31st May 2016. Zwolle, Holland.

We cycled into Zwolle today.  It is beautiful and so easy to get around on a bike.   We stopped for lunch at a cafe called Bagels & Beans.   We had bagels with little side dishes, you could choose the type of bagel you wanted and the flavour of the cream cheese (if you had that).  It was very tasty.

We passed a museum that had a huge ‘egg’ made of silver shingles sited on the roof along with a golden pigeon.  Hopefully we can come back and visit it.

Darren was pleased, we found an ice cream shop.  There was a very busy one in the square but we found a quiet ice cream parlour near the bagel shop and after we’d eaten our ice cream and drank our coffee the shopkeeper kindly offered to take a photo of us together.

Zwolle has loads of cobbled streets which were ‘interesting’ to cycle on when your bum is a bit tender!

Darren went into the bike shop next to Van Zwolle, the ice cream shop and bought a speedo/odometer for the bike to see how far we cycle.  Apparently they had very little in the way of accessories so who knows where you buy such things in Zwolle.  We have been looking for a multi-tool to keep with the puncture kit and nearly bought one in a outdoor shop which was a bit like Go Outdoors where you need a discount card to get a better price but it was too expensive and had lots of tools on it that we have no use for so thought better of it.

While I was sitting outside the ice cream shop waiting for Darren to return a lady wheeled her bike to the shop opposite and left it propped up against the wall then went inside.  Nothing unusual in that except there was a little white fluffy dog sitting in the open basket on the front of the bike.  He was so well behaved he just sat there and watched with interest at the people walking/cycling by.

After our day out in Zwolle, we cycled back to the marina and did some jobs on the van and Darren fitted the speedometer to his bike.  He also tried to move the basket mounting bracket down to make the bike easier to fold but the post was too large further down so that was a failure.

While he was busy doing that I made use of the sunshine that was left and did some washing in the twin tub, balancing my ironing board on the kitchen worktop to do the ironing.  I’m pleased I bought that, it’s proving to be very useful.

When I’d finished we sat in our garden chairs enjoying the evening sun drinking coffee, although actually I was a bit of a wuss and sat in the shade because I had developed heat rash on my legs, far too much sun already!!

I’d love to come back to the marina and Zwolle and spend more time exploring the town, there is so much to see, far more than we could see in a day.

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