Netherlands and Belgium by bike with a 2 year old

Trip Planning
Towards the end of 2010 on one of our rare dates, I asked Kyle what 2011 held for us in terms of travel plans both domestic and international. We decided that Portland for domestic and either Copenhagen or Amsterdam for abroad. Portland was replaced with Montreal (very lovely trip) and the decision between the other two cities came down to airline prices, weather and pairing countries.

We could either go to the Netherlands and Belgium or Denmark and either Sweden, Norway, Finland or Iceland. I was not prepared to split Sweden’s time with another country and didn’t know enough about Norway, Finland and Iceland to make a good decision. In the end, bicycles and Belgian beer (and chocolate) won.

In the months ahead of our trip, we collected stories and maps from friends who had visited and bought a book on Bicycling in Holland (with excursions to Belgium and Germany). In addition to the maps, the book was good for recommended day trips and multi-day tours. Additionally, New York Times travel section did one of their 36 Hours on Amsterdam, which was full of great tips. After digesting all the information and knowing that we were going to be flying overnight with our 2 year old daughter who would need to adjust to a 6 hour time zone change, staying a few nights in Amsterdam at the start of the 2 weeks seemed like a good idea. So it was 5 nights in Amsterdam and then 9 nights on the road.

Flight

Which would you choose?

  • nonstop flight (Boston to Amsterdam) on Delta in coach
  • 1 stop layover flight on Iceland Air in Economy Comfort (better than coach, not quite business class) for a little more.

I left the decision up to Kyle and he chose the latter. Here’s the deal. Economy Comfort on Iceland Air is advertised very vaguely. They say it’s 2 seats with a tray in the seat between them. I saw that as an empty seat with a removable tray for Annika’s car seat. I tried reading reviews of the Iceland Air and search all over the place for pictures, but could not find anything, so I went ahead and booked the flight.

2 Economy Comfort seats are actually 3 coach seats with a little bit more leg room and the center seat has a retractable tray with an operational seat belt. It’s absolutely perfect for 2 adults traveling with a child that’s less than 2 years old, because they are free regardless. I called Iceland Air three different times and got three different answers and I decided to go with the third answer which was, “the center seat is not a real seat and cannot be used for a car seat”. And the answer we got from the flight attendant after we boarded the plane and clearly saw that it was a normal seat and that we could have very well brought her car seat was, “I don’t know why they told you that.”

It just folds up, and the leather cover zips back down over it.

All in all, not bringing her car seat ended up working out for the best because here’s the way Economy Comfort seating works: it’s essentially a hedge for the airline between coach and business class (Saga class). If Saga class books up, they put Economy Comfort ticket holders in coach with 3 seats instead of 2. If coach class books up, they put EC people in Saga class. We rode Saga class on 3 out of the 4 legs of our trip. Between the lounge at the airports and getting to ride in business class, it was a great way to fly and I’m glad we didn’t lug Annika’s over sized toddler car seat with us to and from and between the airports.

Accommodations
AirBnB.com was my resource for booking accommodations in Amsterdam and from talking to a nice guy I met in our neighborhood dog park, I knew I wanted to stay in the Jordaan neighborhood. Sadly, nothing was available that had a crib (they call them baby cots), so we branched out the area around Vondelpark, and I am so happy we did.

Other than AirBnB.com, we stumbled onto many nice inns at the end of our days and if anybody travels without kids, I would recommend using Vrienden op de Fiets (friends of the bike). It’s like couch surfing, but hosts cater to bicycle tourers and the rate is only -25 euros per person. You can order their guidebook online and then send them a check.

Luggage
A few things to consider when packing for traveling with a toddler and bike touring is involved:

  1. 3 days or less worth of clothing
  2. Rain gear for everyone – we had goretex jackets and pants for us and a jacket and boots for our daughter and this seemed to work well and we did get rained on pretty hard. Bring an umbrella.
  3. Diapers – we used a combination of reusable and G-diapers and between staying in apartments and inns with laundry, we were okay. There was one time that I used a laundromat in Bruges and one time we ran out and had to use a couple hotel hand towels as diaper inserts, but otherwise, we got through the whole trip without having to buy disposables.
  4. Four panniers – test pack them to make sure everything fits. We brought two with us because I wanted to wait until we arrived in bicycling heaven to buy two for my bike.
  5. Sleeping bag for kiddo – even when there are cribs, she slept really well because the sleeping bag was extra padding and it smelled like home. The sleeping bag also served as a nap time aid while in transit on bikes…see pictures later in trip.
  6. Ergo only – don’t bring a stroller for a walking toddler, that’s such a headache in cities and frankly, that’s what bikes are for. All museums offered strollers, as well.
  7. Pack panniers into rolling bag and check the bag for free. This makes traveling to and from the airport simple and easy. Our bag floated above 53 lbs, but the agent was so pleasantly surprised that a family of 3 was only checking one bag with no stroller or car seat that he might have given us an exception to the 50 lb max. We used a nice day pack as our carry on, which was perfect for day trips in the cities.

Traveling to Europe
So we took off on Monday, August 29th at 9:30 pm, the day after hurricane Irene blew through Boston. It was the most beautiful day in Boston that day, so since one of the themes of our trip was bicycling and we’d be pretty much secluded to a 2*2 foot seat for 12 hours, we chose to get to the airport by bike. Annika got her playground time in before we hopped on the bikes at 6 pm, making it to the airport by 7:15 and to the Virgin Atlantic Lounge by 8 pm. The lounge was courtesy of the Economy Comfort seat class we had booked on Iceland Air.

We boarded the plane with Annika already in PJ’s and a fresh diaper, and saved the bottle for take-off to help with her ears popping. Then we made a “bed” for her with extra pillows and blankets on the floor between our feet. She fell asleep not too long after we got up to altitude, and slept all the way to Iceland. At about 1am our time we had to land in Iceland and change planes, and then we flew to Amsterdam. On this second plane, and the other 2 on the way home, our seating was in the back of Business Class. The floor sleeping trick worked this way as well.

By the time we arrived in Amsterdam, Annika had actually slept for at least 5 hours, and things went well. We got our big rolling bag, got her dressed, and transitioned to a train to get into the city to go find our rental home near Vondelpark.

We were able to get basic groceries, take-out dinner, some wine and excellent beer, come home and enjoy the roof deck and sunset, and then get to sleep… which lasted until noon the next day. All 3 of us. I flatly refused to believe the clock, my watch, and my cell phone, all of whom were attempting to tell me in concert that it was in fact noon. It just didn’t seem possible… I sure as hell felt great, though!

Out & About in Amsterdam

Out to make the most of what was left of the day, we picked up rental bikes and a map and began to find out what Amsterdam cycling traffic is really about. We’d seen the slides, read the blogs, and talked to people who raved about the ease of getting around here on 2 wheels, but having an experience of a thing is never the same as the research leading up to it. I’ll speak for myself (Kyle) and allow Megan to disagree or comment if need be… I found it challenging and intense, kid or no. I enjoyed it, I was not scared or intimidated, but it required ALL of my attention if we were anywhere near the city center and the train station. The sheer volume of bikes around you (parked and moving) is difficult for a first-timer from the US to process. Most bikes are in a moderate hurry but not incredibly so. The bikers are generally forgiving and polite, pretty much everyone uses hand signals, and as long as you’re not completely zoned out and staring at the scenery, you’re not going to get flack from locals who just want to get home after work. But there are SO MANY of them… the sheer number of bikes going everywhere at once is incredible for a kid from Georgia.

I stood up on the pedals when things got intense, and Megan made fun of me for it, but I needed to be able to control that big wobbly bike and see over peoples’ heads, and I reverted back to “what works on a mountain bike.” It served me well… by the end of the trip I could whip impressively tight u-turns without touching a foot down on that bike. Skills, people.

The bike lanes are just one layer of a much more balanced public transit lane sandwich (compared to most US cities), with cars, pedestrians, and bikes all getting pretty equal billing across the street space. That means you have peds stepping off the curb right in front of you sometimes, and cars turning in front of you at times as well. But neither of these were constant obstructions… not like the scooters.

For some stupid reason, Amsterdam lets 50cc scooters in its bike lanes. Many of these are still 2-stroke machines, which means they are loud, fast, smokey, and cheap. That’s a recipe for shitball behavior if ever there were one, and by and large that’s what we saw. 50cc scooters can still go faster than 40mph, and many of them do, in your bike lane. Right next to your elbow. Hey! How you doin? Every red light they go around the bikes to the front of the light, and then launch off in a cloud of oily smoke and chain saw noise. The average scooter rider seemed to be a kid in his late teens / early 20’s with sweatpants on and a friend on the back, with the general driving behavior of someone who was very late for something.

So that’s the bad part. The good part is that bikes outnumber every other form of transportation in town by a large margin, and generally get their way without much contest. There are good bikes lanes damned near everywhere, there’s bike parking pretty much wherever you need it, and it’s only really crowded and serious in the very center. Biking here is not as simple as it sometimes sounds when people point to it as an example of a bike-centric city – which it is, to be sure – but nothing ever is that simple. It requires your attention, and a little experience helps, that’s all.

What to See – Amsterdam

Anne Frank House. We hadn’t heard much about it other than “long lines.” We rode by it and saw no line whatsoever, so we quickly ducked in. It is sparse, tasteful, informative, emotional, and something I am incredibly glad I saw in person. I feel like it was a personal bookend for me, having also seen one of the places that innocent people like the Franks met their end (Dachau in my case, not Bergen-Belsen where the Franks were sent). Don’t ever look me in the eye and tell me that mixing national pride and religious politics is harmless. -Ahem-


Van Gogh Museum. The best art museum I have ever seen. Because it has a person’s life at its core, (especially a person who corresponded frequently about himself, leaving a huge record of letters behind), this isn’t like other art museums to me. It’s a story with some of the world’s best illustrations.

Brauerij de Prael. Beer geeks rejoice. Amsterdam has 2 small breweries that I found, the other being Brauerij t’Ij which is in a windmill. They both branch out beyond the Usual 4 (blonde, dubbel, trippel, quad). For the record, I preferred De Prael’s beer and interior space, but both are damned fine. Bring cash and your liver.

Mac Bike Rentals. Every single person working here is friendly and helpful and happy to see you. I don’t know how they do it. They have good, sturdy bikes, the prices are very good, they take all forms of plastic, and they make the whole process painless. I didn’t try anyone else, but I cannot imagine how to improve on these guys.

Leaving Amsterdam…Ghent

After 5 days in Amsetrdam, we took a train to Antwerp to get a head start towards Ghent and duck some weather. Sometimes having bikes on the train is easy – platforms level with the train car, small gap, big open storage space (see pic). Sometimes it’s not as easy, with some steps to climb and a small room to cram your bike(s) into. It was never a “problem” problem, for sure, so don’t hesitate to use this route.

Special Advisory, Though: When that train pulls up, brother, you had better be READY to get your bike hustled onto it fast. Otherwise that train will leave you standing there sratching your head and saying “I wonder if the bike car is at this end or the other en- HEY WAIT”… Ask me how I know. Mach schnell!

I’m going to just come out and say it – Ghent was my favorite place of the whole trip, even including Amsterdam. With 60,000 students on the outskirts of the old town, it is still alive, where other beautiful old cities have turned more into museums. There is a massive, imposing castle right in the center of town, and it was re-done in the last century to something carefully approximating its original 1100’s condition. Interestlingly, it was built not to defend the city, but to whip the citizens in line. The Count wasn’t getting his way and decided a conspicuous show of force was in order.

Gent has muscles, beer, canals, castles, bed and breakfasts, chocolate, cobblestones, boat tours, grand open plazas, enormous church towers, and friendly people. Our b&b was nestled behind a furniture store whose structure dates to the 1500’s and whose basement dates to the 1300’s. You should go to Ghent. Tomorrow.

After 3 days of sitting idle in the b&b’s back hallway, our trusty rental bikes once again saw some action as we biked from Ghent to Brugge. Weather was cloudy and 60’sF, with light wind.

Ghent to Brugge… a little over 40km’s

This leg was almost entirely along arrow-straight canals with long tree-lined stretches going for miles. We met up with a friendly german who was going the same way, and rode with him chatting about any/everything for over 5 hours. He was a big help in both navigating and in passing the time. We picked blackberries and had sandwiches. Bike people are good people. Hannibal Lecter, Magneto, and Dracula… you never saw any of them on a bike. Think about it.

Not as evil.

After Ghent: Brugge

Brugge is what everyone tells you it is – quaint on a level that would give Tinkerbell a tooth ache. Quaint to a degree that would make Walt Disney pass out cold. Quaint in a way that seems to draw grandparents like moths to an incredibly expensive flame. It is cobblestones, high end retail, massive old churches and towers, canals, chocolate, good food, and boat tours. BUT… I didn’t like the boat tour as much as Ghent. I didn’t find as many quiet back streets with unique doors and shops and restaurants. I DID find one of my favorite breweries, the Halve Maan, makers of the phenominal Straffe Hendrick line of beers. Beer drinkers MUST visit this place, it is incredibly good beer in a beautiful setting.

Halve Maan Brewery’s beer garden

I’m largely splitting hairs here – Brugge was wonderful, but I don’t personally see why it gets top billing over Ghent. Ideally see both, but don’t think that Brugge is the only place for the reeeeally good stuff.

Brugge to Middelburg

Our next segment of biking was up toward the coast, over a ferry, and up to Middelburg, which is back in the Netherlands. Along the way we saw more cows than you knew existed (and I used to live in Wisconsin), along with an amazing bike-and-kid-friendly cafe along the bike paths… it was stunning. There were TWO trampolines, an apple tree, a ball pit, tons of slides and swings and a zipline. And for mom and dad, there was top-shelf beer, good wine, and very good food.


This is how you do a roadside bike cafe.

Back on the road, we immediately passed a petting zoo, built right up along the bike path. You have to love this country. As for the destination, I had never heard of this Middelburg (my dad lives in the one in Florida), so I had no expectations, but we were pleasantly surprised by a city with a good mix of old and new to it. There’s a big central city plaza with an open-air market, and there are old churches and the like, but the stores are more realistic and designed for regular people who live there, as opposed to loaded grandparents. We found the best bike shop of the whole trip (by FAR) here, but their website must not be as robust as their selection because I cannot find them via the innerwebs.

We stayed in our one and only Vrienden Op De Fiets house in Middelburg. The woman was probably in her early 60’s, and was a 50/50 mix of “Welcome to my home!” and “Don’t spill anything on my carpets!” There was no crib, and we made do with some pillows and blankets on the floor for Annika. She slept, but it wasn’t great. Also the next morning when it came time to pay, we were figuring it would be 30 Euros (15 each). It was somehow 50 Euros, which wasn’t a show stopper, but when hotels go for around 70 or 80 Euros in that town, it wasn’t an amazing deal to have to share the bathroom and be extra careful with everything.

Middelburg to Den Haag

The next plan was to get up to Den Haag. The weather was not amazing, and there was a wind advisory. We opted to get another head start and take a train from Middelburg to Delft, then bike the rest of the way and find a hotel or b&b. Arriving in Den Haag, however, we discovered that it’s just a big, modern, boring, semi-dirty urban center. I later realized that I didn’t take a single picture while biking through the city… I guess I didn’t want to remember landromats and scooters and bank headquarter buildings. That being the case, we pushed on through the city and immediately found ourselves in the woods. Northeast of the city center, you run into a giant green wall of park lands following the main biking route. Past that, you go through a few neighborhoods full of giant mansions, some of whom were actual diplomatic consulate buildings. Specifically I recall seeing one for Iraq and one for Yemen. We passed several impeccably dressed people riding horses the other way down the street. After the mansions, the path goes into the woods again, then farms, and emerges at another spectacular cafe, where we took our lunch and made full use of the ample kids’ puzzles and books on offer.

By now it was late afternoon and we weren’t 100% sure where we would end up sleeping, but we didn’t get nervous, we just pushed on into the sand dune paths going northeast along the coast. Something would turn up. “Something” turned out to be a stunning 3-star hotel in amongst the dunes, with amazing views of empty wilderness and a gorgeous outdoor dining area. There wasn’t another building in sight. They took Amex. It was perfect. I cannot recommend the place enough.

A fine place to have a beer

I slept better here than I have anywhere else in a long, long time. The next day we got up and started along those same sand dune paths northeast, meaning to make Haarlem by dinner.

Den Haag to Haarlem… sortof

Riding through the dunes was incredible. The weather was great (at first), the scenery was beautiful, the paths are in outstanding condition, and there are no scooters. None. It’s perfectly quiet. The ocean is up over the dunes to your left, should you care to stop and climb up to see it.


This was some of the best riding to be found in both countries. There are gentle hills, nothing but bikes around, and the air smells nothing like the air in your office. At some point, though, my wife’s inner wanderlust took over, and we left the rolling dune paths for the cow-filled interior to have a change of scenery and suss out some hot lunch opportunities.

After lunch in some little town square, we began to battle some serious rain. Annika slept through a lot of it (naptime is naptime, weather be damned) under an umbrella and her own raincoat. The Bobike’s windshield helped a ton here as well, but credit goes almost entirely to my wife for holding a crap-ball umbrella in one hand and piloting a fully-laden battleship with the other. At one point we stopped under a bridge, then went to a hotel to ask about renting a crib for a few hours, but in the end we just sucked it up and got back to biking.

A few hours later the rain had stopped and we rolled into Haarlem ready to find a place to sleep. But the city didn’t look as good as we had hoped. We looked around, looked at our watches, looked at a map showing Amsterdam a few tantalizingly short hours away, shrugged, and made east once more for the capital city.

We rolled into Amsterdam at about 5:30pm, exhausted and ready for food and a good room. I took Anni to a playground while Megan took off on one of the bikes to go searching for a room. 45 minutes later, she returned and frowned. “Nothing. Everything’s full so far. I’m starving and I can’t think straight. Let’s eat first.” We had a gigantic meal and started out again to find a room, this time starting with the Tourist office. They informed us that there was a 30,000 person conference in town, and that rooms were going to be tight. We managed to find a grand total of ONE room in town, which was 480 Euros a night… not gonna happen. So we hopped onto a train at 9:00pm and went south to Utrecht, figuring they wouldn’t (couldn’t) be as full. We were right.

By the time we got a room at 10:30pm, we had biked for something like 10 hours and ridden a train for another 30 minutes south. The hotel in Utrecht was fine, the city looked beautiful at night – canals, cobblestones, the usual formula.

Final Trip – Utrecht to Amsterdam

Awake, dressed, and fed in Utrecht, we looked at the forecast to find “severe wind advisory.” The direction of the wind was generally north-northeast. That would put a 25mph wind more or less behind us. I’ll be honest, I was ready to chicken out, but my wife does not know how to surrender, and the last viable day of riding in the Netherlands was at stake. We opted to bike it back up there for our last night in country, optimistic about having the wind help (and not hurt) our progress.

In a perfect world, the path from Utrecht to Amsterdam would be devoid of any left turns. As it is, however, the path frequently veers and bobs and meanders going around farms, through villiages, and under highways. Each of those western jogs meant squaring off with a steady 25mph wind in your face, with gusts in the mid 30’s. In my case that meant I was over the bars, crawling in 1st gear to stay upright. In my wife’s case, it meant that the wind had not just her body and her bike to push on, but a giant windshield. She was able to do it sitting down, somehow, which was both amazing and humbling. To make matters even worse, we both missed a sign somehow and turned west directly into that wind for at least 5 miles of path so long and perfectly straight you could see the curvature of the earth at its end. It took us a gruelling hour to finally realize our mistake, and just 15 short minutes to backtrack that same distance – in 3rd gear, barely touching the pedals, cursing.

So don’t do that. Ever.

Once we got back on track, we came across something interesting a mile or so up the correct trail; a canal crossing. This one was hand-powered, with a little barge that you crank across by turning a big wheel on shore which pulls on a stainless steel chain submerged in the water. It’s difficult to turn, and each full rotation brings the barge about 4 inches closer. It took about 6 minutes of all-out cranking to bring it over.

C’mere, boat.

Suffice it to say that Utrecht to Amsterdam was difficult, but the difficulty was entirely due to the wind, which turned out to actually be the remnants of Hurricane Irene. If it weren’t for the special conditions, this would’ve been an amazingly pretty route. The area leaving Utrecht to the north in particular was gorgeous, with tiny town after tiny town marking the progress as you go along with the canal always to your left. We did make it back to Amsterdam, we stayed in someone’s place we found the night before online at Airbnb.com, we had killer take-out indian food, we slept like the dead, and the next day we got home in much the same manner as we arrived. Our panniers were re-packed into the large rolling bag, we returned the rental bikes (the guy’s face was great when I told him where the bikes had been), we took a train to the airport, and eventually biked home from Logan to Fresh Pond, Cambridge.

Conclusions for folks who want to bike there with a kid

1. Make sure you know how to let your kid nap while riding. Our solution worked great, your mileage may vary.
2. Don’t sweat light rain, but DO sweat heavy winds. Bring Goretex and a cheery attitude, and check that forecast for wind before you decide what you’re doing that day.
3. Become internet lodging ninjas. Airbnb.com, Homeaway.com, and the local tourist info office’s kiosks will get you sorted quick.
4. Don’t be in a hurry. Follow the routes, even when there’s a straighter line on the map. That’s how we found 75% of the really cool cafes, the petting zoo, fortress ruins, WW2 ammo depos and such.
5. Go do this, or something very much like it. Now. The people rock, the beer is incredible, the scenery is inspiring, and you’re not getting any younger.



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