bikes and castles

It's raining now. Back to the usual Autumnal Amsterdam weather. But this weekend we had a couple of glorious days. The sun showed his face and thinks perked up considerably around here. We even took a bike trip!

Saturday we decided that we would bike out to the village of Muiden (pronounced, roughly, Moy-den). So we saddled up our horses and hit the road.





It actually was a great day for riding, but it was quite windy. Well, that's Holland for you.

Our merry crew was comprised of Margreet, Marco, Anne (my counterpart - the other year-long volunteer, this time from Germany) and Hans.



Taking their biking obsession to its natural extreme, the Dutch have built this, the longest bike bridge in Europe, across the Amstel river.



Anne actually snapped most of these shots, so credit where credit is due. Here we are riding along a wide open landscape of hills and water. According to Hans, an authority on local history, most of this land is artificial.

Part of the reason Hans knows the area- that house in the middle used to be his.



But, you want to see castles. Okay!



Muiden is named after Muiden Castle, which is one of the largest in the country. The Netherlands actually doesn't have so many castles compared to, say, Germany, but this is a nice, large, picturesque one.

You had to buy tickets. Anne and I both procured Museum Cards, which should allow us discounted access to a lot of local museums in the future. I'm pretty excited about that. In the meantime, Marco and I posed for a photo op.



Marco is German, but grew up a Missionary Kid. He's spent some time in both Americas, and speaks English with a flawless American accent. He also digs some classic American films, so he's got a lot going for him in addition to the beard. If you haven't noticed it already, I've got a link to his blog over there on the right.

Inside the castle you find pretty much everything you'd hope for - a courtyard, a dungeon, suits of armor, and lots and lots and lots of stairs.







You'll also find at least one thing you didn't expect - video games?!?



Yep, there are several interactive video games in the castle. Most of them involve flinging boulders, flaming arrows and swords at wicked castle invaders, rendered to look like figures from medieval tapestries.



But what you really have to hear, and what I sadly cannot produce here, are the sound effects - the 'eeks' and 'ahhs!' as yet another invader is squashed, sliced, or sent hurtling into the moat.

Oh, that reminds me, someone had put shark fins in the moat. The local historical society certainly has a theatrical touch.

We couldn't stay long. Evening comes quickly at this latitude. We clambered back onto our fiets and took what was supposedly a more direct route. We passed through the center of Muiden village as we did so, and I really wish we had paused to snap some photos because it was rather picturesque.

Even so, by the time we found our way back into the outskirts of the city, it was getting pretty dark. The problem was that while all of our bikes had the mandatory lights - few of them worked. Mine, for instance, which I had ridden to a party near Museumplein the night before with a functional headlight, had gone dark and could not be revived.

Technically you can get fined for biking without a light, so we were on the alert for cops. Before very long a passing biker warned Margreet that there were some ahead. We dismounted, but saw no sign of them. We were just about to get back on when we spotted them - walking right toward us! Hans lead us down a sidestreet which lead more or less in the right direction, but they turned the corner and followed us!

At that moment we paused so that Magreet could use her cellphone. As we stood around casually on the darkened street corner, leaning on our bikes, the three police ambled past. They said nothing. They weren't long gone before we were back on our bikes, heading in the correct direction, pedaling for all we were worth.

I'm not sure exactly how far we went, but we put in probably three hours steady biking total, and at good speed too. Maybe about 30 km total?

Not too shabby.