Brugges and Entering Holland

From Ghent we bicycled to Brugges, Belgium. We decided to camp and found a crowded campside about 2 clicks from Brugges. I left Jordan to set up the tent and rode to a bicycle shop. I broke a spoke on my front wheel, which is probably a first for me. They usually break on the back wheel, often on the cassette side. I had not brought any spokes with me and figured I could just adjust the tension on the other spokes until I found a bike shop. I rode thru Brugges, which is an interesting old town. The inner town is surrounded by a canal... Belgium's version of Venice. I got the spoke and repaired my wheel.

Jordan and I got food at the local grocery store and made our usual meal of huge subs, chips, cheese, and champagne. It started raining while we were at the grocery store, so we ate in the tent. The crumbs we left were really bugging Jordan. I had no problem with them. The rain increased in intensity and lasted all night. The tent took on some water and much of our stuff was wet by morning. I forgot to tell Jordan to make sure she tucked the ground cloth underneath the tent.

Waited in our tent until 11AM for the rain to stop. It finally did and we took off by noon. We stopped 1 click later at McDonald's for food and internet access. I also found a detailed map of Holland and we decided to go up the coast along the dikes. I Dutchman who camped next to us told us we should do that since we were biking from the south. Their is always an intense wind from the south. I told him I really liked biking in Belgium. He told me I would enjoy Holland even more. I told him there is nothing like this in most of the US. He said that even though the Dutch system is good, there are vocal groups that are trying to make it even better... Continuous Process Improvement at work!

By 1PM our biking day finally started. We made up for lost time with completely flat terrain and a strong wind at our backs. Ended up doing about 80 clicks. We first road to Breskens and took a ferry to Vlissingen. The ferry ride was about 30 minutes and cost the two of us with bikes 7 euros. This put us in an area they call Zeeland. The towns are unbelievably quaint. The houses are small by US standards, but impeccably kept. Our ride took us over two very long dikes. What an engineering marvel! The water inside the dike is noticably lower than the North Sea side. It looks like pumps are constantly taking water from the inner side to the North Sea side because the water on the North Sea side is roiling! There are whirlpools and riptides for about two hundred yards from the dike. I don't think you could swim out of this water if you fell into it. We made it to a town called Burgh-Haamstede and found a small hotel where we could spread out all our stuff to dry it out. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant across the street, followed by an ice cream cone and sleep. It is amazing how I crave pasta after a day like this. This was probably our nicest day of biking so far, which we certainly did not expect at the start of the day.