Flat as a pancake

One of the most amazing things about the Netherlands is how incredibly flat it is. A natural biker, I'm not. I get lost easily in the labyrinth streets, I'm skittish about the traffic (and this is in a country with dedicated bike paths), I'm even more skittish about the pedestrians (re: tourists) who inadvertently wander in front of me, seemingly out of nowhere, and I'm embarrassed to say that I still occasionally have to spend a few minutes locating my bike out of the myriad indistinguishable rusty old bikes parked in the same vicinity as mine. What I've found I do like about biking, at least in Amsterdam, is that it's easy.

Settled on land reclaimed from the sea, the builders of Amsterdam had the foresight to make it flat. As in very very very flat. As in, the very slight slope on a street a few blocks over is worthy of remark. It always catches my eye.

Just how level Amsterdam is was brought home to me when Jason and I made a day trip out to Zuid-Kennemerland National Park yesterday. We, and our bikes, took a quick train out to Haarlem and then headed west on our bikes. The park is notable for it's large sand dunes and I'll admit that before we got there, I wasn't entirely sure how we were going to bike this with our aging one speed bikes. For some reason, perhaps it was the word dune, in my imagination I had pictured hill after hill of sand leading us down to the sea; camel optional. To my surprise, we didn't end up in the Sahara.

Rather, Dutch sand dunes are covered in some of the most beautiful and unique trees and brush that I've ever seen. Very hilly, the landscape is covered in low flora in a range of muted greens, silvers and greys with a few low flowery patches, although I expect that more flowers will appear as the sun becomes stronger. It's the roots of these plants that help protect the sand lying just under the surface, clearly visible on horse trails that appear from time to time. To protect the delicate ecosystem, some areas of which are protected areas set away from the public, the Dutch have built biking and walking paths through the dunes. Even here, wandering through the hills, are the bike paths impressively flat, or so I thought. As a novice biker, it appears that I have landed in the right town. After a day spent biking inclines almost negligible to the human eyes, the ache in my legs was a testament to Amsterdam's impressive uniform flatness.