Day 6 - Nijmegen - Thorn

Woke up to sunshine this morning.  What a difference - the world looks so much better today.  After breakfast the first place we stop at is at "Groesbeek" - the site of the Canadian War Cemetery.  It is very impressive to see how immaculate the graveyard is kept.  We see a landscaper there trimming the grass by each row of tombstones.  We gather for a group photo and then Bill reads the poem, "In Flanders Fields."  I know we are not in Flanders but the words can apply to Groesbeek as well.  Very touching - how sad for the families who lost their young sons when you see the ages of the soldiers who gave their life for us in Canada.

Just couldn't get the Canadian flag to unfurl

  Leaving the cemetery, the landscape has changed, almost rolling hills for Holland.  There are fields of flowers and vegetables in this part of Holland.  Pastures here have horses and not cows - a beautiful part of Holland as well.
Today's route is along the Maas River for a long ways on bicycle paths and because of this we do not  meet up with the support vehicle very often.  We can brag that today was the first day of cycling without any rain - dark clouds did roll in the last few kilometres but we did not have rain.  What a blessing!
Tonight we are staying at the Hotel Crasborn in the town of Thorn - it's a very interesting old town in the province of Limburg.  In fact the church across the street is over 800 years old.  We were served a delicious 3 course meal tonight.  The single guys with us have to take their wives out for some very fancy meals to make up for the fact that they weren't there to enjoy these meals.  We're going to leave at 10:00 tomorrow morning so we can explore this town a bit more first.  Later tomorrow we will leave Holland and travel into Belguim.

The view of the church taken from inside the Hotel Crasborn

Distance Cycled  130 km.     Flat Tires 2     Total Flats  9