Day 18: A different mode of transport

After a rather leisurely start to the morning, we walked into town to hire a couple of bicycles for the day. We then went out for a ride. We basically rode alongside the canal until we stopped for lunch, and then looped back and rejoined the canal on the way back to Leela's place. We were out for the best part of 6 hours, and by the time we got home, we were glad we didn't have to do any more cycling. At least it beat walking for 6 hours - gave some different muscles a work out.

Leela's flatmate has a parrot (actually, she's just looking after it for someone else). It's large and green and, fortunately, not pining for the fjords. It likes to eat banana.

True story.

Some pictures:

A castle in just outside of Utrecht. According to our tour guide (Leela), the family who owned it knocked down most of the defensive structure and replaced it with comfortable rooms. In every conflict since then they've had to bribe all sides to not attack their place.

A boat passing under a raised roadbridge.

Waiting for boats to pass so that the bridge can be lowered and we can be on our way. The chap in blue jeans and white shirt just to the left of the bridge is holding a pole with a string on the end (click on the picture for a large version). At the other end of the string is a clog, into which the passing boaters would put money.