Thursday May 16 -- Hilversum and Utrecht

This morning I got the bike out, packed the cable lock -- which looks very new, and probably cost more than the bike -- and headed south-east. It was a wobbly trip at first, and I walked for a bit where the bike path simply ran along the side of the road, but fortunately that didn't last long and I was soon out in open country heading for Hilversum. Big flat polders, lots of drainage canals, sheep and cows. It was colder than I had expected, but not too much so, and it did warm up by lunchtime and got quite hot in the afternoon.

I stopped off on the way to look at another fort, one of the series surrounding Amsterdam. This one was virtually identical to the one in Weesp, but in much worse repair. It was very nicely located by a big river, though, and enough of a tourist spot to have its own cafe. There was another one near Utrecht too, which was of a different design, but I didn't get to look at it closely because there was a wedding party there.

I parked at Hilversum station and took a photo of the bike so I would remember where I left it. Hilversum itself is not a tourist destination; it's nice enough, with some old buildings, but nothing that you wouldn't see in a suburb of Amsterdam. It's a famous broadcasting centre, though; back in the old days before deregulation, if you wanted pop music on the radio in the UK, Hilversum was one of the stations you could tune into.

I went into the Hilversum Museum expecting to see something of the city's history, but all they seemed to have was a display on the post-apartheid South African experience. But I found a two-dollar shop here where I was able to stock up on band-aids and the like.

Back on the bike I set off for Utrecht. I thought I had mastered the signs, but I still got sidetracked, and ended up pedalling through a forest. It was pleasant enough, though I disturbed a cat bringing a dead rabbit home for its dinner, and with the aid of Google Maps I was eventually able to find my way out and into Utrecht itself. Here I locked up the bike and went looking for lunch, which I eventually bought from a supermarket.I strolled through the older part of town, had a beer, dropped into the cathedral, which is under repair, and set off again to ride back to Weesp.

This was a much less scenic trip, running along suburban roads and then beside a big canal and a highway, although on a separate track. The first part in particular was very busy, with cyclists and motor-scooters overtaking each other, not to mention the odd pensioner on a mobility scooter. There were a couple of nice chateau-style buildings, though. I stopped in Breukline (=Brooklyn) for an ice cream, and then came the long slog home. It was a six-gear bike, and up to now I had been in six most of the way. But against the wind I had to drop to five, four and eventually three. I also had to get off and walk a bit every couple of kilometres to relieve the pain in my crotch. Many long, straight vistas with no end in sight, one wooden bridge that I had to carry the bike over, and an almost complete absence of other people silly enough to be doing what I was doing, although a few came whizzing past with the wind behind them. But at least I had mastered the bike.

Home at last around six, just as my knee was giving out. I had a touch of the shakes, but I took some salt and that seemed to fix it. My last dinner here, and in bed by nine. I'm trying to plan for Frankfurt, but there are a dearth of useful apps, and even Google maps doesn't seem to know about the U-Bahn there. Very strange.