Today is the official half-way point of our sabbatical! We've done so much, it's hard to fathom that we're only half way through this adventure!
We have decided to scrap our plans of going to Bruges. In talking with Mary, we realized we would be spending about six hours on the train in order to spend a few hours in Bruges and that just didn't seem to be a wise use of our time. So Bruges will have to wait for another trip.
Since we had been wanting to do some biking, Mary and Rene suggested we take a harbor cruise boat to Kinderdijk-where there are 19 historic working windmills and paths to ride bikes safely without the threat of cars, scooters, or cobblestone streets. So with Mary as our guide,we set off this morning to the harbor, and took the one hour ride to Kinderdijk. Usually, people get off the boat, stay for an hour and then return to Rotterdam, but we planned to stay longer and take a later boat back. It was a little chilly when we first got there so we decided to pass on the bikes and just walk around looking at the windmills and canals. After about an hour, we returned to the bike rental to find the bikes were all gone. So then we decided to just catch the early boat back—but when we got to the dock, that was gone too. We decided to make the most of things and went to find some lunch and a beer! After a lunch of Dutch pancakes, we found that bikes were again available and we rented two bikes and rode around about an hour. The bikes were pretty rustic, but we enjoyed the scenery and found lots of nice easy paths to follow. One thing about Holland, it's really flat and great for riding-even old clunker bikes! We finished our ride, had time for another beer before the boat left and enjoyed a relaxing, sunny ride back to Rotterdam.
We wanted to treat Mary Sue and Rene to dinner. Given our interest in the Dutch resistance, Mary Sue suggested we eat at a 100-year-old restaurant, the Pijp (“pipe”), where Dutch students gathered during the war to plot resistance efforts against the Nazis. The place has a great, old dingy atmosphere with ties by the hundreds hanging from the rafters, which had been donated by frat boys over the years, even to today. The food was great—we all had seafood.
After dinner we went home with the intention of relaxing and doing some final visiting, as we are leaving pretty early tomorrow to train back to the Amsterdam airport to catch our flight to Copenhagen. But when we got home and turned on the TV, we learned that all the airports in Northern Europe were closed because of volcanic ash in the air from the volcano in Iceland, making flying unsafe. So we got online and started working feverishly—all four of us—trying to figure out train connections from Rotterdam to Copenhagen, so that we could avoid going back to the zoo that is surely going on in Amsterdam, with thousands of stranded passengers trying to get on airplanes, or trains. We have Eurail passes for Germany, Denmark, Austria and Italy. All we need to do is get to the German border with a ticket from Rotterdam, and we already have purchased tickets to get us from Germany to Copenhagen, by using our pass. With the great help of Rene and Mary Sue, we got our make-shift train itinerary figured out, knowing that we need to get a 7:05 train to take us ultimately to the German border. They printed of train schedules for us, and we packed up our things and said goodbye to Rene. Mary Sue is going to accompany us to the tram to Central Station in the morning, which is really kind of her!
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