Bike Ride through North Holland

I have not been doing a lot lately. The weather here has not seemed like summer at all. It has been cold and raining or looking like it is going to rain about everyday. Saturday and Sunday were really nice days so on Sunday I took a bit of a bike ride.

I decided to take one of my favorite rides. North of Amsterdam there is a bike path that is on top of a dike next to the Markenmeer/Marken Lake. Since the bike path is on a dike I ride about 6 feet about the water and land and it provides a great view of the water and fields.

This is a map to show where I rode.


On this ride I go through a few pretty little Dutch villages. The following picture is of Monnickendam. They had the main road through the town closed off due to some type of party so had to ride down some street I had never been down and it seem this little town has some really cute streets.



The ride back is not as nice since part of it is along a major road or just through empty fields. There is a bit where the path is on a road next to a river. On this road there are a number of houseboats on the opposite side of the river. The people have to cross the river to get home. Each of the house boats have these floating platforms with a cable across the river to pull themselves to the boathouse or to the road. After they are were they want to be they lower the cable into the water so that boats can still go down the river. This is something I have never noticed anywhere else.

At the end of the ride I rode through North Amsterdam and took a ferry to the center of Amsterdam. The ferry dropped me off just behind central station. I had not seen the new bike parking behind the station so took a picture. This is bike parking on a boat where the bikes are stacked 2 high.



I need to take a picture of the bike parking garage in front of central station that is 3 stories high but have saved that as a project for another day.