We woke this morning to a strong wind. We knew the forecast was for rain tonight and it appears the wind is the forerunner bringing it in. But, our big question was, is it blowing our way, or will we fight it all day?
The tent was perfectly dry, a first this trip. The wind must be removing moisture. We got up, packed our gear and sat on the dry grass to eat breakfast. I have found Muselix to be my breakfast of choice. It is like granola that was not fried in fat and slathered with sugar. Just rolled oats and other grains with raisins, hazelnuts, sliced almonds, dried bananas and other stuff. It is the one cereal you have to let soak in milk for quite a while to make it enjoyable. I usually add a whole banana and a sliced nectarine mixed in. Good.
Once on our bikes we found the wind pushing us up the dike, much to our satisfaction. I noticed that the route on the GPS app was now labeled EV 15, "Eurovelo 15" and has numbered marker points that match the guidebook we are using! This makes navigating even easier. Our author often leaves the established route to avoid towns or bring us to a point he deems worthy, which adds an element of confusion; which route should we take? Sometimes we stick to the EV15 route as laid out, sometimes his, and in today's case we left both to take a shortcut to our camping site. We have never been lost, and only rarely get off route by more than a few hundred feet before seeing our mistake and turning around.
Within the first five miles we rode through the town of Pannerden, a small, very neat and trim community. Our route took us through the middle of a residential area that was having a huge community garage, or in this case, street sale. The town cops had the traffic barriers up, someone had put speakers up and down the half mile winding course of the road and the road was lined with all the neighbor's garage sale goods. We rode through, taking pictures. It was only about 9:00 am on a Sunday morning. It appeared the whole town was out selling. We wondered who was left to do any buying.
We had another ferry crossing this morning, and 20 minutes after Pannerden we took the turn to the landing. As we approached, we wondered if we were going to have to wait for the ferry to start running on this Sunday morning. As soon as we were in sight we could see our fears were unnecessary. The ferry was on our side of the river and was waiting for us. We rode on, paid our €1.90 fee, and were quickly across. Two miles and we were Huissen, a town on the outskirts of Arnhem.
We noticed an increase in cyclists as we approached Arnhem. Must be in the Netherlands.
Arnhem was the center of the WWII battle coded named "Market Garden", the largest airborne assault to date; an attempt to capture bridges behind German lines and expedite the defeat of Germany. It did not work like that, the Germans overpowered the 10,000 men that parachuted in, held the bridges and killed or captured all but 2000. The area near the bridge is all modern buildings. The fighting and artillery was so intense in that area that no building survived. The British took refuge in a oval shaped perimeter in the town and the Germans flattened every house and building in the area in an attempt to stop them.
A hotel in nearby Oosterbeek served as headquarters for the British and is now a museum about the ill fated attack. We spent an hour or two in this excellent museum which covered all aspects of the attack and effect on the towns people, in detail.
We left the museum about three and rode the couple miles to the Doorworth Castle. There we snooped around a bit and had a piece of pie at the snack bar, before continuing our ride to the campground.
As always, the campground seems more like a mobile home park with a green area for tenters. But, as we learn more, we find many Europeans come for many weeks, if not months during the summer on "holiday".
The reception was closed for the day, so we found the restaurant and paid for our camping €19.50. We found a patch of grass not too far from the WC and pitched the tent. Sally sought out a camper who would let her charge her bike battery. She found a kind gentleman of 70 who had been here two months. He lives only 20 minutes away. He was the aide de camp to the queen. I found a nearby neighbor to charge my phone battery. We cooked up a dinner of new potatoes and sausage, fried in our pot. Excellent. The forecast was for rain starting about 7:00pm and they were right on. We scurried into the tent as it started to fall, blogged and slept. The weather for the next week will be "dodgy", as the British say. We are hoping to dodge the rain storms each day by watching the hourly forecasts. Today we were successful. It can rain all night, but we hope it quits in the morning. It is no fun to pack up in the rain.
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