To the beach!

Bicycle: 34 km 
Riding time: 2:00 h
Total ascent: 77 m
Avg speed:  17.1 km/h
Max speed:  40 km/h

Route: Leiden - Noordwijk - Katwijk - getting lost near Wassenaar and back to Leiden

Weather: Sunny and nice again, 16 C

Again, nice weather, again on the bike! I don't know if this year is a specially good year weatherwise in the Netherlands, or if it is all a prejudice that it is raining every day in the Netherlands. But this year, I cannot really complain. February and March I remember as very sunny (and freezing cold) and now since at least mid May it is nice, warm, sunny and the days with rain are few.

For a change today my ride went to a new direction, towards the beach at Noordwijk. The ride out of the city from about km 5 wasn't that nice, as the lane was paved (not asphalted), but well. But then there is the beach:

Noordwijk is actually quite a touristic place, with a  lot of ugly hotel buildings.

After a brief stop on the beach I continued my ride and this second part of the ride was definitely great. The best part must be the ride through the dunes between Noordwijk and Katwjik. On a perfect cycling lane on top of the dune.

Which is also one of the highest places in South Holland. I think the highest is actually a dune a bit to the South of Katwijk and I think not accessible, but even this one here is quite high and has quite some up-and-down. Well, for the Netherlands. Not for any other normal country. And a lot of cyclists seem to use these "hills" for training.

The dune ride is actually not very long, about 4 km.

Also the way back to Leiden was quite nice, also thanks to getting lost. Actually I had decided to ride back to Leiden on the straightest line... but as you can see from the map below, I did not succeed in this. One wrong turn!

However the road to Wassenaar but also from Wassenaar to Leiden was great. Nicely asphalted, not a lot of bicycle traffic, bicycle lanes all the way and through nice quiet countryside. I was actually a bit surprised as I remembered the straightroad from Katwijk to Leiden as not being so nice (just being a major road with a cycling lane besides it). So I was actually quite surprised to see that my memory was incorrect... but actually only my sense of orientation was incorrect. Well, thanks to getting lost I got a 2 h, 34 km "hilly" ride.