An 11 day cycling holiday including 3 Dutch hansa towns (Zwolle, Doesburg and Deventer) and following the river Vecht into Germany, then curling back into the Netherlands. About 425 km altogether (8 cycle days). So lucky to have dry weather, except for a 10 minute heavy downpour at the end! (And night showers, but they don’t matter.) Mansions, nature, lambs, baby geese, forest paths, some wonderful accommodations, and a great evening & morning with friends at the end.
You can see my routes in Komoot:
Thursday 9 May (Ascension Day) – Zwolle > Hardenberg
Zwolle > Hardenberg, 69 kilometers. Never again will I take my bike on a train on Ascension Day, or cycle on popular paths on that day! Way too crowded, and with people who clearly rarely ever cycle. Many clumsy or annoying actions and some very dangerous ones too, I had a few near-clashes with people cycling 3 or 4 abreast into blind corners and almost hitting me full-frontal, so I wore my helmet even though my feet were not attached to the pedals. The photos don’t show the crowds because I only take pictures on quiet stretches.
Weather-wise I was lucky. The first part of the Vechtetal-route between Zwolle and Dalfsen is a bit boring but from then on it becomes more varied. I also adjusted the route and added more offroad paths myself. At the start a long part of the route was under construction and I made some wrong turns.
In Hardenberg I stayed with Vrienden op de Fiets, a great way of staying with locals for only €25 per person per night (plus tourist tax which varies per town), including breakfast. This was a bit of a stiff couple, friendly in a formal way. But the room was nice and big, and another friendly couple of cyclists / hikers was also staying there in another room, so we had some nice chats. I had dinner in town and was lucky to score a great table in the evening sun.
Friday 10 May – Hardenberg (NL) > Hoogstede (D)
A really nice day with great weather. Because of accommodation logistics this was only going to be a short ride. 38 kilometers from Hardenberg in the Netherlands to Hoogstede in Germany. So when I bumped into a fantastic tea garden along the way (self-service), I stayed there for hours reading my book.
In the evening I had my own cute little cabin on a campsite with a stressed but friendly lady who ran the place. They were also part of Vrienden op de Fiets so that was another affordable stay with breakfast included. And still quite a few hours of warm weather to sit outside. I had bought a salad along the way because you never know if anything is open in Germany around Christian holidays. And the lady sold me a cold beer from her fridge. In the morning I found the ample breakfast that she had prepared for me the night before.
Saturday 11 May & Sunday 12 May – Hoogstede > Bad Bentheim
A bit of a tough day, about half of the 54 kilometer ride was ever so slightly uphill and with headwind. This day my touring bike and luggage felt so heavy. I have become spoiled because of my other carbon and super flexible lightweight gravelbike. I’m having lots of thoughts about perhaps selling the very heavy but sturdy bike because I’m not a fan of camping with a tent anyway… or maybe try and make the bike lighter by changing the wheels and tires, but is it worth all those investments? And also thinking about adding a removable rear rack to my lightweight gravelbike so that I can use that for more than just a big seat pack sometimes, so that it can ‘replace’ my touring bike. Oh well, “first world problems”! (For lack of a better term for “first world”, or a better saying.)
The apartment I had rented in popular German town Bad Bentheim was absolutely fantastic and the (Dutch) owner was also super friendly. He and his girlfriend live in the same building. I stayed there for 2 nights because I don’t want to cycle every single day. I enjoyed wandering around the town, reading my book, the view from the apartment, cooking my own meals…
Monday 13 May – Bad Bentheim > Schöppingen
This cycle day felt even tougher than the last one. Headwind most of the way and again it was often slightly uphill. At the end of my trip (some days after this day) my bottom bracket turned out to be in need of repair, so I wonder if that also made the bike feel so heavy on these days. Or if I should simply have packed less stuff 🙂
This is how I described the course of the day: 😃 😎 😅 😓 🥵
I came across some interesting parts but also had a few long monotonous stretches. I got eaten by mosquitos during breaks. That evening I stayed in a hotel that was fine but nothing special. I could park my bike in a garage, and had a meal at the hotel, a huge plate of pasta with salmon and some veggies.
Tuesday 14 May – Schöppingen > Südlohn
Ahhhh, a much nicer day. A 56 kilometer ride. I knew I still had some (slight) uphill riding and headwind to deal with during the first half, but the second half was (slightly) downhill and with tailwind. The weather was fantastic yet again, 26 degrees Celsius. The effort and the heat did make me tired enough. And I got stung by a wasp or similar insect, autch! In the days that followed it turned into a nasty big irritated spot until I started taking some pills against the allergic reaction, recommended by my good friend who’s a doctor.
I stayed in a cheap but fine hotel. First I had a beer on its terrace. Then I ate a salad, fruit and crisps that I had gotten from a supermarket, watching Netflix in the room. I love spending all this time alone and doing exactly what I want, when I want. 🙂
Wednesday 15 May & Thursday 16 May – Südlohn (D) > Ruurlo (NL)
The same distance as yesterday, 56 kilometers, but sooo much easier because of tailwind and going ever so slightly downhill. A very pleasant cycling day (despite the fact that my bottom bracket now started acting up and making lots of noise every now and then).
I had high hopes for seeing flamingos in Zwillbrocker Venn which is in Germany just across the Dutch border. But they were quite far away on an island. And since I can see them from up close in Amsterdam whenever I ride or walk past Artis Zoo, I did not use the paid binoculars. I did enjoy seeing the beautiful swamps of Zwillbrocker Venn.
I ‘had to’ take an extra break along the way so as not to arrive before the earliest check-in time. I was splurging on the fantastic B&B Fleur de Lit that I had booked for 2 nights in Ruurlo in the Dutch region called Achterhoek. It was well worth the higher cost, what a fantastic place and such sweet, service-minded owners. I had various chats with them and with other guests as well, but it was also perfectly fine to withdraw into a quiet corner of the flowery garden where frogs hopped in and out of the pond; or to go up to my beautiful room. The breakfast they served was wonderful as well (and not the same every day) with varied good bread, fruit and self-made jam, (optional) oatmilk cappuccino, a sort of poached egg (but even better) and more.
The next day I shopped for some groceries because heavy rain was predicted for the late afternoon so I did not want to eat in the town some kilometers away. And I visited Museum MORE in the castle in Ruurlo (there’s also Museum MORE in Gorssel). It offered a nice combination of a permanent exhibition with the work of Carel Willink (1900-1983), and a temporary expo especially made for this castle by modern artist Koos Buster. Not that I knew either of them in advance 🤭😇
Friday 17 May – Ruurlo > Doesburg
This was only a short ride of 39 kilometers and with side wind and some headwind, somehow it felt like plenty. On some days you just have less energy. I had high hopes of Doetinchem although the B&B hosts told me it wasn’t as atmospheric as Doesburg. I found a nice coffee bar there but unfortunately a smelly old man with shifty eyes insisted on sharing my table despite there being other free tables, and me saying that I wanted some peace and quiet. So I left immediately after finishing my coffee. But still wanting some rest and to read a bit in the novel that has got me hooked, I stopped again in a forest to eat a croissant that the B&B had given me. But as I was eating, I was also being eaten myself, those darn mosquitos. So that break was also very short.
The cycling was nice though on that day, a lot of gravel paths and nice forest paths and so long as you have speed the mosquitos can’t attack 😉 The third break finally succeeded, a nice quiet bench beside a river and no mosquitos.
I arrived in beautiful Doesburg just when a short, mild shower started. I had another stay with a Vrienden op de Fiets member. A super friendly woman who still allowed me to stay despite the fact that she had suddenly been appointed an evening shift at her job in healthcare; she had hidden the key for me and left instructions. After the stunningly beautiful B&B, her house and my room there were a bit of a disappointment. The furniture and decorations were completely random and of quite bad taste, seemingly just gathered from a thrift shop or leftovers from her grandmother. My house is not all ‘surfaces, darling’ either (Patsy from AbFab, minimalistically styled interior), but this was a whole other level of tidbits and stuff. The transition after the B&B was a bit big.
So I spent the entire evening in beautiful medieval Doesburg, wandering around and eating something in a gezellig cafe (Tapperij Hendrick, I learned that it is run by the same guys who run cafe Gollem in Amsterdam).
Despite the somewhat disappointing room I slept really well and in the morning I met the lady of the house who was a super sweet woman of 71 years old (who had added a few years to her working life but is going to retire next year). The breakfast she had laid out was really rich with various fresh fruits, curd, avocado, coffee and tea and tasty cheese and bread.
Saturday 19 May – Doesburg > Deventer
The bottom bracket of my bike was really acting up now. It made a lot of noise a lot of the time (sound of a little metal ball bouncing around on other metal?), and the pedals did not move as freely anymore. I was a bit worried I might not make it to my end goal Deventer (a 53 kilometer ride today) but gladly the bike made it.
The ride started out a bit boring, a monotonous part up on a dike beside the (eastern) IJssel river and with a soft headwind. I had a nice coffee in medieval hansa town Zutphen halfway. After that the ride was more varied, also because of parts where I deviated from the official Hansa route.
I was going to meet up with Daniël and Diana at 3 p.m. in Deventer which left me with some extra time to stop for soup and coffee at a nice countryside cafe with terrace. I know both Daniël and Diana through work, they also met at work and became a couple. We get along really well and we had been planning for a ‘cycle-sleepover’ for over a year but something always came up (such as terrible weather or illnesses). We had some beers in central Deventer first, with Diana’s daughter also there, and then headed towards their home. Me by bike, them by bus. And that’s when the downpour hit! So I finally had some use for the raincoat that I’d been dragging along all these 11 days. In their cozy big home I could freshen up.
We had tasty snacks and some more beers and played a game with cards that pose philosophical questions. Nice to get to know each other better still! I slept like a baby, and in the morning we talked about cats, cats, more cats, and sometimes dogs. 🙂 And they had laid out a lovely breakfast.
We said our goodbyes, and weirdly enough on the way to Deventer station my bike felt like nothing was wrong with it anymore. But it’s going to the maintenance & repair guy anyway. Some days ago I had plans perhaps to add another cycling day from Deventer westward to Amersfoort (about 71 km), from where I could catch a direct sprinter train home. But now with the clunky bracket I did not want to risk that. So I took the 1.5 hour train ride home from Deventer, with one change of trains.
Back home my cat sitter / house sitter Simone was still having her last cup of tea before catching her train so we chatted a but. My cat Fiep was so confused about seeing me that she stayed outside and meowed, and then when she finally came to greet me she suddenly found Simone scary again (after letting Simone cuddle her all week). Weirdo Fiep, ha ha.
It’s nice to still have the last part of my novel to finish and remain in the holiday vibe for a bit longer that way.
Home sweet home 🙂
Cecilia 