Afternoon ride to Boskoop

Bicycle: 50 km 
Riding time:  2:55 h
Total ascent: 64 m
Avg speed:  17.1 km/h
Max speed:  28.8 km/h 
Route: Leiden - Boskoop - nearly Bodegraven - Alphen - Leiden
Weather: Sunny and quite warm, 20 C

Today I decided to stop working quite early (around 16:00) after a week travelling (to Madrid) and working long hours nearly every day. And then set off for a ride out. I hadn't really a specific idea where to go, until about 10 m after I left home when I thought, that I could try for Boskoop. I had never been there, but the cities name obviously sounds juicy. 

I looked at the street signs and found easily some for Alphen aan den Rijn and decided that on the way I would find further signs for Boskoop. 

Here is where I turned away from the Rhein and off towards Boskoop: 

The way to Boskoop was very well indicated. Around Boskoop the number of tree nurseries went up spectacularly and it seemed that the city council had instated a law mandating a well groomed and designed front garden or face death penalty (or at least eternal ousting from the neighbourhood association). Each garden was a show room and many houses on the back end had a tree nursery attached. 

Per Strava it was 20 C on average, but that must be an average which does not account for the local climate in Boskoop where it was really hot, and that although it was probably already past 18:00 when I was there. 

In the centre of the village is an interesting bridge: 

Then I looked at my map and decided not to continue to Gouda, also because it was getting later and it was still quite hot, so I thought that returning would be a good idea. I had thought to ride to Bodegraven and then along the Rhein back, but finally turned briefly before through a nice landscape including this long and shaded avenue:

I would say that the entire ride until Alphen was very nice. In Alphen itself I got lost (not for the first time, grrrr....), although I tried following the street signs for Leiden, but somewhere I must have assumed straight when it was right. 

While riding (well, while stopping during the ride) I was messaging my husband where I was and at some point I told him that I'd be home before 21:00, to which he replied "Okay, we'll meet after the theatre at home"... um... I had totally forgotten about it. But at that moment I was in Alphen at yet an other vertical lift bridge ...

... and nothing I could do about it anymore to arrive in time for the 20:00 theatre performance. 

So here just a bridge performance: 

Which was probably better than the theatre performance anyway from which my husband returned with nearly an hour delay (there was a discussion about the piece afterwards) and quite annoyed at it (hopefully not at me). 

When I finally found the way home from Alphen, I just stopped one more time to get a picture of this  factory slowly falling apart, inappropriately named "Nieuw Werklust"