There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands so we decided to do as the Dutch do and jump on some bikes during our stay in the Zeeland province in southwestern Netherlands.

Xander, Joseph, Padma and I hired some bikes and cycled along paths to Veere, a village on the Lake Veere. The lake was separated from the North Sea in 1961 and is one of many projects the Dutch have constructed to protect themselves from the sea.

For the first time I rode an e-bike and as we headed home into a 30-kilometer westerly I became convinced that I would be adding an e-bike to my Xmas list.

We stayed a couple of nights with our friends from our Syrian days, Michael and Sabine van Slageren, at their home in the coastal holiday town of Domburg.

After a hot and dry summer we didn’t mind some cool and rainy weather. Michael and Sabine have a hut on the beach so we enjoyed some time on a North Sea beach but mainly we just enjoyed catching up with our generous hosts and seeing them in their homeland.