Wednesday July 29th – The day of learning

The first day of any endeavor always provides significant learning opportunities, today's trip from Amerongen to Arnhem was no exception. Here is a few of the items that we learned.

Always reset your cycle computer - Our touring the Rhine book has the distances marked from the beginning of each ride. When you don't reset the cycle computer it is hard to know how far you have gone.

Always bring more water than you think you need – Even if you think your ride will be easy, you may get lost and end up on the road much longer than you had thought.

Route selection is important - We have two separate maps for the Rhine cycling routes. The first set of maps is part of a book called Cycling the Rhine. The second, is a series of maps that are based on the official Rhine cycling route. As we found out today, each has its own benefits and drawbacks. The Cycling the Rhine routes seems to take you over more roads and fewer paths but also keeps you closer to the Rhine itself. It also tends to follow official paths that are marked. The drawback is that it is oriented to go from south to north. Reversing the direction is not so easy and can get you lost (happened a number of times today). The directions compound this problem since they only provide a series of paths or streets and not turn by turn directions. Today we made a family decision to follow the Rhine maps. While we were on these paths, it was a beautiful ride. Then we would arrive at an intersection and have no idea which way to go. At one point we ended up at a highway but had no idea where we were on this highway. Luckily this was Europe and there was a bike path along the highway. We followed the highway in the right direction until we reached something that we could recognize on the map.

In Europe, an information sign refers to a map not an information booth - When we saw the blue sign with white lower case 'I' we expected a booth or building. As we unsuccessfully search for a booth or building, we did find a map. This was moderately helpful. After seeing a few signs and only maps, I realized that the information sign means map.

In Europe, street signs are optional - I already knew this but it was again etched in my brain. We finally reached Arnhem after being lost several times and switched over to our turn by turn directions from Google maps. Turn by turn directions are useless if the streets are not marked. Several times arrived at an intersection with no street signs. Taking our best guess we turned down the wrong street. After a few blocks, a street sign would appear and let us know we were most definitely on the wrong path.

Murphy's Law applies touring - When it is the end of the day and you are tired and frustrated, your accommodations inevitably are at the top of a hill. Impossible you say, Holland is flat! Well that is what we thought too.

You don't really need everything you have – At the end of a long, frustrating day, you are ruthless when repacking your bags. A number of items will be left behind here in Arnhem.

In the end we cycled about 30 miles today. Not an exceptionally long bike ride. It did take us five hours to complete this ride and that doesn't include lunch. While riding we averaged over 10 miles per hour. Do the math and you will realize that we spent over two hours trying to find out which way we should go. This touring is very different that my cross Canada trip. Only in a few sections on my cross-Canada cycling trip had difficult navigation. Mostly the directions were similar to, travel this rode for 1000 km, turn left. You could daydream through a few days and not miss anything. In Europe, there are many turns and you always need to be watching for signs. The directions are more like, at sign post 1232.32, turn left in the direction of Arnhem travel 400 m, then just beyond the city information sign, turn right over the bridge. You need to keep watching for signs all the time.

Not all was bad today the following items went well.

When we were lost in Wageningen an elderly gentleman was kind enough to show us to the Rhine route. While we were driving through the town he pointed at a hotel and stated that this was where the Germans surrendered in 1945. Sure enough this is true. From the wikipedia article on Wageningen

“Wageningen is also world famous for its military history. On May 5, 1945, the German general Blaskowitz surrendered to the Canadian general Charles Foulkes, which officially ended the Second World War in the Netherlands. The Generals negotiated the terms of surrender in the Hotel de Wereld, which since 2004 has again been serving as a hotel. On May 5, which in the Netherlands is Liberation Day, the city hosts a large festival to celebrate the liberation. At this festival, veteran soldiers parade through the city and are honoured for their service. Wageningen is home to the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA).”

At first, I was thankful for the simple hospitality and later was amazed how we stumbled upon history.

We stayed in a youth hostel which was very nice. Dinner and breakfast were simple and good and the accommodations worked well. Most of the people staying that the youth hostel were families so the kids were able to fine some playmates. A found an outdoor table tennis table and was kicking the ball around, someone came up and in crude English he asked to play tennis soccer. They played for more that an hour. It was a good way for him to burn of some energy.

Tomorrow we will follow the Cycling the Rhine route, hopefully with more success. This will both keep us closer to the Rhine and less lost.