A bicycling odysessy

Our floating hotel
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Holland is my native country. I was born there, my mom is Dutch,

and I speak the language. Every summer as a kid we would spend three

If you want to know Holland this is the way to go

weeks there hanging out with family. In short, the country is not

The group on the boat
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foreign to me, it's my second home. But this trip was different. This

time I, along with my brother and a close friend and former teacher

would be leading a group of Junior High School students through the

country on a bike and barge trip. At night we were sleeping on a barge

The city center-almost deserted
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that was remodelled for accomodation and during the day we would bike

through the country to visit certain places of interest. As we biked the barge would sail through the canal systems of Holland and meet us a different location each evening.

I know of no country that is as ideally suited for biking as Holland.

Not only is it the most biker friendly country in the world, but it's

The group
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paucity of hills makes cruising a simple joy. Biking along the dikes

through the long flat polders (land reclaimed from the sea and under

sea level) and pedalling through small towns and large cities is a

perfect way to get to know a country. We stopped to eat at cafes in

Enjoying the Maarkt in Gouda
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towns with ancient Churches towering over the centrum, we visited

countless museums and markets- we explored Amsterdam-quite a feat with

14 kids in tow- and we did it all without a flat tire.

The group of kids we took were simply amazing. Full of energy and

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always excited about what was ahead, it was effortless to spend time

with them. From hanging out at outdoor cafe's late into the bright

summer nights, to intense games of risk that invariably ended in fierce

conversation, to the simple joy of pedalling without hands on a quiet

bike path everything was fun.

My favorite part of the trip had to be when we took the kids to meet my

parents at our home to be treated to a lunch of all dutch foods. The

kids sampled 3 different varieties of the famous Gouda cheese (my

hometown), to stroopwaffles, and brood met hagelslaag (bread with

chocolate sprinkles), to koek (a honey bread), as well as other various

dutch specialties.  You can't not have fun eating all that good food.

This was actually my second time leading this trip and it never gets

boring. This time around our route went from Amsterdam south to

Utrecht, then east to Nijmegen and Arnhem then south again to

s'Hertogenbosch, before heading back direction Amsterdam stopping in

Gouda for the evening. We visited the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank

House, the Openlucht Museum in Arnhem (an outdoor museum in which each

area of the museum represents a unique period in Dutch history), we

went inside an old fashioned windmill to see how it works, and we

stopped at the Maarkt in Gouda, a twice weekly Market featuring the

traditional selling of Gouda cheese that has been going on since the 1200s.

Great weather and great company mix well, especially when it's combined

with the opportunity to show the richness of your country to foreigners. And touring Holland with people that have never been before is a great way to rediscover my own country. Not to mention it was a great chance to explore parts of the country I'd never been to. And hey, it's impossible to argue with a free ticket to Europe! So thanks kids for putting up with a few wrong turns here and there.