So, it's lunchtime on Sunday, and, after a short stay in Disappointment, err, Utrecht, I have a lead on a room at an IBIS hotel (semi-swanky) in The Hague. Not wanting to dork around with online screwiness, I find the bike where I left it (intact....bike theft is a huge problem in the Netherlands), and trundle bikily to the hotel. And, I'm in luck: there's a room available right now. So, Sr. Bag gets to hang out in comfort while I strike out for the Hook of Holland on the Wheeled Contraption (WC), this 50-pound lump with handlebars so curved they run into my hips if I turn too sharply. It's the ox of the bike world.
"Hook of Holland" is several things. For one thing, it's a little town waaay over by the mouth of the Rhine/Waal River. Note: "the Rhine" at its mouth is what's left of a river that splits and rejoins, like, 80 times on its way through the Netherlands: "Name This River" is not a Jeopardy category for the faint of heart 'round here.... "Hook of Holland" is also the little curl of land at the mouth, and it's ALSO a series of ports that have been here since before forever. Those ports are across the river from the immensity that's now the port of Rotterdam. Half the surface area of Rotterdam is port. That's not an estimate. It's half. They have a port museum (of course) called Futureland that closes at 5pm but you have to take this ferry from the Hook or catch the bus from the way other end of Rotterdam. "Boats as much as possible" on this trip.
So. The Wheeled Contraption and I set off on this quest, maybe 1 1/2 hours each way (ha). The first hour was fine; then I needed to navigate. 'Dutch signs' have become a bit of thing for me. I can't tell if they make sense to SOMEbody, but just have been placed poorly. Or if the red-lettered ones are for cars and the green-lettered ones are for bikes. Or maybe someone was simply having a stroke. Whatever the reason, at least one intersection indicated my destination in 3 very obviously different directions. Not always this bad, but often enough to keep you wondering all the time.
Through the various wanderings, I DID stumble across one of the enormous flood control gates on my 'to see' list: the Maeslantkering. Each of the two gates is the size of the Eiffel Tower and swings out when the sea is up. So, 'stumbling' is a term of convenience. Nothing with its own observation hill gets stumbled over.
Anyway, the last 1/2 hour getting there turned into 2 hours, which got me there in time for the 4:40 ferry, which would've gotten me to the museum 5 minutes before it closed. Crap. I hadn't really had lunch yet, so I grabbed some fish and chips and an orange Fanta, which doubled as dinner and tried to figure out what this all meant. There was clearly a commuter rail option into Rotterdam, leading maybe to a proper train back to The Hague, but, no, it was under construction and not due to open for another month. Crap. I could probably bike back faster than that. Okay. I saddled up and the WC and I headed back.
On the return, you would've thought I'd improved on my 3-hour one-way time, especially having DONE IT once already. But, but you'd be wrong. Because you would (perhaps) assume I had learned anything about that first route, which I kinda didn't. So, I got back The Hague around 7, now with a head cold acquired somewhere en route, and collapsed into bed with a box of tissue. Oh, and a sunburn.
Busy Sunday.
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