DAY FIVE : HOLLAND vs. THE NETHERLANDS

Haarsteeg to Venlo

Daily Distance: 110.61 kms

Total Distance: 431.93 kms

I am obsessed with this country. I have spent many, many nights in Amsterdam but none anywhere else. I have seen a small number of Dutch towns but haven’t properly seen the countryside. Or HADN’T, until this trip. The past two days have proven to me that it is indeed as beautiful as I’d always known. The houses are modern but traditional and stunning. The gardens are all immaculately kept. The people are tall, good looking, intelligent and funny. The language is interesting, but English is common. The countryside is beautiful. In fact, don’t be surprised if one day I live here. My only complaint is that the locals don’t seem to know the name of their own country, since they ALL call it ‘Holland’. This country is called THE NETHERLANDS. I found this irregularity intriguing on my first ever visit – well not just this alone, but also that they are ‘Dutch’ people who speak ‘Dutch’ (why?), they love the colour orange even though their flag is red, white and blue, and so on.

If you’ll allow me to “get my Tour Manager on”, I will explain. The Netherlands has 12 provinces. One is called North Holland and one is called South Holland. The largest city in North Holland is Amsterdam, but the capital is Haarlem. The largest city in South Holland is Rotterdam, but the capital is Den Haag. Despite not being the capital of its province, Amsterdam is the capital of the country, but the politicians are located in Den Haag, not Amsterdam. It’s simple right? Wrong. No wonder this country is famous for its drugs... They’re called Dutch and they speak Dutch because hundreds of years ago when ships came in and heard the locals, they thought they were speaking ‘Deutsch’ – as in, German. They love orange because of one of their founding fathers, William of Orange, a German Duke who was given this land. But this still doesn’t explain why locals call it ‘Holland’. For years I’ve been telling my passengers that only the people who live in North or South Holland call it Holland, but I’m afraid to say that this is simply not true – I’ve been polling every local we’ve met, including those in other provinces, and they still don’t know the name of their country. But what astonishes me the most is that of the 50-odd people I’ve asked, not one has confidently given me an answer – every single one has pondered the question as if it’s never been asked of them before (for almost all of them, this is actually the case), consult with their spouse, friend or the nearest waitress / barman and then lamely tell me that they don’t really know....WHAAAT?!

Anyway, I’ve gone off on a tangent. Relevant to the current story of my bike ride, however, was a conversation that I had today with Dan, during which he swore black and blue that Den Haag is the capital of The Netherlands. Naturally I disagreed and was later proven (of course, via a very sophisticated poll of the locals) to be correct. But why is this so noteworthy? Because Dan is a former geography teacher!! THAT’S RIGHT ladies and gentleman, I out-geographied a geography teacher. But don’t worry, if you have kids in the education system in England, you’ll be happy to hear that Dan left that career long ago... ;)

Sorry, I nearly forgot that there’s a bike ride to inform you about. We left Haarsteeg in the rain and had to deal with it for several hours. Suddenly I loved The Netherlands ‘alot’ less (which reminds me, have you seen this?: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html). We were teased by several electronic signs throughout the day which constantly reminded us that it was 12◦C, although it felt even colder with the wind and the fact that we were soaking wet.

I feel this is an appropriate time to discuss the magnificent* cycling network of Holland (to borrow the words of one of my interviewees, “it’s fewer letters on the keyboard to call it that”). This cycling network is famous all round the world, and we were excited to explore it. And truly, it is of the highest standard if you consider the quality of the paths, the fact that cars give way to you on the roads everywhere, including on roundabouts and at traffic lights, and the fact that bike paths stretch to almost every Dutch town or city, and all are numbered. But it’s even more useful if you know how to interpret the numbering system, which I managed to do on behalf of our team approximately 87% of our way through the Dutch part of our trip. Up until then, we had started to wonder if this was just hieroglyphics. Our key mistake was to believe that the numbers represented a specific path or route (i.e. to get from A to B, you follow path 14, then path 76 then path 2 – sounds simple enough). In fact, however, the numbers represent intersections (i.e. to get from A to B, you must navigate to intersection 14, then 76, then 2, then go halfway to intersection 53). This may seem same-same, but consider this: if I am riding from intersection 14 to 76, then I believe that I am on route 76. However if you are riding from intersection 76 to 14, then you believe that you are on route 14. But we are both riding on the same actual path, so how can it have two different numbers? I’m sure you’re confused. If so, good, because so were we.

To give you an example of how confusing it is, let me tell you the story of magical Route 17. Imagine this: we reached a point in our trip where a decision had to be made – still in the rain. There were two directions to travel: a) in the direction of intersection 17, or b) the exact opposite direction (unnumbered). We looked on the map and discovered that intersection 17 was not desirable since it was not en route to our destination, so a unanimous decision was made to travel in the opposite direction. No less than 5 minutes later, we saw a sign pointing in the direction we were travelling for – you guessed it – intersection 17!! We decided that this is probably a prank that the inventors played on unsuspecting tourists like ourselves. That or the signs to intersection 17 lead to some underground druglords house or possibly some exciting dance party, OR JUST MAYBE it leads to a magical hidden villiage where all the locals are short and ugly, don't speak English or look after their houses or gardens, and call their country 'The Netherlands'. We’ll never know.

It was still raining. We stopped in America for ice cream (Alan has a daily addiction that must be fed) and then at a bike shop on the outskirts of Venlo (my pedal was halfway through breaking – it’s my super leg strength applying too much force onto it, you see). That night we stayed at a hotel in the very centre of Venlo and found a local pub where a young Dutch man, Christian, who was behind the bar but not actually supposed to be working, was so keen to hear about our adventure and talk about Australia, football and music, that he served us (proper) pints for €3.00 each even though I overheard his boss telling him that they were €5.00. We tipped him well, especially since he didn’t yell at me for correcting him every time he called this country ‘Holland’.

*This is subject to interpretation.