Germany and the Netherlands: home again.
We left Denmark 2 weeks ago and cycled through Northern Germany and the Netherlands. As these are our native grounds (Germany for Kevin, the Netherlands for Julia), we both had the weird experience to travel our home country as a tourist.
Northern Germany
Northern Germany is well…not exciting. I mean, they try to make the best of it, but when you advertise the “German Cabbage Route” as a tourist attraction, or even worse “the Kohlosseum” (a museum about cabbage), you know that this region has not much going for it. For us it ment mostly following the coast, with daily headwind, boring dykes and a lot of sheep. Kevin was mostly excited about the German bread, as this is the thing that Germans miss most when being abroad. Wildcamping is not allowed, and as there was really no cover to be found anywhere, we used warm showers and twice we set up our tent at a designated “wild camping” spot. In Schleswig-Holstein, the norther most Bundesland in Germany, you can find these spots on wildes-sh.de. In some cases a muncipality has a designated field where you can pitch your tent for free, or privat persons offer this possibility in their garden. We also found out about the website 1nitetent.com; which is basically like couch surfing but for camping. We haven’t tried it, but it sounded like a solid alternative to stealth camping in Germany.
The Netherlands
We crossed the border all the way up North in the province of Groningen. The original plan was to follow the coast until going inland to Amsterdam, but Julia’s family already planned a family get-together, so we opted for the shortest route. Which is, given the size of the country, very short. Whereas Kevin went extatic for German bread, Julia was excited for the Dutch fries, so on our first evening in the country we had enough fries for a small family.
Cycling through the Bible Belt of Holland, over the hills of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug (this glacial ridge, with it’s maximum height of 69 m, is a true mountain for the Dutchies) until we made it close to Utrecht, where Julia’s sister lives. This was the start of a week of visiting friends and family, and to be honest, it was quite overwhelming. Being just with the two of us for the last 7 months, and spending all our time outside, it was a huge transition. We did however enjoy the shower, toilet and changing clothing while standing upright. After a week of Julia’s family and a family outing to the Zoo, it was time for our last stretch; 130 km to Kevin’s parents, where we will stay the coming period. More hugging and happy to see everybody.
Then came the moment where we had to offload our luggage for the last time. Cleaning the bikes. Realizing how much STUFF we have, since we had everything we needed in our panniers for over half a year (we have to Marie-Kondo our way through all our belongings soon)… Writing job applications, but we both are actually quite excited about that!
So that was our tour. 20 countries, 18221 km. We had a blast and this will definitely not be our last one. We will keep you posted and until then, there will be plenty of travelling, hiking, snow-shoeing, running events, diving trips and road bike races.
