This morning we wake up to quite a storm! It’s raining ‘cats and dogs’ (now where did that come from?)and the wind is whipping up the green shrubbery in the garden. Fortunately, today is a ‘rest’ day. Ha ha, that just means we will do a short loop around the area without our heavy load.

How we find our accomodations:

Generally, we tend not to prebook too far in advance so we can have some flexibility in our plan especially if the weather turns ugly. Here in Netherlands there are some very good options.

Our number 1 go to is the “Vrienden Op De Fiets” https://www.vriendenopdefiets.nl or Friends of the cyclists.

We paid €15/year to join a few months ago which gave us access to thousands of B&B’s across Netherlands including some in Germany and Belgium. You search via an interactive map and can filter for ‘garden cottages’ which are usually small apartments with separate washrooms and cooking facilities. They all include breakfast, usually boiled eggs, cheeses, yogurt, fruit, and lots of bread (yikes) with chocolate sprinkles!

The cost is €50/night/couple…the best deal going in Europe as far as I know.

If there is nothing available on our route, I next go to https://www.bedandbreakfast.nl and can usually find something there for about €80-€100…also including a hearty breakfast.

If we can’t find anything with those options, we go to booking.com.

So we did our loop today…up to the Vecht River over to Dalfsen and back through forest and fields. We had a few very light drizzly moments along with some good wind, sometimes across and some from behind, and an equal amount of sunny periods! All which made for a very enjoyable ride!

Downtown Dalfsen

Flower of the day…and our route…

And our picnic stop…intensely studying the map!