Middleburg, Zeeland, Netherlands

We toured Middleburg today. It began it's life as a fortification against the Vikings.
This is another harbor town that was also bombed pretty badly during WWII. Many houses were rebuilt but many of it's historical houses were left intact.


Here is a twentieth century picture. We occasionally see kids riding double. This is the first time I've seen one of the kids texting as they go along. She's co-ordinated and talented.


We stopped into a little store on the town square and saw these rows of cheese wheels. Unfortunately we didn't have time to really browse. Sometimes these tour guides are a little like Nazis herding their group along. I guess if everyone was like us (disobedient) then she wouldn't have gotten us to our bus on time.

Bicycle Safety

I already posted pictures of all the bikes found in Amsterdam. There are quite so many bikes out in the other cities, but still a lot more compared to the US.


You see this quite often. I thought it was kind of interesting the child in the front isn't strapped in and no one wears helmets.


Here they have a foot strap. Becky I think Jube can ride like that don't you. She'd probably like sitting in front! I can see her pointing the way to go!


In Antwerp we actually did see a few people with bike helmets on. They were the tourists on a bike tour! Here these kids are riding the escalator up from and underground tunnel from the other side of the river. They don't have any bridges in Antwerp.

Bike parking

Guess how many stories this ramp is? It contains about 5,000 bikes. Yup, I didn't put in too many zeroes.

I already blogged about bikes here. One of the passengers from the previous cruise got hit by a bike and received a black eye. They think they have the right of way above cars. When you get to an intersection without any traffic lights, the cyclist just goes.

An update on the previous cruise passengers. The crew drove a group of them out to the airport this morning and brought them back at 5 pm. It looks like they are sailing with us to the next stop and the on from there until the airlines begin flying again. Needless to say they are very grateful to Viking Cruise for keeping them on the boats. Other travelers are sleep on hard cots at the airport waiting to get out. The "oldies" have breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails etc all on the house with Viking until they can fly out.

The latest word here is whichever authority controls the air space will meet on Monday to re-evaluate. With all this going on, we’re beginning to wonder if we’ll be able to head back home when our cruise ends. Becky, you may have to prep & try that case on your own!

Bikes and books

They have a great culture of bicycling around here. The government encourages their people to bike. The city is pretty compact and like all the older European cities their streets are narrow. It's also pretty flat so biking here is pretty easy. You have to watch out though, I think the cyclists have the right of way and I almost got run over by about a hundred of them. They're on the sidewalks, on the bike paths and in the streets. I see kids in 'boxes' installed on the front of the bikes with their parent cycling them around. Becky, you probably wouldn't do that - no straps!

We got here a couple of days early before the tour starts. They have a fabulous library (bibliotheek). Everyone comes here to hang out. Not only does it have books and magazines, they have rows and floors of pubic computers, ethernet ports for people to come just play games, e-mail, or do home work.

Here's a shot of some of the bikes parked by the library.

This is our hotel. The Grand Amrath. It's only a hundred years and was the center of shipping in Amsterdam. The hotel itself has only been in this building for 3 years. I thought it looked old when I first saw it (and it was) but it's really a beautiful hotel inside! Very modern, I would say 5 stars if I knew what a 5 star hotel was like!