Day 4 Ossendrecht - Baarle-Nassau (Leiden -> Venlo trip)

Bicycle: 85 km

Riding time: 6:15 h
Total ascent: 110 m
Avg speed: 16.7 km/h
Route: Ossendrecht - Baarle-Nassau
Weather: Cloudy, a bit sun and one rain, 17 C

Today I mainly pedaled through forests. Which is surprising in a country like the Netherlands where there aren't many forests. Maybe the LF path was especially going through forests, or simply here in the South there are more forests. 

For being the Netherlands there were also some non totally flat areas. I know that in Limburg there are real (small) mountains, but it was more surprising that in a region so close to the sea not everything was totally flat. Actually in the village where I started (Woensdrecht), there was even a street announced on cycling signs as having a 5% ascent. Not that I tried it out though. 

Somehow Komoot or Garmin initially sent me in the wrong direction, back on the path I had come yesterday, but after a while I got suspicious of the route as it just didn't correlate to my expectancy. So retraced my pedal strokes and cycled back to the convent to take the correct route. 

From there onwards it was mainly through forests. Later on also through Belgium, There were still some remains of recent boarder controls (due to Covid-19 boarders between Belgium and Netherlands (and other countries) had been closed.) but now everything was open again. 

I stopped at a ice-parlor-farm (something that exists also close to Leiden, but maybe is a Dutch thing), loaded up my water supplies and had an ice cream, while I could see the rain coming closer and closer. This ice parlor was located in a farm house that was designed by one of the Amsterdam school architects. 

After some rest there, I continued on, although the sky looked darker and darker. Luckily shortly before it started raining I found this public rest place, which was located right besides the medieval gallows hill. But for me it meant a safe place to hide from the rain and eat my sandwiches. 

After crossing more forests I finally made it to Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog, one being Dutch and the second being Belgian, and together being really just one village, as one can see nicely from my evening ride to dinner, where in 3 km of riding I managed to cross the boarder 6 times! But it was worthwhile for an authentic Belgian beer:

While my black brompton made it in February this year to 3 prefectures in Japan at the same time, the green one made it to two different countries today: