With the advent of warm weather, it felt like the right time to undertake another bike trip. This time I decided to embark on the EuroVelo 7 going north along the coast of the North Sea.

The EuroVelo 7 starts in Scotland and follows the edge of the North Sea across France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and continues all the way into northern Norway. The section going through North Holland goes through some of the nicest nature preserves in the Netherlands and promised to be a scenic bike ride.

We rented two tour bikes from and panniers from A-Bike Rentals and started on the first leg of the journey from Amsterdam to Harlem. The rental bikes we got were not in perfect condition, but were of decent quality. Touring bikes definitely move faster than the regular city bike available for rent all over Amsterdam.

The first point of interest on the way was Haarlem. The city is built on the two sides of the Spaarne River and functions a bit like an extension of Amsterdam itself. The old inner city area is beautiful, but on this trip we only had time for a quick lunch on the side of the river at Oerkap.

Our route continued through Bloemendaal, the wealthiest town in the Netherlands, where we finally got on the EuroVelo 12. The scenery changes quickly from a busy city landscape, to forested grassland with the occasional horse ranch.

Continuing north, we soon hit the canal near Ijmuiden, where we took a convenient ferry. In a lot of places around the world, ferries can be a slow affair, but in this case we just loaded up via the bike terminal and soon we were on the other side of the canal.

The route continues north through the outskirts of Wijk and Zee. Google maps lead us astray here, as it tried to have us cross through the Tata Steal plant located on this side of the canal. The actual path detours a little and goes around the plant.

For the remainder of the trip there are very few populated areas. Most of the bike path stays in the protected dune park that runs up the coast. Occasionally, we would run into unexpected wild life, like this Highland Cattle relaxing on the side of the bike path.

The bike path is high quality most of the way, but occasionally we would run into a flooded section.

As we made progress further north, the dunes gave way to a more grassy landscape.

The flat landmass of the area was protected by towering dike along the sea coast, making room for some smaller lakes and horse farms in the expanse of grass.

The route we chose is 103km long and it took more than 8 hours to bike. As we approached Den Helder the sun started setting in the evening.

We made it to Den Helder relatively late at night. In the morning we explored the city. There is a ferry terminal that can take you to the Frisian islands of the main land. There is also a naval museum and a dutch naval base here.

Aside from several interesting ships on display, there was also a cold war era diesel submarine that can be explored from the inside.

The trip back to Amsterdam takes less than 90 minutes with the train. Dutch trains are well equipped to handle bikes outside of rush hour.