Works along the IJ before Durgerdam and Utrecht-Domplein

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Works along the IJ before Durgerdam

   East of Amsterdam, where the IJ widens into the IJmeer and the city gives way to water and sky, the old dike village of Durgerdam sits on a strip of land between the sea wall and the polders. Its wooden houses, painted in strong colours and leaning on each other along the dike, look out over a lake that was once the Zuiderzee, open to the North Sea until the Afsluitdijk closed it in 1932. The works along the IJ here belong to the Defence Line of Amsterdam, now part of the Dutch Water Defence Lines World Heritage Site.

   Read the complete Works along the IJ before Durgerdam write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is where the day begins. Next is Valkenburg-De Woerd | South.

2. 2. Valkenburg-De Woerd | South

   For a few hundred years, the mouth of the Rhine was the edge of the world. West of Leiden, the river that once spilled into the North Sea along the Old Rhine channel marked the frontier of the Roman Empire, and the legions kept a line of forts along its banks. Valkenburg, a small village near the coast north of The Hague, was one of them, and the site of a fort known by the name Praetorium Agrippinae, which is the Roman name that archaeologists give to the Valkenburg fort. It sat on the south bank of the river, with a harbour, a bridge or two, and a settlement of traders and soldiers around it, and the finds from the area include timbers, shoes, and tools preserved in the damp clay.

   Read the complete Valkenburg-De Woerd | South write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Valkenburg-De Woerd | South comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Utrecht-Domplein.

3. 3. Utrecht-Domplein

   Dig under the Domplein in Utrecht and you hit a Roman fort. That is not a figure of speech: when the city was rebuilt after the great storm that brought down the nave of the cathedral in 1674, the foundations were already sitting on the foundations of something much older. The Romans built a fort here around the middle of the first century, on a low sandy rise beside the Rhine, and called it Traiectum, the crossing. When the legions left, the name stuck, and a thousand years of sound changes turned it into Utrecht.

   Read the complete Utrecht-Domplein write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 117 km into the recorded legs you reach Utrecht-Domplein. Next is back through Valkenburg-De Woerd | South.

4. 4. back through Valkenburg-De Woerd | South

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Valkenburg-De Woerd | South write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Valkenburg-De Woerd | South, late in the day. Next is Works along the IJ before Durgerdam.

5. 5. Works along the IJ before Durgerdam

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Works along the IJ before Durgerdam write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Works along the IJ before Durgerdam. That is the ride.