Day 5 - Baarle-Nassau - Deurne (Leiden -> Venlo trip)

Bicycle: 72.9 km

Riding time: 4:18 h
Total ascent: 83 m
Avg speed: 16.9 km/h
Route: Baarle-Nassau - Deurne
Weather: Cloudy, a bit sun and no rain, 18 C

Today was a relatively eventeless ride from Baarle-Nassau to my second convent hotel in this trip. 

Less forests than yesterday, a few more fields and a long ride along a channel. 

The channel is quite similar to the Vliet channel that links Leiden with Den Haag and Delft. But with much less boat traffic. Obviously today was a weekday (Friday) so not many recreational boat riders but also not a single transport ship. So maybe this channel is now outdated for transport. 

Following the entire time the LF route would have resulted in a 84 km ride. But after so many km in my legs from the previous days, I had planned also a somewhat shorter version. Unfortunately that went right through Helmond and from there along a rather major road to Deurne. So the last 10/15 km weren't the nicest to ride. We are talking the Netherlands, so obviously there was ALWAYS a cycle path but even cycle paths alongside busy roads aren't really nice. But it brought me to my hotel a bit earlier so I had some rest time. But not enough time on catching up with the blog. This here I am writing while waiting for my dinner. But the blog post for Day 3 is still waiting to be even drafted. At least I got cleaned up the one for Day 4 in the afternoon. 

The shortcut through Helmond however brought me to these cube houses, by the same architect as the more famous ones in Rotterdam. 

Good thing tomorrow is a quite short ride. 55 km along hopefully scenic paths to Venlo. Actually if I would just take the shortest path, Venlo is only 36 km away. But no reason to cut things short tomorrow.