After breakfast and packing, we left Abcoude about 9 am.

I should comment about luggage transport.  One complication for us is what to do with the tandem case: 6 ft x 3 ft x 9 in.  Tulip Cycling’s Peter Vos is picking up the case and storing it for 9 days at his office, then delivering it to us in Gent. Perfect solution from our perspective. And each day we leave our bags at the overnight hotel and they are moved by courier to our next hotel. Thus we only travel with our daily needs on the tandem.

The departure took a bit of adjusting as I was “directing” the navigation using a Garmin 820, following a pink line. And of course we had a morning sprinkle which quickly passed.  Our route is mostly on bike paths, along canals.  We crossed water regularly, once on a cable ferry, another time on a small motor ferry, and even across some locks. Scenery all green, many cows, some horses, goats, and sheep.  Also through small towns, eventually into Leiden, home of the oldest university in Holland.

Wind at our head was a factor; we suspect it may be something we deal with daily.

It was market day so the last 2 miles were quite congested and we ended up walking the bike.  We are staying at Nieux Minerva Hotel, along one of the 28 km of canals in Leiden.

After settling into the hotel (our bags were waiting for us), we headed out to walk around, joining the market crowd in places, climbing up to the citadel for a view over the city, finally taking a canal boat ride for a different perspective.

33 miles, average speed on the bike 11.13 mph, 1102 ft ascent, 1106 ft descent (a fun statistic in a flat country).