Friday    30.6.2017
  593km Total: 6141km    0.89km Total: 277.32km

I made a bit of a mistake when I realised I wouldn't be on this days ferry.
When I didn't have a boat to catch and thus had all the time in the world I started thinking in terms of having a full day in Wales at my disposal.
But even though the country isn't that big I still have to ride coast to coast which is a distance of about 600kms the quickest route so it's bye, bye Wales and hello motorway.

As soon is I'm nearing London on the M4 the traffic stars piling up.
In my stupidity I though it would get a lot better when I'd just passed London and got onto the M25.
I definitely didn't. It got worse. It got a lot worse.
Pretty much the whole of the M25 was a massive 100km long pileup, it is by far the worst I've ever seen on my travels.

I lost hours in that queue and in retrospect I could probably have done a whole bunch of scenic detours without really loosing any time.
Filtering/Lane-splitting wasn't really an option because to be honest the British queue discipline didn't inspire any confidence at all.
At least not enough for my panniered wide ass.
I accept stand-stills on the motorway, that's just part of the game but here I never actually stood completely still.
It was at a stand-still for about 3 seconds, then you rode about 4-500 meters and then it stood still for 3 seconds and so forth.
I think I subjected my poor clutch to more wear on the M25 than I have on the last 50000kms combined.
This guy sums up my experience with English traffic pretty nicely.

It's early evening when I finally roll up onto the hotel parking lot and I'm completely beat up.
I don't manage anything more than a shower, a readymeal and the last few touches on the final stages of the trip on the computer.

At least I know what to say if I get pulled over by Dutch customs.

Saturday    1.7.2017
  51km Total: 6192km    204km Total: 1296km
  13.62km Total: 290.94km

A spectacularly boring 7.5 hour ferry crossing later I ride off the boat in Hook of Holland.
I booked the hotel at a handy distance so the Hague Teleport Hotel is just a half hours ride away.

What a lucky break that was!
The staff was great, the garage was dirt cheap (€4), it had its own restaurant and a McDonalds was just 50 meters away.
The room isn't even really a room, it's an apartment with a full size kitchen, a gigantic double bed, a complimentary tablet and TV with Netflix.
I booked myself here to rest up a little bit before riding the rest of the way and I can see I'll have no problems with that here.

I go out exploring.
It was a few kms walk to the city centre but it was worth it considering how cheap the hotel was.
After walking through some kind of industrial estate it definitely wasn't a sacrifice walking because it immediately became stereotypically Dutch with canals, houseboats and beautiful buildings.

I get to Mauritshuis and Binnenhof where a girl was sitting playing cello with breath-taking acoustics in the courtyard.
Call me a sucker if you will but it was worth every coin in my pocket.

I find myself in some sort of pub/restaurant-neighbourhood so I get supper and had a delicious sea bass with hash browns.
Finally something other than moist fries.

After wandering around aimlessly for some time I suddenly get absolutely desperate for a Guinness.
Finding a Guinness in Heineken-land wasn't an easy feat.
After some googling I realise I have to go all the way back to where I ate to find an Irish pub.
Still worth every step for a pint of the black stuff.

I've read that it is imperative to keep hydrating while trekking so I stumble into another pub on my way back to the hotel.
Leaving that and closing in on the hotel I realise that it was now some time ago I last ate and I'm feeling a bit peckish absolutely starving.
Everywhere that served food was closed apart from the McDonalds next to the hotel and when they where about to close up as well I was almost close to tears.

After expressing my desperation for nutrition as a matter of life and death I get permission to walk through the drive-in and order there.
I don't know exactly how many more nuggets I got compared to what I ordered but apparently they just gave me all that where left me being the last customer of the evening, if that's not love I don't know what is.
In a state of relaxation (or just in a state really) I park my ass in bed and devour my prize to Family Guy on Netflix.
It's leaning pretty heavily towards a sleep-in.

I didn't have to walk very far until it became extremely Dutch.

Mauritshuis och Binnenhof

Sunday    2.7.2017       29.83km Total: 320.77km

No migraine! It's a frikking miracle!
I get a readymeal as brunch (I slept in pretty late) before heading into town.

Mauritshuis is first on my agenda.
Luckily I got a leaflet and there was an app I could download that explained the artworks because I'm on pretty thin ice here culturally.
I've never been much of an art connoisseur and I'll never become one either.
It was nice seeing the girl with the pearl earring in real life though, the other "famous" artworks I hadn't heard of but even a barbarian like myself recognised the name Rembrandt on some of the paintings.

I went through Binnenhof, unfortunately not accompanied by a cello this time.
It's a grand building and apparently the oldest parliament building in the world that's still in use.

After a detour through some shopping streets I get to the Peace palace, seat of the Hague tribunal.
A beautiful building that had unfortunately already closed for visitors when I got there.

The rest of the day I wander around pretty aimlessly, I get a steady lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Hague Chinatown followed by more aimless wandering in the city centre where after I got supper in the same restaurant-quarters as yesterday.
Salmon today, just as delicious as yesterday.
There might have been a craft beer and a digestif involved.

I take an early evening as I'll be riding to the ferry in Travemünde tomorrow.

Mauritshuis - Paulus Potter, The Bull


Jan Steen, 'As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young'


Rembrandt van Rijn, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp


Pieter Claesz, Vanitas Still Life


Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, Vase of Flowers in a Window


Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring

The peace palace

World peace flame monumentet outside the peace palace

The shopping malls had real class

The pedestrian street to the restaurant-quarters

...and time to reap the rewards of all that walking