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(Click on pics for a better view...) |
Sunday 30 June |
| We took an afternoon SAA flight from Cape Town to Joburg, then checked in our bikes at Swiss for the trip to Zurich/Amsterdam. We boxed our bikes in regular bike-boxes available from any bike shop, and crammed as much of our other stuff as we could into the boxes too. Our checked-in baggage was 7kg overweight, but they didn't seem to mind, and we headed upstairs to the restaurant to wait for our 21h15 boarding time. We had a light supper, Nicole wasn't feeling so hungry with her pre-flight nerves. |
| We boarded on time to discover less legroom than our domestic flight from Cape Town to Joburg. We got comfortable and the flight took off on time - 22h00. Dinner was served at 11h00, and they woke us up at 06h00 for breakfast - in between there wasn't a lot of sleep, maybe 4 hours or so. |
Monday 1 July |
| We had a long wait in the transit area at Zurich airport - what a crap airport! The toilets had mile-long queues, and there was a choice of one restaurant if you wanted to eat. Needless to say the service was non-existent - we left the restaurant without being served. |
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| Our Swiss flight from Zurich to Amsterdam was a much more pleasant experience. Much more legroom, and the service was excellent. Great food too! |
| We arrived at Schipol on schedule, and found a minivan taxi to take us through to our friends Greg & Janine (30eur for the pleasure). We loaded the bikes (still boxed) into the van and set off for Dufaystraat with our maniac Turkish driver. Greg arrived home within a few minutes of our arrival and let us in, and we lugged all our stuff up about 1000 steps. |
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| We caught a tram into town and took a stroll around to get our bearings, and headed home after a few hours. Followed quickly by a few hours of sleep. We were awoken by Greg's return home from work at 10pm, to the nice smells of Janine cooking up a salmon storm. Supper was great and we slept like bears afterwards. |
Tuesday 2 July |
| Weather still overcast with light rain, but not hard enough to stop us from walking without an umbrella.. We got to see lots of sights today - Rijksmuseum was very interesting. The Dutch explorer history ties in closely with the early days of South Africa. We also got to see one of many van Gogh self-portraits, and the famous Rembrandt 'Nightwatch'. |
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| Next museum stop was the Anne Frank Huis, where Anne Frank wrote her diary. The museum brought a lot of perspective to what you read in the book - it really is a small space to remain cooped up in for a couple of years. |
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| Next stop was the Heineken Experience - a beer museum and tour, punctuated by draught beer stops - what a great way to run a tour! We also got souvenir Heineken beer glasses that were to accompany us for the rest of our trip. The first and last of the souvenirs we got (you have to carry everything in your panniers!) |
| It was a long day on foot, and we should perhaps have used the tram a bit more, but we really got to know all the back roads! We also found a bike shop along the way, where we bought a fold-up slick MTB tyre, not something you can get in South Africa (no demand apparently) to have as a spare, just in case! |
| Supper was at WagaMama - noodles, noodles or noodles! Very nice! (if you like noodles). Followed by coffee at the Cafe Noa. |
Wednesday 3 July |
| Off to the van Gogh museum today - very good and well worth the visit. The paintings are arranged in the order they were painted, so one can follow the progression in van Gogh's life, and painting style. |
| We had lunch at one of several Albert Heijn stores, which feature lots of healthy prepared meals- 9.25eur for two very good rolls. We then walked through the narrow back streets to Centraal Station and bought tickets for our bikes (9eur each) for the trip tomorrow. |
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| We walked through the red-light district - nothing too exciting, just lots of girls standing in their windows. The more interesting characters were the drug dealers who would surreptitiously mumble a drug catalog under their breath as you walked past. |
| Got back to the flat and started the task of re-assembling the bikes. It didn't take too long, except we discovered that our brand-new, never-before used front racks (Blackburn low-riders ordered from www.settle-cycles.co.uk) came with the wrong size nuts to attach them to the top part of the forks. Nothing that my trusty cable-ties couldn't solve, but annoying nevertheless. |
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Supper was at a rather good Thai restaurant, and that was the day. |
Thursday 4 July |
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Onto our bikes for the first time today, for the short ride to the train station. We arrived just in time for the 10h23 IC632 to Brussels. The bikes were wheeled into a special bicycle compartment right next to where the conductors sit, so they looked really safe (we didn't lock them, in fact we hadn't even bought a bike-lock yet. We did lock the panniers however). We moved to our seats and sat back for the ride to Brussels ... (If you're wondering why there's no pictures of our friends Greg and
Janine, its because we're idiots and forgot to take any) |
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