Here’s what happens when you violate the three-day rule

Gavin and I have a rule for traveling that if you don’t know how something is going to go, you don’t do it for more than three days. The theory is this: you can always do the day you arrive. You can always do one full day. And you can always do the last day. But if there is a second full day, it is more difficult to keep up morale.

We developed this rule after a vacation to Vietnam in 2016, which included a four-day “all-inclusive” guided hiking tour through the mountainous Lào Cai Province in the country’s northwest corner. We were advised to bring very little in the way of personal belongs as our every need would be provided for. What wasn’t explained was that the guides – while very kind – did not really speak English, the accommodations were a blanket on the floor, we would be expected to parch our thirst with the hosts’ bathtub moonshine, and we, and the host family, would all be sharing one towel.

We were touched by hospitality we received, we definitely saw the real Vietnam, and we have some great stories. But: three day rule.  (The full story is here.)

I have another rule for traveling, however, that I try to accommodate the interests of the group as a whole. So when my college roommate Susan Bean proposed a four-day cycling trip through the Netherlands, I agreed wholeheartedly. Gavin and I had been skiing all winter and were in shape. We would stay in three-star hotels and eat luxuriously each day. And it’s flat. I’ve done the IronMan and several multi-day bike rides. How hard can this be? I had fallen in love with the Netherlands after having visited as a child, and since you can fly there direct from Trondheim, I was eager to go back.

The Netherlands might be about the most underrated country in the whole world. From the minute you arrive, you really get the sense that the Dutch have made the most of the tiny scrap of swampland that they call home. Despite having the highest population density in Europe, their transportation infrastructure is so excellent that you essentially never have to deal with crowds. The trains are frequent and run on time, and the country even has a highway system solely for bicycling. Being that one-quarter of all trips in the Netherlands are taken by bike, it was the right way to see the country.

The Day You Arrive (Haarlem to Delft, 61 km)

Our tour was coordinated by Holland Bike Tours (highly recommended), which operates out of the Amsterdam suburb of Haarlem. We were provided hybrid bikes with panniers to carry our stuff and a GPS pre-programmed with four days of cycling routes. Day one took us from Haarlem along the coast, up and down sand dunes, past the country’s administrative capital in The Hague, and into the university town of Delft. So far so good.

Perhaps it’s because they have such an impressive bike highway system (and so you are never really biking in traffic), but the Dutch don’t put a premium on helmets. Luckily Gavin and I have bike helmets for our roller skis, because they weren’t provided by our tour.

The First Full Day (Delft to Gouda, 73 km)

Day two started out just fine as well. We biked from Delft to Rotterdam, where we took a water taxi down the canal to the Kinderdijk Windmills. Canals and windmills aren’t just stereotypes – they are ubiquitous in the Netherlands. The country feels less like a landmass, and more like of body of water that has been drained in some places (which is not a surprise, because that’s what it is). It was not uncommon to see houses surrounded on all sides by canals, moat style, with a bridge connecting it to the nearby dike.

The Kinderdijk Windmills are a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Netherlands. Gavin and I took some of these pictures while riding, which in retrospect was a bad precedent to set.

Unfortunately, by the afternoon the cycling had aggravated a neck injury that I’ve been nursing the whole time we’ve been in Europe, and the afternoon was a real slog. I’m usually better at self-management, but having made some progress toward healing in recent weeks, I had let my guard down. The last few hours of cycling were grueling and uncomfortable. But nothing, I hoped, that couldn’t be addressed by some Advil and a hot shower once we reached the hotel.  However, I’ve never been so bewildered by a room layout like at the Best Western Plus City Hotel Gouda.

The shower was not in a bathroom, and had no door or curtain, such that the showering person could be seen from almost any vantage point.  Simple enough — banish people who shouldn’t watch you shower to the beds, which at first glance appeared enough out of the way as to provide some privacy. But as you’ll notice in the pictures below, they can both clearly been seen from the shower — through poorly-placed mirrors.

The Second Full Day (Gouda to Weesp, 60 km)

Given my neck situation, I started the day with all self-management techniques I know. I stretched, drank coffee, took some pain killers, and had a good breakfast (including three kinds of Gouda cheese). I adjusted the bike and changed up my riding cadence. And I felt like I could handle the day.

We set off, and about 10 km later Susan pulls out her phone to take a picture while riding, as we had done the day before. It did not go as well for her, and she fell, re-injuring her left knee, which she had previously injured in a work-related trampolining accident (!!!) in January.

We still had 50 km to go. Susan got back on the bike and kept riding. Susan is a beast.

My neck and I were managing but we weren’t enjoying it. Gavin correctly assessed the situation and took long turns pulling at the front of our peloton, so that we got some respite from the brutal headwinds.

It was a day to be endured.

(Note from Gavin: The lowest moment for me came after a particularly long and difficult pull at the front – I was pretty proud of the pace I’d set and the amount of time I’d held it, and I was burned out.  As soon as I slowed, a twelve-year-old girl in a skirt who had been hiding in our slipstream pulled out and passed us like it was nothing.)

Luckily, Weesp is lovely. It’s a testament to the complete awesomeness of the Netherlands that Weesp doesn’t even make the cut for for the Lonely Planet Netherlands guidebook.

Oh, and Gavin’s phone turned itself off and has never turned on again.

The Last Day (Weesp to Haarlem, 0 km)

There was no way we could get back on a bike.

Susan’s knee was swollen and she was kind of crotchety. As was I. We ditched the day’s planned 70 km and decided to take the train back to Haarlem. We walked 1.5 km to the train station and took two train connections, all while maneuvering our bikes and bike bags. After months in the near-Arctic, the heat was getting to us.

After the dropping off the bikes with the tour company, we took the train back to Amsterdam, where we stowed our luggage and set out to kill time until our flight to Norway, where Susan would be joining us for another week. We needed an activity that would allow us to be stationary for as long as possible, so we took a canal cruise through the city. This killed enough time until we could go to the airport.

Susan got excellent care at the airport, where the desk agent took one look at her and immediately signed her up for “assistance.” We got her a wheelchair and priority access through security and for boarding. Scandinavian Airlines gave her a pickled vegetable pie and a smoked lamb concoction, both of which seemed pretty suspicious.

It was a long day getting back to Norway, after several long days biking while injured. It speaks to my very high opinion of the Netherlands that I would totally recommend a trip like this to anyone who was interested. It’s a beautiful country, friendly people, and seeing it by bike is the way to go. But stick to three days.

Susan, thanks for being such a champ. And Gavin, thanks for being steady as a rock in the face of two women who were falling apart.