Day 3, Enkhuizen

Hello and welcome to my first blog post from The Netherlands! Today is our third full day here and so far riding, navigation, shopping and camping have all been fairly straightforward and enjoyable. The Dutch really do have it sussed when it comes to cycle paths and not only have excellent bike specific paths with (generally) smooth surfacing but they use a kind of ‘cycle by numbers‘ system. Each intersection in the cycle network is numbered so you plan your route using the numbers and following the signs to the next after each intersection. At some points there are maps so you can plan the next part of your route, but we already have a paper copy of the whole network so don‘t have to rely on the roadside ones. Having our own copy also means we can plan our route for tomorrow the evening before.

Today we visited the Zuiderzeemuseum, an open air village museum made up of original houses and shops which have been relocated from various parts of The Netherlands and which represent different periods of Dutch life. My favourite buildings were the post office, where I bought and posted a few postcards, and the pharmacy, where the red lables (such as on the peppermints I bought) meant it was consumable and blue lables meant it was an external ointment etc (red for the blood inside and blue for the sky outside).