Travel pages

The hotel lobby

At nine I left the hotel parking and rode to the Afsluitdijk, a 30 km long dike that closes the gap between Noord Holland and Friesland and made the Flevo polders possible.

I parked the bike near the watchtower and climbed to the top to get a good view on the dike and the sea. Unfortunately the weather is very bad. hard wind and a lot of rain but my rain overall is doing what it is supposed to do so no problem for me.

The Afsluitdijk in the direction of Friesland

After 30 kilometer straight road, I arrived in Friesland. I drove past Harlingen, Sint Annaparochie to Lauwersoog. Near Lauwersoog I parked the bike for a botle of water and a sandwich and to take some pictures and then I programmed the Tomtom to Nieuweschans, a small town on the Dutch-German border.

Typical farm in Friesland

And of course, an old fasioned windmill

The horizon is very straight here.

Horses in the grasslands near Lauwersoog

The weather was not getting better. It was raining and the wind was blowing hard. Above the "Waddenzee' I saw a small whirlwind touching the sea

A whirlwind at sea

Sea-dike at Lauwersoog

The harbour of Lauwersoog

At the qauy in the harbour of Lauwersoog, I park the GoldWing again to look at the ships in the harbour. In the harbour I see a ferryboat to one of the Isles in the Waddenzee. There is also a Danish fisherboat, from Histhals in North Denmark.

The scenery in Friesland is beautifull. It is very green and with a lot of water. Friesland is the ideal watersport province for a lot of Dutchman and Germans. A lot of people spend their holiday on a boat in Friesland.

Friesland is famous for its watersport

Typical country scenery in Friesland

And it was raining a lot !

More and more you see big modern windmills at the horizon, to get "green" electricity. It may work and be good for the environment etc. etc. but I don't like these big things at the horizon.

With all that wind we get a lot of electricity !

At "Wehe den Hoorn" I filled my tank again and had a coffee at the gasstation. Unfortunately it is raining almost all the time.

I crossed the German border at Nieuweschans

The advantage of using a GPS to ride a trip like this is that you can tell it to use the shortest route. That will bring you on all kind of small roads you would never have been on without the GPS. I programmed the Tomtom to Gluckstad, a small town with a ferryboat crossing the river Elbe.

A small paved road in Germany

Along one of those small roads I came at a T-junction with a big oaktree in the middle of the junction. Next to it were some big mushrooms and a bench with "Mach mal pause" on it. That means, take a break, so I did.

"Mach mal pause". This means "take a break"

At first the scenery was the same as in Groningen that I just left but after a while, near Bremerhaven, it got a little more hilly.

Finaly, after a long day in the rain, I saw a hotel at the roadside and decided I had seen enough rain for today. It was Hotel Kluster Hof on the Bremervorderstasse 50 in Basdall.

I can park the bike in a garage behind the hotel and, after a shower and clean clothes, it is time for dinner and a good glass of German beer.

I had a "Niedersachsenteller" for dinner, "Rotbarsch- und Seelachsfilet mit Krautersauce, dazu Brokkoliroschen und Salzkartoffeln". I'm not sure what it all is but is was very good and so was the beer.

Before dinner, I already called my wife and after dinner, I worked on my travellog and watched German TV. It is a nice hotel, not expensive, only 35 Euro per night for a single room and the good dinner, with a beer and a cappuccino after dinner was only 14 Euro.
There is one thing, a noisy diesel train, passing on a railroadtrack near the hotel but I had no big problem with it.