It rained this morning so, I had breakfast in the tent and packed up. It didn’t last too long and things dried out fairly well,so I rode into Leer to have a look around. It’s a nice harbour town, so I lingered a bit and had a coffee and croissant at the busiest place just outside he central area.
When it was time to leave, I retraced my steps out past the campground and towards Weenen. That’s a smaller harbour town but nice too.
It was overcast , and very flat and straight as I made my way through Bunde and over the border to The Netherlands and Bad Nieuweschans. There I stopped at the first supermarket and got some food for lunch along with some Dutch treats that I’d been looking forward to like drop(salted licorice),stroopwafels, aged cheese and kroket. So, lunch was tasty !
From there it was a fairly easy run in to Groningen along bike paths and as I got closer, along the river. I camped at the Stadspark which is a huge park area near the city. It’s a well used area with paths in all directions, ponds, sport fields etc. Google sent me a very complicated way to the camping area and I took quite a few wrong turns as the small paths crisscrossed. As a result, the last few kms took about half an hour.
The campground here is wonderful. It’s towards the edge of the Stadspark, and full of old trees and happy people. On arrival, the owners were sitting outside the reception having their meal. Nothing seemed a problem – “Want to order some bread or croissants for the morning ? Ah, pay tomorrow, relax and enjoy your stay here”.
I went to the tent area and it was comfortably full, but immediately someone jumped up and told me where there was space, everyone said hello and the atmosphere was fantastic.
I met an English family on a bike tour – Shaun and Rebecca and kids – absolutely lovely people.
I also met some Dutch people. One lady lived in Groningen and had two friends visiting. They were asthmatics and her house was too dusty for them, so they all came camping. What a great idea !
The next day, I looked around for bike tyres but some of the bike shops were closed. Luckily, bike shops are everywhere here. It’s such a great cycling city that I enjoyed just going around looking for a bike shop that had what I wanted. I found one that had the latest Schwalbe Marathon Efficiency tyres. They’ll be the only efficient thing I have.
What stands out here is how cyclists are treated at traffic lights. They don’t force us to compete with cars at all. At a four way intersection, all cyclists go at the same time. You’d think that chaos would ensue but it works perfectly. Everybody gives and takes and that’s necessary everywhere with so many cyclists and pedestrians around. I didn’t hear a raised voice or see any anger for my whole time here. I wish we could be more like that back home.
I fitted the new tyres and all is again good with the world. After all of that running around, I didn’t want to leave Groningen without having a better look around, so I booked in for another day.
