Rotterdam to Paris

Ok, so we are officially the world's worst bloggers! ....but at an average rate of about $20nz an hour for internet, blogging hasn't quite been at the top of our priority list when we hit the internet cafes.

So, where to start?

From cycling down the West Coast of the States in June, we spent a fantastic week in the San Fransisco area... which deserves, and hopefully will get a blog all of its own.

From there we hit London at the end of June and caught up with all our friends who have migrated there (quite a few as it turns out), and did some siteseeing and had fabulous weather...we've been here three times now, and simply don't believe there are ever grey skies.

We then headed up to Birmingham and caught up with Emma Northcott and her new hyperactive bub, then up to the great metropolis of Manchester and caught up with Jo and Caleb Putt who showed us the sites of Manchester (the Trafford centre - a truly ah awe inspiring mall), and toured the lovely Lake District, Scotland, Whitby and York with us. Um ....this again all deserves its own blog and alot more detail, but, as with San Fransisco, we downloaded our photos onto our laptop, which is now in Holland with Lance's sis....so you'll have to watch this space!

Ok, so onto photo territory. From the UK we headed over to Holland via ferry and meet up with Lance's sister Trina who is living over in lovely Rotterdam.

Holland is a cyclist's paradise. It's just unbelievable how set up it is for the mighty bike. Cycle paths litter every road, no body rides with helmets, because you really don't need to - the cars treat you like porcelain dolls. And there's no such thing as hills, so what else can I say. Everybody rides, you see old ladies in long skirts, young girls in high heels, men in business suits...all on bicycle!

Trina took us out to explore Amsterdam, with its gorgeous canals, the fabulous Van Gough museum, and the Anne Frank House. We also spent the day at Arnhem national park riding little white fixies through bizarre landscapes. And of course the famous cheese markets still operating in the same fashion as they have for hundreds of years (well more or less).... brilliant photos of which are now on our laptop....promise.

Amsterdam canal (I think).

Dutch culinary delights....

From Rotterdam we rode South West down through NZ's namesake Zeeland area, along the North Sea dykes.

The inter-city network of cycle paths is fantastic -you can ride between any city or village, and never need to ride roads, and you have your own sign posts, that, most brilliantly, don't mysteriously disappear at crucial intersections like most of the rest of Europe....oh for more Dutch people to be involved in cycleway planning!

Unfortunately for the first day of cycling, when we neared the coast we quickly discovered the prevalent wind (better termed gale) was a southerly, which rendered us almost stationary, inching along for 60 back breaking kilometres. We averaged about 6kms an hour - it was beyond belief! The dykes however were awe-inspiring, massive structures that were incredible to ride on.

Wind turbines unsurprisingly litter the coast, taking advantage of the gale force winds.

The next day was luckily a little calmer, and we finally made it over the border to Belgium, to ride the most beautiful tree lined canal into the medieval town of Brugge.

Brugge is just beyond gorgeous. It's picture perfect stuff. ...what else can we say. We wandered around, watched old men playing boules, took canal rides, drank beer by the canal.

The Belgians do a number of things brilliantly - chocolate, waffles and beer... it was a happy few days in Belgium.

Truly, the waffles really are incredibly good... I don't know what they do to them, but they are in a class of their own.... good thing we were riding with the amount we consumed.

We then headed east to Ghent, another picture perfect little medieval town. Did I mention Belgium pastries are also quite phenomenal?

And then headed down to Lille, France, where we were to catch our train to Paris to catch the end of the Tour de France....