We apologize for the delay in this post! It has been a busy past week or so since rolling into Amsterdam for the last time. 

The final day of riding was a modest 60km to Amsterdam. You don’t need any reminder of the tremendous Dutch bike paths, so we’ll spare you the glowing reviews. However, even though these bike routes could have taken us directly into Amsterdam, we decided to detour slightly to Oudekerk aan de Amstel, a small town outside of Amsterdam along the Amstel river. We cycled to this town a year ago and really enjoyed biking along the picturesque Amstel river. So, we added a few kilometers and took the scenic route. 

Biking into Amsterdam with a loaded bike is about as stressful as biking out of the city.  We managed to avoid plowing into oblivious tourists (how the Dutch do this constantly without getting annoyed or showing any signs of frustration is amazing) and arrived at the Rijksmuseum. 

Here are a few numbers from the trip:

Kilometers: 3,000

Countries: 5

Country border signs: Frustratingly, zero

Flat tires: AD-1, CVK-Lost count

New wheels: 2

New tires: 2

Trips to urgent care: 1

Bottles of Orangina: 539

With the bike trip officially over, we took a train to Schiphol to store our bikes and – what a concept! – rented a car. We spent the weekend with family in Friesland, which was a fantastic visit which included a birthday party and Kaetsen (local sport) tournament. We drove back to Amsterdam and spent two days enjoying the city but mostly searching for a Dutch city bike for Caitlin. The search ended in a great success – photo evidence below. 

After Caitlin flew back home, Andrew decided to fill his remaining six days in Europe by driving 65 hours/5,200km to the Arctic Circle and back. It was a long but enjoyable conclusion to the summer. He managed quick visits to Stockholm, Oslo, and Copenhagen, in addition to visiting the small town where his great great great grandfather lived in Norway before moving to the United States. 

That’s a wrap on Biking for Baguettes 2017 Edition! Thank you for reading along. We’ll probably stay quiet on the blog until the next adventure. Stay tuned…

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