July 2025 – Part 1 (1st to 15th)
Month 4 of our cruising season and so far we’ve travelled in cold, rainy, windy days at the start, to now being in the middle of a heatwave with temperatures up to 40′ at times! Perfect jumping in the water to stay cool.
We left Katwijk on 1st July aiming for Leiden (we’d had prescriptions filled at a pharmacy there, so needed to make a collection), and as we travelled along the Oude Rijn canal we passed by a striking swing bridge – it’s closed appearance seemed very concorde-esque, and it was extremely impressive as it swung round towards us, even more so when we realised it was constructed purely as a pedestrian/cycle bridge, probably at great expense!
As we turned into the Rijn-Schiekanaal and approached the Lammebrug, it became apparent that we wouldn’t be going any further due to the whole width of the waterway being filled with various machinery (including a crane) for bridge works. Luckily we had spotted an available mooring space just a few hundred meters back, so we turned round and settled there whilst we (again) re-thought our plans.
As Leiden town centre wasn’t too far away from that location, I quickly hopped on the bike and cycled in to collect the meds, and then we all relaxed on Shensi for the rest of the day. On checking into the Lammebrug opening times, it seemed that we’d missed a notice that the bridge was in fact only closed from 7am until 2pm, so technically we could continue late in the day, but we decided to stay in this place spot for a few more days before heading off again. Despite being pretty busy with small boats at times, we did manage a couple of dips into the river to cool down, which was all very refreshing.
Whilst there we made a couple of trips into Leiden (Nicki walked in with the dogs and I cycled to avoid stressing out my knees too much), and spent a few hours looking around, and also checked out potential moorings in/around the town marina for our next stop – Leiden was very pretty with a busy shopping area spreading out from the central canal, and on our second visit we found a large market set up which we enjoyed until the rain set in! Cue a coffee in one of the many cafes along our route.
With our three days of mooring used up, we timed our departure to coincide with the opening of the Lammebrug at just after 2pm – shipping from the other direction was let through first, and we were almost overwhelmed by a long stream of water traffic for several minutes, but finally we were off to the town of Leiden.
Having passed through a couple of opening bridges, we turned into our hoped-for mooring at the side of Ankerparc, a dog friendly park which would have been perfect for us. Sadly all those spaces were taken up so we tried the opposite side of the water to seek out an alternative albeit next to a fairly busy road. It took us three moves to find just the right position (we had to keep moving to get better satellite coverage for that weekend’s Grand Prix), but this chopping and changing later turned out to be a very good move.
As we settled into place, we couldn’t help but notice a mock-up of a ‘fire engine’ floating nearby, with music blaring out, followed quickly by a stream of highly decorated/unusual boats continuously passing backwards and forwards. Eventually we found out that over this was the weekend of the Stadsfestival de Lakenfeesten (Leiden’s Cloth Festival), and shortly after our arrival a Peurbakkentocht was taking place. This turned out to be a parade of highly decorated boats – called “peurbakken” – travelling through the canals of Leiden to mark the start of the festivities … and ending in and around the very point where we had tried out our first mooring! We really lucked out there. The whole event was chaotic and noisy, but very entertaining and reminiscent of a small Kings Day celebration, and then later it was followed by a Parade End Party that carried on till around midnight.
Having spent three nights in Leiden we moved on to Keverhaven on the Recreatie Eiland Het Kevereiland where dogs were not only allowed, but actually welcomed. This was a very pleasant stop, and we managed to give the hull a bit of a wash whilst there as it sat at just the right water level to easily reach the sides.
From Keverhaven we moved on to Lisse for a night, and then continued to Hillegom where we picked up a decent parkside mooring for another night.
Now we were on our way to Haarlem for a few days – once again the weather was gorgeous, and despite a minor misunderstanding at one of the towns bridges, we made our way to a mooring on the riverside. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be so great, so when we spotted a much more suitable space on the other side, we quickly went into action and secured that instead.
We used our first day to look around Haarlem before settling in for the evening – but unknown to Nicki, Lucy had arranged to come and stay with us for a week (to help celebrate her 70th birthday) and she arrived quite late that evening. It’s not often Nicki is speechless, but she could barely get any words out for a short while!
Although Lucy stayed for a week, she was actually working with just a day off for Nicki’s birthday, but we were able to take a walk into Haarlem during her first day onboard, and a visit to the Koepelgevangenis (Dome Prison) in the evening, which we had noticed peeking above nearby buildings.
It’s construction began in 1899, and the prison officially opened in 1901. At that time, the design was revolutionary, with a central dome that created a panopticon-like structure from which guards could easily observe all the prison cells from the center. Originally the building served as housing for convicts and housed countless prisoners for many decades until the prison closed in 2016 due to outdated facilities and its unsuitability for modern detention requirements.
2017 saw the Dome transformed into a “Knowledge and Innovation Center,” which would provide space for education, entrepreneurship, and events and in 2020 it opened its doors to the public. It’s top level is now populated with small start-up businesses, with lower levels belong to the Haarlem University of Applied Science, and the basement now a cinema.
In the morning (Tuesday, 15th) we moved on towards what we remembered as the rather uninteresting town of Wormerveer, but on passing through Zaandam we were very excited to notice an unoccupied mooring just outside of the lock on the Beatrixbrug exit, and so stopped there instead.
This turned out to be a great stopover, very close to the town with an excellent restaurant round the corner, the Verrassing aan de Zaan (Surprise on the Zaan) where Lucy and I took Nicki for her birthday meal.
