Day 3

I ended quite a while ago saying we were on the start of our great adventure. Here’s what happen on day 3.

We woke up early so we could have breakfast and get ready to embark on our cycling trip. We skipped taking a shower in the morning as the hostel had a very dimly lit bathroom. Let me go back a while and describe our hostel in Utrecht. It had a LED-lit room, making it really dark at night. They might as well not put a light in there. The bathroom is no better. Only a really small LED panel to light up a big room. I have no idea how people can stay there.

Back to the main story. We had breakfast that the hostel owner cooked and whilst we were eating, she gave us a roll of bags to ask us to pack for lunch cuz it’s free. She also plopped a bottle of wine next to us and said, “Here, for you. Take it for tonight.” We thanked her and started taking buns for lunch and boiled eggs.

Off we went on our great cycling trip from Utrecht to Gouda which is about 50km journey. I started off wobbly as I just wasn’t used to cycling with a huge rucksack strapped to my back. Coupled with the fact that the wind was against us everywhere we cycled, we very fast got tired. We weren’t sure about the way to Gouda as we only had a guide book telling us which path to take and both of us aren’t that great map readers. Having to stop every once in a while didn’t help matters. Sarah fell a few times and I think I was getting a bit hysterical – laughing at every small matter.

Someone told me that the Nederlands are all flat and will be easy to cycle there…… believe me, it’s hard to cycle. Especially if you haven’t been cycling regularly and training for this. I was so tired that I was nauseous. Needed to have sips of cola to revive myself. Quick energy…

After struggling for 3 hours, we had only reach Vleuten. Vleuten was only 26km from Utrecht. Meaning we were only halfway. Imagine my dismay….

 

We couldn’t do it anymore… We decided to cycle to Woerden which was nearby and take a train from there to Gouda. It only took about 15 minutes to reach Gouda…. –_-..

It didn’t take us too long to find the VVV and ask for directions to our hotel. Hotel Campanile was about 15 minutes cycle from Gouda Maarkt.

Ooooo…. our hotel was far better than our previous accommodations. So much more luxurious.

We cycled back to the town and wandered around. We saw the GoudA museum at about 4.15pm and went in to ask how much the admission was. It was €5 each but we didn’t were reluctant to go in as there won’t be enough time to slowly look in the museum. The man there said he would give us one ticket free meaning we would only have to pay €5 for the both of us. The museum was worth it.

We also managed to pop our heads into St Janskerk – the longest church in the Nederlands – for free! It was 5 minutes to closing and we asked if she minded us popping our heads in for a quick look and she allowed us to do it!

Gouda is a pretty place and I like it. It’s a city famous for cheese – Gouda cheese. However, the cheese market is only operational in summer.

We had chips and burgers for dinner. Chips seem to be very popular among Dutch people. There are shops selling fries everywhere!

We cycled back and grateful to have a comfortable room to stay in for the night. We also had two free drinks from the hotel. We also hand washed all the clothes we had worn over the pass few days and dried them over the heater.

We then went to the comfy bed… and slept like logs.