Amazing roads and beautiful places close to home
Today it was not so hot, better said nice weather for riding, so I was taken for a tour in the area. The tour brought us to the best historical places of the areas of Westfriesland en Laag Holland. The route followed nice winding dike roads along the empoldered land on the west side and the winding roads along the lake on the east. The first part was following the main road to Wognum, from there small local roads to Rustenburg to hit the dike roads.
From Rustenburg a quick run along three windmills to Oterleek. Because it is empoldered the area is full of windmills. After we continued to follow the dike to the small villages Driehuizen en West-Graftdijk before arriving at De Rijp. De Rijp was in the 17th to 19th century a flourishing fishing village until it the lakes were drained and the connections to the lakes were closed in the 19th century.
When the lakes Schermeer, the Starnmeer, and the Beemstermeer were drained it resulted in a terrain with dikes and waterways. These dikes give beautiful winding roads with breathtaking sceneries, amazing to ride in. When navigating here some attention have to be made that one will not be at the wrong side of the water, that might end in a long detour.
Towards the south it were the winding dike roads, from there we rode eastwards in almost a straight line passing a small villages Middenbeemster and Kwadijk, the last one is nowadays closed for through going traffic😇. Then from Edam we took the dike road along the lake North to Hoorn a road which was familiar area to us. In the past years they have reinforced the dikes and put new asphalt. But care had to be taken as the grid at the sides was also renewed and some was still loose on the road.
We took some back roads through Hoorn as it was Kermis, on of the biggest fairs in the region. From Hoorn we took the familiar Circuit Park Zuiderdijk to Enkhuizen. The video below gives an impression of our tour.