Day 295-299: Weeze – Gouda - Bike Bimble

July 24, 2025 to July 28, 2025

Day 295-299: Weeze – Gouda

We’ve been staying with other cyclists using WarmShowers. Which can be a great experience. We’ve found that there are plenty of people registered on the website in the west of Europe, but the website is terrible and some don’t respond. We found out about Welcome To My Garden, another website that is self-explanatory. We’ve met and talked to three great Dutch families via this app and was offered to stay in a summer house by another (we never met Mark but appreciate his offer to stay at his weekend house for a couple of nights just outside of Gouda).

From Weeze we headed NW: back (for Stephen) and on (for Cath) into the Netherlands toward Amsterdam. It’s pretty flat. We went via Utrecht, a town with a canal, as a warmup to Amsterdam.

Hard work to get the to top of this pass in the Netherlands

Our little campsite thanks to Lukas in Houten

Big cities (like Amsterdam) are a bit of a challenge with the touring bike, but with the help of the WTMG hosts, we dropped our bags and spent a day in the big city of Amsterdam. Lots of canals.

Thanks again for our little campsite outside of Amsterdam

Apparently stocks started here. Open for debate but fun to see

From Amsterdam, we took a circuitous route south. Via Leiden (to visit a Dutch lady that Cath met a few weeks before in Bologna while both were on holiday there). Then a quick visit to the coast of the North Sea (wind turbines and oil rigs in view), then The Hague before pushing onto Gouda. In a day. You can see a lot in 100km in the Netherlands.

Thanks to Astrid. Cath and her Mum met Astrid in Bologna. She invited us to visit when we were in the Netherlands (probably never expecting us to turn up).

Gouda. We were (not) surprised to find out we had been pronouncing it incorrectly for years...apparently int Houda

Thanks to Mark we had a lovely couple of rest days in his lake house. Spoilt

Today's ride: 283 km (176 miles)
Total: 15,437 km (9,586 miles)

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