Sunday, April 24

The first full day of our Europe bike trip! We ended up sleeping a couple hours longer than planned, waking up at 9am – I think we each had different issues with sleeping well (pillows, insomnia, room temp, etc.). But we got going quickly and were off to Haarlem (clothes and bags at the hotel for our 2-night stay) shortly after 10, deciding to wait for breakfast and coffee until we were on the road.

I picked a route that took us through a couple small, modern Dutch villages, and we stopped in a town (Halfweg) for breakfast groceries. We discovered that a main grocery chain (Albert Heijn) didn’t take VISA in any form, leading to our first awkward foreigner moments at the register! We continued on to a nearby, shiny new outlet mall for Starbucks and a new pair of Skechers running shoes that I swapped with the worn-out running shoes I’d brought. On the remainder of our ride to Haarlem, we were wowed by a group of teenage boys that could do long, acrobatic wheelies on their adult bikes – really impressive seeing the completely pervasive bike culture take many forms.

Then came Haarlem, which overwhelmed us in the best ways. I’d picked Haarlem for our first bike destination because of the annual Bloemencorso festival where all the flower parade floats are on display for the day after the parade. What we didn’t expect was a high-energy fair with rides and games right in the Grote Markt town square! We rode a large Ferris wheel and soaked in the loud techno music and probably thousands of people in the fair area and throughout Haarlem’s maze of pedestrian streets. I was in heaven!

With our bikes locked up, we spent a couple hours taking in maybe 20 parade floats made entirely of flowers. Some were especially breathtaking – we’d definitely picked the best day of the year, and perfect weather, maybe even more impressive given the post-Covid vibe there (and since we arrived – no masks anywhere and very little sign of a recent pandemic). Our 3 hours in Haarlem were flawless.

We faced a stiff wind back to our hotel, then showered, let our bikes rest, and took the tram from our hotel to Amsterdam center, where we hunted and found a lively Italian restaurant and all ate a lot. We walked around more, then trammed to the hotel where we chilled for the night.