Germany Epic 1: The Road to Germany

The journey started in the UK. This is generally a disappointment as UK roads are far too busy and everyone is in a massive hurry. My overall experience is that, compared to other European countries (which have their own particularities), there is less understanding of the fragility of cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists in the UK than elsewhere. Fortunately, we only needed to travel a relatively short distance from Aylesbury to Harwich, albeit on some of the country's busier motorways. The weather stayed fine though, the bike felt pretty good and we arrived at our port-side generic hotel without too much incident. There I checked the tyres (because of earlier slow-puncture issues which had been fixed in Brighton) and filled the petrol tank before eating delicious Domino's pizza. If you don't like pizza, you don't like life. Also, shortly after we arrive a dark green old-new-style dark green Suzuki Ignis almost exactly like ours (except without the bling chrome door handles) appeared in the car park, which is always a good omen.I think it's important to explain, at this stage, that the Suzuki Ignis is probably the greatest car ever designed. In the Haute Tarentaise, where we live during the winter, they are absolutely everywhere. They are tiny yet capacious, simple yet bulletproof and thoroughly awesome for all driving tasks. If international communism had succeeded for (rather than being spoilt by) humanity, everyone would have an Ignis and that would go some way to ensuring universal happiness. We've got two, which we are currently using in rotation. Seeing an Ignis is therefore considered good luck in many cultures and should be accompanied by shouting the word "IGNIS" by all those fortunate enough to observe it.

Anyway. Harwich was a port. It still is a port. It's a very old-school port, with more-than-hints of brutalist car park about its boarding-ramps. We got on the ferry headed for the Hook of Holland at about 9am on Wednesday 9th September. The ship itself was really quite fun. There was even a cinema showing three films during the crossing, so we booked in to see Despicable Me 3, which was always going to be a good decision. Otherwise we got changed out of our leathers and left them in the barely-used locked left-luggage space, had a picnic lunch on the sun deck (which was actually quite sunny and warm) and lazed about a bit.

Our first business arriving in the Netherlands at around 5pm was to drive toward, then into, Rotterdam and find our first hotel. That was fairly unpleasant, but actually didn't go as badly as it might have done. Holland has some seriously confusing roads. There is clearly some correlation between vaguely overpopulating land that you've literally claimed from the sea, the necessity for lots of cars and roads and the almost haphazard design of major traffic junctions. Seriously, I approached a number of roundabouts, pseudo-roundabouts and convoluted junctions where I had no idea where I was supposed to be positioned, where the lane/road subsequently went, or where I should be heading. The fact it was approximately rush hour probably didn't help. But screw doing any of that in a car, at least with a motorbike you can make it up as you go along a bit more. The other good thing about a motorbike, which came up time and again on the whole journey, was essentially ignoring queued traffic on motorways. Long live the god of filtering.

Anywho. We got into Rotterdam, parked up in a huge cycle park outside the Art Hotel (that's ok right? Apparently yes) and went to our room. The Art Hotel was big and a bit like a 1980s university hall of residence, but with big glass lifts and "art" everywhere. It was cool and borderline rubbish, but mostly cool.

That evening we took a wander around and found a fairly local brewery situated in an old warehouse which now housed a big, artisanal, food mall called the Fenix Food Factory. Well worth a visit, although by the time we got there the majority of shops (including the cider bar!) had shut leaving only the brewery open. That was alright though. They had a LOT of beers on tap. Also, the Irish barmaid was very helpful and let us try various beverages before we decided on which pints/500mls/whatever to have. There was an adjacent/related Thai food stall which provided us with dinner whilst we supped lovely real ale. That constitutes a good start to the trip. On the way back to the hotel it rained, although we were mostly protected by the large overpass. 

As became customary, the following day we had quite a lot of riding to do. The weather was due to stay fair, so we decided to break the journey up with lunch in Leiden. This was a good choice. It was sunny when we got there and there were lots of little restaurants with boats/platforms on the canal. Really cute little town (I say little, it was probably huge and

arguably part of the wider urban conurbation that is Holland. Canals, bikes and poor road signposting made it very Dutch though. After lunch and a wander, we rode practically all the way up to Den Helder, next to the Waddensee and over the big road/E22/Afsluitdijk to the Northern Netherlands proper. By that time we had probably ridden too far. Still, we got a bit lost, then stopped at a town called Sexbierum. But rather than finding people having sex and drinking beer and rum, we found people wearing clogs. I thought it was a historical thing; Dutch people used to wear wooden footwear for some reason and the national dress amusingly reflected that. Nope, real, live, fully-Dutch people in smaller towns wear clogs in public. That's how they roll. All power to them.

We then stayed in Oude Bildtzijl (I won't patronise you by explaining how to pronounce it, because I have no idea myself) in a nice little homestay/guest house with holistic overtones. Great TV though. The Dutch really know how to have English-speaking programmes on lots of channels. Germany take note....

Right I'm going to pause there. I will, however, grace you with a couple of other observations. Once you get higher than Amsterdam, the roads become slightly less complicated, although some of the motorways are massive and just seem to run parallel to other motorways. The houses are all quite low with big triangular roofs. Sometimes they have a view of a raised road/dyke and that's it. The landscape is predictably flat and a bit boring. There was not a lot of fun motorcycling to do on the first day, but it was alright.