't Gooi! Flevoland!

Here they come! Some of you readers have complained via e-mail that this blog has slowed down. OK, then, fasten your seat belts, check your airbags--this blog has WHEELS, and in chronicling my summer rides around the Netherlands, I have some catching up to do--some tales to tell, some pictures to show.

First: test ride to Hilversum and 'S-Graveland. On the twelfth, I rode to Hilversum, the next village to the south. It seemed like a long ride, but it's utterly laughable now--the whole afternoon trip was only 30 kilometers, and I never even got out of 't Gooi, the relatively high-and-dry part of the Netherlands I live in. OK, granted I had to buy some maps and things at the ANWB shop in Hilversum, and have lunch, and granted I got obsessed with getting a GPS fix on the Media City tower (tallest landmark in central Netherlands, useful for later navigation). And granted most of the riding was on gravel bike paths. Still, I can't believe what an adventure I found this short trip.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and in Hilversum's center square they had dumped sand and put up a volleyball net. It could have been any Florida beach, except I suppose for the Dutch gable-topped houses all around. Here they players are giving it their best, and coaches are doing what they typically do best. At least that's universal.
 

Hilversum is a very attractive, wooded town, one of the wealthiest in the Netherlands. The Gemeentehuis, more or less the city hall, is done in a 1930s style that manages to appear impressively massive without appearing clunky; and for that it is justifiably famous. Just after taking this picture, before I could even get my feet on the bike pedals, a driver stopped to ask for directions to Media City. And I was able to tell him without my reverting to English--or without his doing so which is more common.
 

Fortunately Media City, a large complex of studios and electronic broadcasting buildings, was not far. A lot of the buildings look like this one--the first thing I noticed is how many satellite dishes each building supports, and the second thing was the low angle at which they are aimed. I don't think we're near the Equator any more.
 

In the polders (land reclaimed from marshes or shallow lakes, more or less dry and drained by a network of canals), cows rule. This bull did not appreciate my taking his photo, and began to stomp, snort, generally appear unsociable. I wasn't sure whether he was trying to impress me or the cow to his left, but either way I was pretty sure he couldn't or wouldn't cross the shallow canal. Only pretty sure. And in case he did charge, I really wasn't sure my bike could outrun him. So I pedalled: what I wasn't up for that afternoon was some Pamplona-In-The-Polders.
 

I rode through 'S-Graveland, a decent little village, and then home, so that about does it for my description of that ride.

No, no, no, you don't get off that easily.

Next: Flevoland. The most obvious facts about the Netherlands are that they have lots of shallow water and lots of people. Over the centuries they have converted some of that shallow water into more or less dry land, for more cows and people, a little bit here and a little bit there. A few decades back they got more ambitious and drained the Haarlemmermeer to build the world's ninth busiest airport, Schiphol. But for sheer scale and audacity, nothing can top the creation of Flevoland.

So I rode northwest, crossed the soaring Hollandse Brug over the west end of the Gooimeer, and descended into Flevoland. The idea of this artificial island seems to come naturally to the Dutch, but let's remember: it takes up most of what used to be called the Zuider Zee, it is almost entirely below sea level, the water around it has been blocked off from the North Sea so that it is now surrounded by fresh water, and it is seriously large: 50 x 20 kilometers. New York City reclaimed Battery Park, Hong Kong built an airport on a new island, but the Netherlands built a whole new province.

Here is my trusty wheeled steed in my first minutes on Flevoland. Along the right of this path runs the dikes on whose perfection the existence of Flevoland depends. To the left is the IJmeer and across that, Amsterdam. An old-style polder big enough to feed a family might be drained with a single old-style windmill, but bigger drainage projects require bigger technology. Most days, these enormous windmills are turning fast enough to make the air throb, and the birds seem to avoid the sound, which is a good thing: the blade tips are going several hundred kilometers per hour.
 

The locks at Wilgenbos, on Flevoland's north-west coast, facing the fragment of the Zuider Zee that is now called the Markermeer, which is at sea level. The photo is taken while facing the north-west. Notice that to enter Flevoland's canals, the boats are lowered several meters.
 

Just next to these locks is a nature center. What kind of nature could exist in a province where no living thing--not even trees--can be over 30 years old? Well--ask the question a different way: who likes shallow water? Right. Sea birds. Flevoland's government and businesses have adopted various sea birds as their symbol, and I have to admit that I have never seen any area--not Louisiana, not Florida, not Canada--with a higher density and variety of sea birds. OK, that's something.

And on this artificial land are new, artificial cities. Of course, all cities are artificial, but think of it--cities with no history whatever. Designed on computers. No local legends. The names of all the neighborhoods and streets and towns competely fabricated. The Dutch do not seem squeamish about this. They needed more land for more people, and so they roll up their sleeves and build hundreds of thousands of pre-fab units and close-pack the workers and their families in labelled cells, as in any efficient industrial warehouse. This is the new Netherlands. They have parks and bicycle paths and canals and places to sail their boats like any other part of the western Netherlands, but still it all had to be thought of at once, like an instant resort, but for workers. It seems so...premeditated.
 

And diagonally across southern Flevoland to the Stichtse Brug. More windmills to generate power for the pumps. The water on your right is the Gooimeer, and just beyond the bridge is an island called Dode Hond--dead dog. Everything to the left of the water (and 50 kilometers beyond) is artificial. Everthing on the right shore used to look out over the open Zuider Zee.