Chapter 4: Back to Amsterdam!

Hey guys!

Last chapter of the Netherlands tour! 

Day 4

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Utrecht.. We Love You!

Utrecht: time to leave. Why is life so cruel? 😀
Could someone give us his/her house for free? 🙂 Or just host us for a period that goes from now to eternity? 😀

We left Utrecht but not until we had had two breakfasts. The first at the Hotel and the second one in a cozy franchise bakery named Stach. You can find it in every city of The Netherlands.
Have you ever been there and tried their lemon cake? You will dream about it at night, I’m telling you.

Goodbye Utrecht, you will always be in our heart! ❤

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Road to Amsterdam: Hilversum & Naarden

To reach Amsterdam we decided to follow the same route we did in October: a little stop in Hilversum and lunch in Naarden.
The route from Utrecht to Hilversum is surrounded by nature. Green fields and blue sky, weird pigs and cows everywhere. A special mention to the last stretch of the way fully immersed in a kind of wood that hides some of the best houses we’ve ever seen.

Once we arrived in Hilversum we noticed that something was changed in the General Market square where we stopped to eat a weird but tasty sandwich with fried shrimps in October. A little bit shocked we asked to a local if something has changed in the last six month and he confirmed that the square was been renewed. We don’t know why but this thing shocked us.
It was a quick stop, so perfectly on time we started pedalling toward Naarden to eat in a local restaurant named Het hert.

Yummy hamburgers there! 😀

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Naarden

There’s a lot to say about this town. Naarden is a little beautiful city famous for its star shape and because is one of the most preserved fortified city in Europe.
According to Wikipedia “is an example of a star fort, complete with fortified walls and a moat.”

Indeed, one of the attraction is the Vestingmuseum located on one of the six bastions that gives to the city its distinctive star shape. If you want to discover the story of this fortress and the economic importance that this city had till the recent past you should not miss it! You will find a brochure in Dutch and English. Don’t make our same mistake: Arthur asked for the english part when the entire page was in English. LOL

 

October in Naarden

Vesting Museum

Dutch Kindness
The first time we went there we could taste the renowned Dutch Kindness.
We were two runaways adventuring with bikes in a land that is not Italy, where people do not speak our language and we don’t speak their, just few words in the same shitty english that we’re using to write here 😛
Anyways, we were in trouble to find a hotel for the night when we decided to ask to the girl at the reception of the museum for help. We couldn’t imagine that she was going to make a quarter of hour phone call just for us and showed us the way to reach the hotel! Amazing.
Another memories was a group of guys. “. We asked for something to do in the City and they literally started to run to bring us to “the best brewery in Naarden“. Wow!

After lunch we were a little bit sad, our journey was going to end but at the same time we were really happy because of what we did: we were thinking to all the people we met along the way and the support that they gave us, to all the smiles.
Biking is freedom for us, it enables you to feel life as the way you feel it when you are child. It allows you to keep the contact with the people, to watch the world from another point of view, to feel every kilometre you ride.

With these feelings and thoughts we were leaving Naarden when a fabulous storm came to remember us that feelings are for weak and if you don’t want to drown under the rain you should pedal and shut up 😀

Sooo under the heavy rain we started to sing loud and out of tunes italian songs and pedal to reach Amsterdam.

Have we already talked about green field and blue sky? Cows and sheep? Green fields and Blue Sky? 😀

Just outside Naarden, after riding along a part of Ijmeer, a lake that we thought it was the Sea, a twenty kilometres path in the pure nature extends to Diemen, a town 6 km before Amsterdam.

 

What is happened along this road it’s unbelivable! And we have a video to demonstrate it.
We were resting  along the way: you have to imagine three young guys, talking and walking when a man that was walking behind us farted passing us. Birds singing, green trees, blue river and a farting man. We laughed for two weeks about this..

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We are back, Amsterdam!

Last stop: Amsterdam.
Once we arrived we went to the hotel to finally have a shower and then we passed all the time wandering around the city. After those km by bike we weren’t tired so we decided to eat something in the city center and then explore the surrounding of the HarleemmerPoort.
The day after we did the same of the night before, we returned the bikes and had a little walk in the city to buy some souvenirs for our families.

Thanks again to all the people that helped us during these trips, the one in october and the one in may.

Just few words to end this post, just a promise to us: next time we will stay in this country for more time because it really deserve it.

See you in next posts guys!
Enjoy your rides and keeep pedaling! 🙂

Arthur and Bruno – BikesPhilosophy