Cycling trip day 15

"De Oosterdriessen" camp site near Maastricht was really wonderful. Flexible arrival, friendly staff, good sanitary facilities and a great bar atmosphere. Can recommend!

Highlight of this day however was food. After packing up I cycled to Maastricht and launched the HappyCow app. Finally a big enough city with surely some vegan options. A fully vegan restaurant, yay! "Bar Verde" is about 1.5km outside the central area just south along the river, a really nice little ride. The place is beautiful, but of course food is what is the most important thing. "Plant based comfort food" is the theme. I had a "sate", which was pieces of tempeh joined with a really awesome peanut butter sauce. The nearby table claimed their vegan "cheese cake" was the best they had ever had, so obviously I had to stay for dessert as well. The tiramisu was to die for. So happy I visited this place, pretty much the best food I've had this journey.

Unfortunately it can be difficult for a fully vegan restaurant, especially a bit out of the center. Whether vegan or not, if you live in or visit the area, consider visiting the place and support their journey as a restaurant. "Lage Kanaaldijk 54", well worth the visit.

In terms of food, this day was actually my first fully vegan day on this trip since leaving Helsinki, having found vegan options also later in the day. It's been a challenge. I think the best thing was being offered salmon in a small French town when asking for "something vegetarian" from a boulangerie, where they spoke a little bit of English.

But, back to cycling. EuroVelo 19, going along the Meuse river, was my target. Unfortunately, I couldn't really manage to keep on it. Occasionally I found it, then the signs were confusing and I ended up just navigating north approximately in the right direction. The EuroVelo site allows downloading GPX files, but they're not only split into stages but also the stages are split into several parts. I just haven't figured out how to load even one larger part of the route into any app in a meaninful way, given the route has gaps.

Anyhow, doesn't really matter, as the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands is just so awesome. Whichever route you take, you're guaranteed to be ok, so didn't really miss the EV19 that much. My only two complaints about today are: 1) too much head wind, the whole day was pushing against some pretty persistent wind from the north, and 2) hey it's unfrair that pensioners with electric bikes seem to just be strolling along while I'm having to grind for every singe kilometer. But also it's awesome to see so many cyclists of all ages <3

My target for this journey was "a minimum of 1000km", so yay, that at least is done. There is a possibility I could even reach Rotterdam.

Found a nice campsite between Roermond and Venlo. A few beers and the zzz. Tomorrow it will rain again.

Distance cycled: 86.72km (today), 1050.82km (total)

Ps. If you can only see a few photos, your platform is limiting the amount of photos on a post - if interested in all the photos, check out https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling