Author Topic: Wedding WAARTIE (Read 3397 times)

Wowbagger · « **on:** 23 February, 2013, 01:35:25 pm »

I have just booked berths from Harwich to the Hook & back, and hotel accommodation for 3 nights, so that Jan and I can watch our nephew tie the knot in the Grote Kerk, Naarden, on 10th May.

We will catch the ferry form Harwich on Weds 8th, cycle to a hotel, where I have just booked 3 nights for 2 of us for £150, go to the wedding on the Friday, spend the Saturday pootling around, probably visiting Amsterdam, which is only about 20 miles away, and then cycling back to the Hook on the Sunday, ready to catch the ferry on Sunday night.

If anyone else is available for a WAARTIE on Saturday 11th May then we'd be pleased to see you.

There may be pancakes.

Kim · « **Reply #1 on:** 23 February, 2013, 01:45:00 pm »

Is WAARTIE an acronym, or just WARTY in Dutch?

Aidan · « **Reply #2 on:** 23 February, 2013, 02:12:44 pm »

Thats a lovely place to get married! Its a really nice church, one of the oldest in Holland.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #3 on:** 23 February, 2013, 04:57:45 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 23 February, 2013, 01:45:00 pm

Is WAARTIE an acronym, or just WARTY in Dutch?

Just a bastardised Dutch spelling.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #4 on:** 06 March, 2013, 01:27:40 am »

I have been Fietsrouteplanning on a Fietsrouteplanner.

http://www.nederlandfietsland.nl/fietsrouteplanner

It's a brilliant website. Click the starting point (the Harwich ferry) and the end-point (our hotel just outside Naarden) and it gives you a downloadable route on cycle paths, a 10-page turn-by-turn route sheet with maps of your chosen scale, junction numbers and road names, the fact that there's a ferry over the Amstel, complete with times (the first ferry offered only seems to run Sundays, so I was able to block that and choose one that runs every day).

It makes navigating ridiculously easy.

Domestique · « **Reply #5 on:** 06 March, 2013, 11:56:35 am »

Just watch out that you dont miss the sometimes easy too miss 'point' signs

Not that its a problem.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #6 on:** 16 April, 2013, 05:38:27 pm »

I discovered that I am capable of spectacular balls-ups.

I examined a few minutes ago the email from Stena Line that arrived in February to discover to my horror that I had booked the wrong ferry. I had booked the daytime ferry for the outward journey. I also discovered that booking the train tickets at the time would give me a considerable saving.

It was not possible to add the rail tickets on, so I cancelled the original booking for full refund and booked again through Rail & Sail. The trains are now costing a total of £36 for two, which includes return tickets form Southend to Harwich and tickets from the Hook of Holland to any Dutch station. That gives us the option of getting on a train if the weather looks to be especially ghastly.

Canardly · « **Reply #7 on:** 16 April, 2013, 06:07:50 pm »

Which illustrates that a YACF dutch week end should be highly affordable.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #8 on:** 16 April, 2013, 06:39:32 pm »

Total price for two, including train fares: £274 for overnight crossings. I believe that this can be reduced by £86 for daytime crossings, for which you don't have to book a cabin.

delthebike · « **Reply #9 on:** 16 April, 2013, 06:44:03 pm »

Quote from: Wowbagger on 16 April, 2013, 06:39:32 pm

Total price for two, including train fares: £274 for overnight crossings. I believe that this can be reduced by £86 for daytime crossings, for which you don't have to book a cabin.

I've just been looking at the same time travel as Wowbagger and, without ferry meals, it comes to £158 for a single cabin on the night crossings, including trains at each side.

Domestique · « **Reply #10 on:** 18 April, 2013, 05:59:17 pm »

I dont think we have ever bothered with eating hot food on the boat. Always took our own stuff on. By the time we have got on board, normally just head straight for the cabin, eat, shower and cozy down for the night.
This year we are heading to Denmark and have booked the breakfast option. Time will tell if it is worth the extra ££

dasmi · « **Reply #11 on:** 18 April, 2013, 06:48:03 pm »

check if tesco vouchers can still be used for ferry..........return over night crossing with meals cost around £300.......vouchers plus £5 postage

dave

Wowbagger · « **Reply #12 on:** 18 April, 2013, 07:04:21 pm »

I don't own any Teaco vouchers.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #13 on:** 08 May, 2013, 08:10:00 pm »

We are on our way. Forecast looks ok for tomorrow: sunny with a tailwind.

The Carry Freedom looks to be a good addition to the stable.

cycleman · « **Reply #14 on:** 08 May, 2013, 10:45:53 pm »

enjoy

peliroja · « **Reply #15 on:** 09 May, 2013, 11:01:23 pm »

Yes, hope it's wonderful.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #16 on:** 10 May, 2013, 12:12:13 am »

That was a thoroughly memorable day's riding and it will take something extraordinary if it is to be bettered this year.

We bought breakfast on the ferry and of course I made damned sure I got my money's worth with an enormous pile of "full English". By the time we were on the road it was about 8.10 and our initial few mles took us along the North Sea cycle route and into the dunes. I loved this stretch as there were wall-to-wall nightingales. There is no sound in the whole of nature quite so beautiful as the nightingale in full voice and we must have ridden within a few feet of several dozen today but we didn't see any, so well concealed were they in the low scrub.

On leaving the dunes we found ourselves heading for The Hague, where there were some very attractive buildings. We were progressing alongside some waterway or other when we spotted an unusual sight. - heron on top of a street lamp. Within seconds that heron and its mate had swooped down to the spot where a sari'd woman had eptied a sizeable pile of last night's curry with pilau rice? The black-headed gulls, normally amongst the most aggressive of scavengers, kept a very respectful distance when the herons arrived.

The cycling was rmarkably varied. Quite often we were trundling away through forest tracks, seemingly never far from human habitation, at others, but rarely, it seemed, near busy urban streets or A-roads connecting centres of population to one another, but as 11 am apptoached and thoughts turned to coffee and cake, we were surprised at how little presented itself or was shut. Is Thursday the default early closing day in the Netherlands?

More to follow. 88.45 10:4:18

Auntie Helen · « **Reply #17 on:** 10 May, 2013, 07:37:28 am »

I sometimes found it a struggle to find tea & cake in NL when on my Berlin to London trip. I assumed it was just lack of Dutch cake-fu, plus Dutch towns don't seem to have their centres around a church spire like German ones (in Germany you head for the church spire. When you get there and turn round there is a bakery behind you).

Wowbagger · « **Reply #18 on:** 10 May, 2013, 11:16:42 am »

Hook to Huizen part 2.

Somewhere near Leiden things were beginning to get serious and we found a railway station near a motorway where a large letter M loomed out of the sky. After a few seconds' discussn we decided we would rather remain hungry than visit a Macdonalds, and not long afterwards we found a secluded area near the motoway bridge which served as a lavatory. Then, near Buitenkaag, we happened upon a huge canal/river and there was a reataurant with lots of bicycles parked outside. ours soon joined them and it waschicken and bacon club sandwiches with coffee and tea. Very acceptable.

For quite a few miles we carried on along that River/canal, which eventually leads past Aalsmeer (eel lake). There is an awful lot of water in the Netherlands and I was most impressed by the size of the barges floating around on it, rivalling some of those we saw on the Rhine a few years ago whenwe went there with Auntie Helen and Uncle James. We eventually turned away from the river shortly after passing very close to Schipol airport and left the outskirts of Amsterdam, heading through some pasture, with cows,outinot the most rural countryside we had seen.

My one miscalculation was in mistaking how we crossed the A1 motorway to get to our hotel, and that involved an extra 3 or 4 miles on top of our planned 68, so we were pretty knackered by the time we got to the hotel. The problem then arose as to how we travelled to dinner, whichwas 6 or more miles away in Huizen, where the rest of the family were staying. The railway station was a long way away, the taxi would have been prohibitively expensive and in the end we showered, ate the rolls we had nicked on the ferry at breakfast and got on the tandem again. We heard a cuckoo as we were skirting around Narden.

A word about the astonishing woman who is my wife. Quite brilliant on this ride. She's gone the entire winter being ill, miserable, breaking her ankle, being ill again and hardly getting out on her bike for almost 6 months and suddenly she pulls out an 86 mile day, a personal best, on almost no training at all whilst towing a heavy trailer. I just don't know how she does it.

LEE · « **Reply #19 on:** 10 May, 2013, 11:43:29 am »

Quote from: Wowbagger on 10 May, 2013, 11:16:42 am

A word about the astonishing woman who is my wife. Quite brilliant on this ride. She's gone the entire winter being ill, miserable, breaking her ankle, being ill again and hardly getting out on her bike for almost 6 months and suddenly she pulls out an 86 mile day, a personal best, on almost no training at all whilst towing a heavy trailer. I just don't know how she does it.

She passes the miles by thinking of various ways to kill you and make it look like a cycling accident apparently.

Coincidentally that's what I do as well.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #20 on:** 11 May, 2013, 12:50:38 pm »

An excellent day yesterday, although I was feeling especially knackered after Thursday's ride.

Mrs. Wow and I got rather wet this morning cycling into Amsterdam but stopped in Muiden for coffee and apple pie for breakfast. The bar we were in was overlooking avery active swing bridge so there was entertainment. I came back from the bog to find my wife chatting up an attractive young cyclist in Sky kit.

The rain eased as we approached the Rijksmuseum where we had agreed to meet my sister, but although we waited for an hour after the agreed time, she ahd her chap didn't appear. We are now in the Hansel & Gretel bar, having consumed a good lunch. The queue for the Rijksmuseum is enormous, so we will give that a miss and head for the red light district instead. I don't know who is providing this rather good internet connection but but it was available outsided the Rijksmuseum as well, and that is 300 yards away.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #21 on:** 12 May, 2013, 07:55:47 am »

We have decided to toddle down to Utrecht this morning, via the coffee shop in Naarden, where we will have brelevenses. We will have a look around the town and catch a train from there to the Hook for our 9.39 ferry.

We are going to take a fairly circuitous route whick will involve cycling along narrow paths across a very large lake.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #22 on:** 12 May, 2013, 05:10:12 pm »

Now on a train to Rotterdam where we change for the Hook. An excellent few days - we'll be back.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #23 on:** 12 May, 2013, 08:59:40 pm »

I joked to Jan this morning that I wondereed who we would meet today whom we already knew, and it has happened, to one degree of separation.

We briefly chatted with a young cyclist chap on the ferry last Wednesday. We met him again today in the lift and when he saw us eating he came and sat with us and we nattered.

It turned out that he comes from Southend. We asked about his schooling history and he went to Deanes in Thundersley. I asked him if he remembered a Mr. Fawkes, who taught science there. He did, and he was aware that Mr. Fawkes was killed in a hang-gliding accident quite a few years ago.

That Mr. Fawkes was my best friend at primary school.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #24 on:** 13 May, 2013, 06:17:10 am »

We are drinking tea/coffee whilst waiting for disembarkation.

Author Topic: Wedding WAARTIE (Read 3397 times)

LEE