makes me want a big ol’ grilled cheese sandwich fried in butter, and maybe even a glass of milk to wash it all down (readers, I never drink milk, so these urges really freak me out even as they make me drool at the thought of such deliciousness). For now, let me tell you about Monnickendam.

It’s a nice little town, Monnickendam. Quaint, even. Our approach from the south, along the Gouwzee, and for a short stretch between that body of water and another called “de Poel” to the east, is downright spectacular. But turn into the heart of the old town, and the main drag is cobblestony and narrow — the perfect place for an outdoor market that’s entirely impossible to ride a bike through, even towards the end of the day when they’re breaking everything down. We walked, dodging cars and pedestrians, until we got to the part of the street that was still closed to car traffic on account of the market, at which point we were finally able to get back on the Pushmi-Pullyu and ride on. Hurray for riding on!

Riding on brought us through Katwoude, a community which takes great pride in its agrarian roots, or at least in rallying around them to oppose the building of a “bedrijfsterrein” — some kind of business park, judging by the Hart van Katwoude website whose address we saw on many, many “Agrarisch Katwoude” banners on prominent display on many houses here. I’m pretty sure I side with the Katwouders here — sprawl bad, beautiful green farmland good. Especially with their suggested alternatives — build in Monnickendam (yay density!) or at least remodel existing farms instead of building new stuff. When the heck did I turn into a land-use planning geek? But I digress.

After Katwoude, we grooved along the coast into Volendam, feeling like rock stars for getting there right at 4 PM despite the long delay in Amsterdam, especially since we’d told our pension house hosts to expect us between 5 PM and 6 PM. Of course, it took us 45 minutes to find Noemie’s Pension House (Ventersgracht 11, “English Spoken — A Decent Place”) because our route took us right through the bustling tourist trap harbor of doom! Turns out it’s an extra action-packed Volendam weekend, with music performances right on the water and stuff. Craziness. We got ice creams from a vendor who had nothing left but the banana-flavored stuff, which I sadly cannot recommend. Call it an exception to yesterday’s “always get ice cream” rule — when in doubt, stick to the soft-serve, which is much better in the Netherlands than similar-looking stuff in the U.S. and I have no idea why, except that well, I’ve seen a lot of Dutch cows who do seem really happy.

And that’s all I can think to report about Day 2 of our trip! Hup Holland and Go Team Pushmi-Pullyu! Woohoo! Okay, time to sleep. Our pension stay includes breakfast, but only between 8 AM and 9 AM tomorrow, with checkout time at 10 AM.