The Netherlands - July 29, 2022

Henry and Paula invited a few friends to join them in The Netherlands. Last summer, while visiting family, Henry found a house to rent an suggested a group trip. Mike, Sandra, Neil and I joined for this adventure. Henry and Paula had been in Europe for a while. He rented a van and would be picking us all ups at the airport. 

I spent the week prior in Ireland and flew in from Dublin. I ha arranged a flight that would arrive at a roughly the same  time as the others. Unfortunately, while waiting in a ridiculously long line to get through immigration, I learned that despite being EU, Ireland is not in the Schengen Area, which allows for travel between EU countries without a passport check. They did have a shorter line for folks with EU passports, which, of course, everyone else on my flight had! The others had flown through Spain and had no passport control. When I finally got through, my luggage was no where to be found, since everyone else on the flight had breezed through their short line. We eventually found everything and headed out. 

Once at the rental house, we assembled bikes, had dinner, an then headed out for a shakedown ride. Bikepaths are everywhere here, and when there is a path, you must use it. This would be our theme for the week.