A funny route I hear you say County Clare via Rotterdam, Maastricht and Charleroi. Not really as there was a very cheap flight and Holland was perfect for a week of warming up before the main week on more hilly terrain.
The first photograph of the journey is from Delft just around 6 k.m into our trip. Famous for it's pottery Worldwide it also houses one of Holland's top universities specialising in science and engineering.
A more modern sculpture emphasising the relationship between mathematics and engineering.
More of a tourist's view of Delft narrow canals grachten ended by a church
The horse in a field indicating there is countryside in Europe's most densely populated region.
Into Rotterdam and we see the Ring on the left but we're OK on a side road. Interetingly although we are always wrongly accused of being unpatriotic we did notice some inovations in traffic management that came from Britain. Junction numbers and flexible speed limits controlled by illuminated signs - first used successfully on London's Orbital M25 (Ring.)
Three eggs in an uitsmijter - I think that's my quota for the week but perfect fuel for the cyclist.
De Kuip again - needs no introduction.
The view South towards Antwerp seen by football fans just before they get into the ground.
The proptotype for the more famous Erasmusbrug takes us over The Ring.
After crossing Rotterdam we reach the departure point of the half hourly ferry service to Krimpen aan de Lek calling first at Kinderdijk.
The road alongside the River Lek - not much one the road but it was Friday and I did detect a stampede to escape the pressures of modern life. The reason it is so empty is that it is quite difficult to get to even though Krimpen is still in the greater Rotterdam area.
Looking East we get an idea of the volume of water involved here, This is part of a delta of rivers that has it's source in the Alps but merges with the Maas (Meuse) which comes from the centre of France via The Ardennes and Liege.
The Waalkade (quay on the River Waal) at Nijmegen. It's Sunday lunchtime and as we are going to Ireland and it is September it's probably the last time we can enjoy the Summer sun this year. For the record we did cycle all the way stopping just near Rhenen but we have covered this area before. Documentary evidence is available on request.
After an overnight stop in Venlo we find ourselves in Maastricht enjoying locally brewed beer paid for in local currency.
Even at this safe distance we have heard some "Rumblings in the Shires"* over out stance on Britain's entry into the Euro. Although we do try to say as unbiased as possible The current government's position on the referendum date has so inconsistent that missing a comic opportunity not satirising it would be doing a disservice our broad based and politically astute readership.
We did think of introducing voluntary censorship with the following categories
Our position on gay jokes is that given they now enjoy equal opportunity in society they should welcome not too offensive jokes as a sign of their acceptance.
The idea thought of for about two minutes on a train was to have a local filter on the home PC with source code and some coding in the page as HTML comments to alert the software but but we felt that it is a fair amount of work and the readers would only download the uncensored version to see what they were missing.
* We apologise to the residents of Dudley, West Midlands who suffered a minor earthquake recently.
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The old bridge at Maastricht
One of the many cobbled alleyways in this historic trading post.
After a leisurely lunch we head back to the station to pick up our train to Liege - our overnight stop before heading to the airport at Charleroi for the flight to Shannon.
Well we didn't make it to Ireland before the prologue ended but the best is yet to come we promise. At a browser near you sometime around the weekend.
Our letters address but some time we feel we are the only ones interested in politics. Although The British are not known as a passionate race there;s one thing that does get the pulse racing and that's Europe. So come on don't be shy but keep it parliamentary. Try not to hit the keyboard / screen too hard by the way.as we will not be held liable for any injury or damage.
Monster Latest: The authorities have been informed but we are waiting for the photo to be engaged before we make a definitive judgment.