Silver Wheel Trek: Had to leave Haarlem.

Didn't want to leave but we had to get on with it. We are now headed south towards Aix en Provence. The first stop was in fort Ann de Klap. It's near Haarlem almost seems like we haven't gone anywhere. We actually stayed inside the city limits of Utrecht which is a nicer city than it sounds. We met a grandpa and a grandma cycle touring with their grand daughter. They were from the Netherlands and had big loads for everyone. We still wish we had chairs every so often, ever since we saw the couple in France, from the Netherlands of course with some beauty chairs. Grandma and Grandpa had chairs. We sit on the ground as picnic tables are not common here. We had a buffet dinner in the fort's patio then we went for an evening walk. Yoly noticed that birds and ducks don't sleep all night they squawk once in a while at odd times at night. Some campers do the same. Another of the other campers was walking to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. That makes 5 people from the Netherlands doing that trip so far. We will be off the route to Spain soon so they should become rarer for a while.

Friday August 23

We slept in! We left the campground at mid morning and rode under sunny and 30 degree temperature. We cooled off with some gelato on the way and made it to Culemborg some 55 km south east of Utrecht, still Netherlands. Culemborg has 3 museums but they only open for few hours a day this includes the Elvis Presley Museum. Elvis was here serving during the Second World War. The marina in this town is quite large and houses many sail, rowing and large boats. We are staying in the marina campground. We rode around the town for the rest of the afternoon and went to get groceries.

Next day the 24th of August, we made it south of S - Hertogenbosch after spending the afternoon at the fair in s-Hertogenbosch. This is the fourth town we have found with the midway rides on the streets. Some of the faces seemed familiar. The town has an amazing cathedral larger than Notre Dame in Paris.

We couldn't help noticing the tree that came through the ceiling of the restaurant that provided shade for our apartment upstairs in Haarleem.

Mozart played this organ when he was 10 years old in 1766 in the Grote Kerk church in Haarlem. It used to be a Catholic Church and today is a Protestant church and it is one of the most historically important organs in the world.