The second day was spent in the Muiderslot, one of the oldest and most complete medieval castles of the country, but also walking and crawling aboard the Batavia, the old merchant ‘tall ship’ that was rebuilt in Lelystad and floating now near Batavia Werf.

This time again we toured with a van and not on motorbikes. We’re flexible and can accommodate many preferences. Now….. onto our Overloon Trip next weekend, providing the weather ‘hangs on’…… !

DUTCH Edition: yes, there is a Dutch Edition of this magazine as well, available here !

I’ll be adding more news on EuropeRides over the coming weeks, trying to get more active again now that European Riding Season has started for everybody and not just year-round BMW riders ;-)

We are getting ready for the 5th RT Treffen here in Holland, next Sunday, with almost 200 RT’s meeting up for a tour ! Maybe see you there !

So what’s next? Ride whenever the sun is out !! AND…..

…… the RT Treffen on APRIL 21st. That’s the now yearly meeting of BMW RT’s (mainly) of the members of the Dutch RT Forum !

Next will be EuropeRides BUSINESS (and as you know, my business is FUN!), driving around with four sweet ladies from Texas and showing them around our wonderful North Holland and Utrecht provinces. EuropeRides Guiding, as it were. We have rented a luxury minibus and will show them a real 400 year old windmill (of course), an even older medieval castle, dikes, polders and ancient Golden Age towns along the former Zuiderzee coast !

After that tour we’ll ride down south to visit the Militracks event at the Overloon War Museum on May 19th! It is where they have a bunch of old WW2 vehicles RUNNING through the woods on the museum grounds. Check it out here !

On the last day of May I’ll ride the RT to Frankfurt for our annual ex-employee meeting (as European IT director for a large US marketing research company I worked as interim IT manager in Frankfurt in the ’90′s and we kept in touch ever since).

And in the first week of June Nina and I have a few days booked with friends for a visit to Berlin…… our first ever surprisingly!

After that it is off to the mountains again and assemble the new cases to the GS and GET RIDING ! So, if you want to book any time with us….. CHECK OUR CALENDAR for available space !

Lowering minimal age for REAL motorcycle lessons in The Netherlands

Being one of the first users of Paper.li, the Swiss attempt at making automated, curated on-line newspapers, we have the ‘EuropeRides MotorMag’ appear twice daily. The way it works is that it crawls through many thousands Twitter and Facebook pages and accounts that WE have liked, and picks up the articles on topics we indicate.

Once in a while we also add other articles that we find. We haven’t upgraded the mag to ‘Pro’ status yet, since we don’t have much money to spare, but it is interesting in its present form already. Add it to your Favorites list and scan through it every morning, like we do, if you like MOTORCYCLING STUFF ! <grin>.

To all of our friends, motoring or not…….

As you may remember, Nina and I checked them out earlier this year to get them their Motorrad-Tourer certificate of quality. And since we check upon the ‘partners’ once in a while, I found this nice Youtube video of the restaurant and breakfast room for you !

We also noticed that the new ‘motor cover’ has been finished, so now there is even more covered parking space for our stallions! I’ve made a video of the pass, up and down, but it will take quite some time to edit all this stuff, so expect publication in winter ! (urghs).

Meanwhile, check out the video and maybe visit the hotel on your travel over the Route des Grandes Alpes?

…. but I could NEVER remember the track !!!!

Especially about the breathalysers, ethylotests, alcohol testers or whatever else you may want to call them, be aware that The Police – aka Les Gendarmes – will only start writing tickets to foreigners after November 1st ! Until then you can play innocent.

ALSO because the bloody things cannot be found anywhere to buy in the country ! ‘Sold out’! Yeah, right. I got an extremely amazed stare when I asked about them at our local gas station, The Place where one should obtain them according to the French Bureaucrats !

Last but not least, since the fine for NOT having two of the retched things in the car/bike appears to be only 11 Euros, many French have already declared to keep 11 Euros handy in the car. Takes up less space and according to generally accepted scientific probability calculations it will be much cheaper than to buy them anyway (and buy them again when the expiration date lapsed in a year!!).

Just so you know.