Saturday  July 12, 2014
We had breakfast at the hotel then got on the tram and back to the waterfront at Central Station.  From there we walked to the harbor, found the barge dropped off our stuff and went in search of food from a grocery store.  Back to the barge.  About one we were off and down the Rhine-Amsterdam canal for an hour cruse to the start of the bike portion at the town of Nigtevecht.  Our shake down ride of 17 kilometers was mostly down a one lane road which was crowded with all 30W bike riders and cars occasionally coming from both directions.  Passed an old working windmill, a small meandering river (Vecht) with some old mansions, to the town of Breukelen.  Side point here... Many people left this town to travel to America and setteled in that is now Brooklyn N.Y. After crossing the Breukelen bridge we ended the ride near Utrecht.  At that nights talk we learned a bit of history, namely why the nation is called Holland.  Back in the 1600's Many of the wealthy dutch traders said they were from Holland.  Holland is actually the name of just two provences west and north of Amsterdam)  The name stuck.

The first working windmill we came across.  Originally their main use was to move water.  Later they were used for everything else.

 An interesting gutter decoration along the route.

 This is a "Tea House"  Note the boat access to the canal.  This structure was used for entertaining, separate from the main house

And here is the original Breukelen Bridge, which we crossed.  Brooklyn N.Y. got its name from this village.