At Wednesday’s Club meeting Andrew Somers and his wife Michele gave an interesting presentation on their 2018 trip by barge and bikes from Amsterdam in North Holland to Brugge in Belgium.
Using a PowerPoint presentation and great photographs they explained how they travelled by canals on a converted barge with 13 luxury suites on the lower level and a bar and dining room on the upper level. The other tourists on the barge were from diverse backgrounds including the Canada, Alaska, Australia etc. Andrew and Michele teamed up with two friends from Australia for the duration of the trip.
At each destination along the canals, they were able to use assigned bikes to explore the surrounding sights, either independently or as part of an organised group. Overall, they cycled over 300kms and averaged about 15km per day.
Amsterdam
With the photographs, they conveyed the beauty of Amsterdam with its many canals, bridges, flower displays and of course the common means of transport, bikes. Apparently, there are more bikes in Amsterdam than people, because most of the population have bikes that they use during the week and others that they use at weekends.
Delta Works
One very interesting sight they encountered was the ‘Delta Works’, considered by some to be one of the seven wonders of the world. It is a series of dams, sluices and locks, dykes, levees, and storm surge barriers located in South Holland and Zeeland. It was constructed after the 1953 floods which were caused by a rapid increase in sea level and resulted in 1,836 deaths.
The aim of the dams, sluices, and storm surge barriers is to shorten the Dutch coastline, thus reducing the number of dikes that have to be raised. It is intended to protect the country against further flooding. Work was started in 1954 and completed in 1997.
Brugge
The trip finished in Brugge, a city that Andrew considers to be the best city in Europe, as he has visited it several times and would certainly go back again.
This was a very interesting presentation by Andrew and Michele resulting in many questions from the audience.
Vicky supported the theme of the travel presentation with a range of hot Dutch dishes provided on the buffet.
Well done, everyone.