In Dutch it’s called ‘Noord Holland’ – literally ‘North Holland’, the latter term denoting the area of land north of Amsterdam and lying between the North Sea on one side and the Ijsellmeer lake on the other – salt water and fresh. 

In the past Noord Holland was a heavily dyked area filled with flat green polders, canals and hundreds of windmills to pump the water out of the land and into the canals behind the dykes. It was classic cow/milk/cheese country, along with trade via a constant stream of ships. Today it is a highly urbanised area criss crossed by roads and highways – and bike paths. We rode to north of this area to catch up with friends who have moved there from Amsterdam and to tack on a bit of bike riding along with it. 

For each day, Anya studied our map of Noord Holland and wrote down the numbers of the trails that we could follow on to a piece of paper (actually its the intersections of the various trails which are numbered) which we could consult during the day’s journey (somewhat handier than having to continually get the map out). 

(The words ‘Taj Masala'( on this piece of paper indicating an Indian restaurant we could stop at on the way!)

Buying tickets for the train at Rotterdam Central Station at the automatic dispenser.

With holiday season, it was busy on the train….but finally we got there….