A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: Day 1 of the Bike Barge Trip - Amsterdam to Vianen - Saturday

And so it starts . . .

We had breakfast in the hotel and then went back upstairs to finish packing. We took a taxi to where the barge was, but he didn't know exactly where it was either. After getting off and walking a bit we did find it. Our barge is called The Magnifique. It is a lot bigger than we thought and very nice inside. Later we heard that they had extended the barge by cutting it in half and inserting a new section that included 5 new cabins downstairs and a bigger sitting area upstairs. We had to wait till about 2 pm for all to be on-board and to get our cabins. Our cabin seems to be one of the bigger ones. It also has a third bed folded up against the wall. We do have much more floor space than the other two person cabins, at least that what it looked like when I peeked in some of them.

Our barge, The Magnifique

All the bikes are ready to go

Our barge, The Magnifique

Main salon

Our cabin, #19

View from our porthole in Amsterdam

The galley

And that's where the captain sits

There are 34 of us taking part of the bike trip and a crew of 5. Besides Jeff and me there is a group of 18 nurses and their friends from the Chicago and Seattle areas. There are 2 couples from Germany, but I don’t think they know each other and another couple with a 12 year old daughter also from Germany and 2 couples from Los Angeles and 3 people from New Zealand. The crew consists of Captain Karl, our guide Tom, chef Ramon, maid/server/kitchen helper Berber and deckhand/captains helper Nick.

Jeff and Mitzi

Captain Karl (left) & our guide Tom (right), telling us some
things we need to know

At 2 pm we started sailing. We went first to Nigtevecht. There we got off the boat and got our bikes. It took some time to figure out which bike was the right size and to adjust them. I got bike # 10. From there we biked to Breukelen (or Brooklyn as they say in US). It was a bit nerve wracking with the 34 of us and cars and motorcycles and pedestrians and narrow roads. But everyone got there in one piece. Today's ride was only about 10 miles. All the scenery was absolutely beautiful. We biked passed fancy summer houses of the people who lived in Amsterdam a few centuries ago and moved to the countryside because the heat and smell in the city was unbearable during the summer

My wheels for the week, bike #10

Jeff found his, bike # 29

Just about ready to go for our first ride

This is our cue sheet that tells the route, and no it's not the red
line. You follow the numbers on top.

One of the many windmills

On the bike path

Vreeland drawbridge

One of the towns we passed

One of the many fancy old summer houses

Another nice summer house

A fancy old boathouse

A car being lifted to the back of a barge. Lots of barges had
a car and maybe a boat on the back,

Time for a refreshment break in Breukelen

In Breukelen we got back on the barge. Soon after we had a little meeting where Tom, our guide, told us about the next days itinerary. After that we had dinner. Today we had soup, chili con carne and berry sherbet. Between the main course and the dessert we went through a big lock with 2 other barges.

Dining room all set up for dinner

Decorations on one of the locks

Going through a lock

Plan for tomorrow

We ended up docked in Vianen next to still another barge. We had to walk through it to get on shore. After dinner Tom took us for a short tour of Vianen. It is a medieval city with city gates that they used to close for the night. Their city hall had a stork’s nest on top of the chimney and there is a camera and people can go on the internet and watch them nest.