Cruise - Amsterdam 2 nights

Wow, the Amaverde is a beautiful boat. Our bikes are hidden somewhere in the bowels and our cabin is spacious - with balcony - and comfy. Dinner and a quick walk into town completes our first day.
Saturday we wake to neighbours: 3 other boats have pulled in overnight. We select a canal boat and bus tour for the morning and it's great to have lots of information. Who would know that behind the canal houses are gardens (with dope growing?!). And that some houses lean sideways from subsidence but others lean forward to avoid the windows being broken when hoisting furniture up (the stairs are very steep and narrow). That 200,000 bikes get stolen each year and 10,000 of them end up in the canals.
We join the ship in time for lunch, we pass through the first of 68 locks, eat a delicious and gf 5 course dinner, then listen to an excellent violin/cello/guitar combo. They're from Brussels so jumped on board somewhere and will be dropped off somewhere else to get a taxi home by 2 am.
We fall asleep the the gentle hum and vibration of the engines.

Last days at Hoorn

We take a drive across the 27km Houtribdijk which connects western and eastern Netherlands, and separates the 2 huge freshwater lakes which are the county's flood and drought insurance, and the former Zeiderzee. The eastern province is all reclaimed land, amazing stuff.
We wander the streets of Hoorn, drink coffee, clean and pack the bikes and read more books. This has been a great place to explore and relax and get some insight into Dutch lifestyle.
We visit the secondhand shop for another suitcase, everything fits but it's nice to know there's room for further purchases if necessary.
We've ridden about 1500 km and sat on the bike for over 100 hours, piece of cake....
Tomorrow Ian will drive Kay and the luggage to the boat in Amsterdam, about 40mins, then take the car back and return by train - the easiest of the many ways we considered to get us there. Then 2 weeks of luxury on the AmaVerde, woohoo!!

Hoorn countryside west

There's sunshine when we wake up so off we go again, this time on a 40km loop to see some windmills. There are still over 1000 traditional ones, and also many wind turbines. The sun doesn't last long but it's atmospheric riding in the almost-mist, along the canals. Ian gets the first flat of the trip, not bad after about 1400km. We find a snug cafe/pub for coffee and a market in a beautiful old church.
It rains, as forecast, about an hour after we return, so we drink coffee and read the afternoon away.

Amsterdam

Sunshine again on Wednesday so we rug up and head back to town on the train. First stop is a newly renovated maritime museum, with a replica ship and some amazing exhibits. The building dates from 1656 and was built on 1800 piles sunk into the harbour floor.
We return to the pancake place for lunch - they are as big as family pizzas with topping choices from ham and cheese to apple and nutella. GF available and yum. There's lots of quirky shops and beautiful buildings to explore, then Kay goes on a 2 hour cannabis tour. Its another fascinating part of Dutch culture - you can be arrested for smoking tobacco indoors but it's ok to smoke illegal but tolerated marijuana. You can't sell alcohol and marijuana in the same building. A recent federal law to restrict sale to locals and neighbouring visitors has been repealed in Amsterdam, they don't want to stop the millions of cannabis tourists. You don't go to a coffee shop to drink coffee. And you don't order a brownie to take home to your grandma. Like everything there's lots of facts, figures and opinions.
We both wander around the red-light district and ogle the ladies. I wonder if there are men in windows somewhere??

Hoorn countryside

Blue skies again so we jump in our mercedes coupé and go for a drive, with our lovely gps lady to help.
Marken was once an island but is now connected to the mainland by a causeway. It's quiet this morning but we wander round it's cobbled streets and admire the old wooden buildings. In many spots they're squashed together on man-made mounds to escape the rising water, and were originally built on stilts, but the underfloor area is now built in. Like everywhere, the houses back up to canals; kids are taught to swim early.
Zaanse Schans is a village of relocated historic buildings and windmills. It's close to Amsterdam, full of tour buses, and starting to rain so we dash in and out.
There's green grass and water everywhere and lots of beautiful old villages.
Footage of America is on TV and I can't help thinking about the magnitude of the dyke system here. They are constantly being built up against the threat of rising water.

Hoorn - Volendam.

The sun is shining when we wake on this first day post daylight saving so we rug up like the Michelin Man and head off into a blustery southerly (much better than an arctic northerly). It's a 60km round trip, and feels good to be back on the bike. We follow the dyke path and it's a very weird feeling to see the sea 1m below us on the left and the land 2m below on the right. Volendam is an old fishing village now geared towards tourism, we join hundreds of people wandering the picturesque harbour and it's many shops. We play dressups, sample cheese from nearby Edam and admire the views. We get lost on the way home (so what's new?) but follow a few of the many well marked paths north along canals and roads. It rains a bit but the water hasn't a hope of penetrating our many layers.

Hoorn - Zuiderzee museum

Friday's weather looks good so we shake off our lethargy and head north a little way in the car. Our destination is the open air museum at Enkhuisen, which shows life as it was around the Zuiderzee. It's fascinating to walk around the recreated villages and see just how tough life was before the dams were built and the floods tamed. It's school hols so there are lots of extra activities for the kids.
PS for those that are wondering, like me, North (where we are) and South Holland are 2 of the 11 states of the Netherlands.