A Cheesy Day!

 




This morning we left at 9:00 but only had to cycle 5 minutes to reach the town square of Gouda. We visited St John’s church, famous for its many stained windows. We had audio guides to explain the significance of the windows. 

Then we went to the Town square where it was market day and they have the famous cheese market.  They have an enactment of how cheese is sold from the farmer to the merchants. 

We left Gouda at 11:00 and rode along the canal with beautiful houses with perfectly manicured yards. In earlier years they used to come to town on small barges on the canals.

We stopped for lunch at 12:45 til 1:30 in Bodegraven.  We sat on benches in the town square and we were allowed to use the town hall bathrooms and they offered us a free coffee or hot chocolate. 

We had sunshine all day with light winds in the morning but after lunch the wind really picked up again! We cycled through green fields and more beautiful homes beside the canals. The yards and flowers are spectacular. We also saw former peat bogs that are now lakes. 

We saw a stork with a baby on its nest and two swans with their babies. We have seen lots of great blue herons as well.

At one point, we had to turn around at a town as the road was closed for construction.  We chose a new route and continued on our way. Then we stopped to help a guy from another group because he had a flat tire but his guide came back to finish the job. 

We continued on and made it back to the boat at 4:25, 45 km in total. We were with Marcel today but we met up with Rikko’s group many times along the way. They arrived back to the boat at 4:45. 







 












 











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