Amsterdam; Wednesday, 11 April, 2007

I set off from the hotel with the intention of heading up to the tourist information office to get some ideas for things to do. Sitting on the tram, as it left the last stop before the central station, I noticed a Bike hire company that also claimed to run tours. Arriving at the tourist office there was a bit of a scrum of people, so I decided to come back a little later, and walk back down to the hire company and get some information.

According to their brochure, they run two tours, a three-hour tour of the city and a six-hour tour that goes out into the countryside. I went to book for the following day and was asked if I wanted to go today instead as the group were just about to set off. So, slightly un-prepared (thankfully as the morning had been so warm I had left my jacket at home and was in lighter trousers than jeans) I joined a six hour cycling tour of the Holland countryside.

At this point it would be useful to distinguish between Holland and the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a country of 17 million odd people formed from 11 (12 since the reclamation of large amounts of land in the 20th century) provinces, of which North Holland and South Holland are just two. Amsterdam, being one of the most important cities on the planet in the 16th and 17th centuries because of the Dutch East Indies and West Indies companies, is situated in the province of North Holland, and consequently the name has rather stuck. It would be like referring to England as Middlesex, or Germany as Brandenburg.

The tour starts with a short cycle from the office to the back of the central station. I occasionally cycle to work in the Suburbs of London where Cycle lane is considered a rude word as it takes up valuable lording space for Chelsea tractors (SUV's), so the abundance of Cycle lanes, through some of the busiest parts of Amsterdam, is pleasant. However, for someone who has not cycled on the road before, it could be a little terror inducing, especially with the trams zipping past. Behind the station we boarded a ferry for the very short crossing to the North bank of the Ij and the northern suburbs of Amsterdam.

The first part of the trip is through the suburbs, but after a couple of minutes the city peters out and you are in the open countryside. After about 40 minutes cycling we came to a largish canal which we had to cross on a bizarre boat, the whole boat is a floating platform. The engine is attached to the land on the other side and it pulls the boat backwards and forwards across the canal using pulley ropes.

A little further on, we stopped in the town of Broek in Waterland, in the heart of the countryside for lunch, delicious Dutch pancakes, about the size of a pizza and with any possible combination of toppings on them. After a filling lunch we cycled on further until we reached the edge of the Ijmeer. Until the construction of Dykes the Ijmeer was the South Sea, connecting directly into the North Sea, and had been the origins of Amsterdam's wealth. With the creation of canals, and the need to protect the land from flooding a dyke was built which sealed the South Sea off, today the Ijmeer is rapidly becoming a freshwater lake, but still has the potential to destroy large swathes of Holland. In 1953, a storm surge came down the North sea. It left a trail of devastation and death in its wake, an inter island ferry sunk with massive loss of life in Scotland, large parts of the Netherlands inundated and thousands killed (this is the part that is remembered in the Dutch psyche) and Canvey island in Essex flooded and hundreds killed (the part that sticks in the English psyche). Today there are defences in place to protect against most eventualities, but with the houses still snuggling up to the edge of the dykes several meters below the water level of the lake and the sea, you can still se the potential for a major disaster. As part of their defences, for possibly the first time in their history, the Dutch are returning some of their reclaimed land to the sea to reduce the level overall. The Dutch, of anyone in Europe, have the most to fear from global warming and rising sea levels.

The tour winds its way back towards Amsterdam by riding along the top of one of the dykes for a couple of kilometres, back to the small town of Durgerdam where there was a brief refreshment stop, before the final 45 minutes or so of cycling back to the ferry and central Amsterdam.

By the time we got back to the Bike company it was gone five, and I had lost almost all feeling in by backside (and remembered why I had spent that bit of extra money on a better saddle for my bike!). In an attempt to get some feeling back I hobbled back to the hotel and had a refreshing shower. An hour later, and able to walk again, and in a new T-shirt not covered in a large percentage of dead Dutch bug life, I headed back into town for dinner.