Angling by Saxony

There seems to be a growing theme to the rides: clockwise around the Netherlands' border. Why not? I live in central Netherlands and I've seen it, so the natural question is--how do the Dutch live on the edge?" I mean, on the borders.

I load up the bike and head up Dr. Frederik van Eedenweg when...

I mean, what are we saying, here? I can't even get out of my own street before the weirdness starts...
 

And they keep coming and keep coming. OK, I get it--it's the first weekend after Dutch Liberation Day, May 5. The Dutch, sensible as ever, can separate their disagreement with current American policy from eternal, warm gratitude to the Americans for liberating them from the horrors of 1940-45. And some of these antiques are, actually, pretty cool.
 

But they keep coming and keep coming. The bicyclists are not happy, accustomed as they are to having right-of-way over everything non-nuclear. I myself am impatient, close to missing my train...
 

...but the mobile partygoers have a police escort.
 

The train rides to the Netherlands' northeast corner are long. Change of trains in Amersfoort (chocolade broodje en halfvolle melk) and again in Groningen, probably for the last time. Pull the bike off in cloudy, still-deserted Nieuweschans and head south, skirting the border with Saxony (Germany).

And within 20 minutes...well, whatever I was expecting to see in the Netherlands, this probably wasn't it.
 

At a strategic fork in the road I perform a mental coin flip and head through Bellingwoude, which looks perfectly ordinary on the map. But then there is the 15th century church,...
 

...and a host of rather nice houses.
 

I tire of riding south, parallel with the German border and in sight of it, and I notice that I'm coming up on the easternmost point in the Netherlands. I take a left fork and then a quick right into Germany, then back on the border-crossing road.

The old boom (Dutch for "tree") they used to lower each night to block the road is now rusting away unused, unnoticed.
 

However I try, I can't determine whether this is the easternmost point in the Netherlands or whether it is along the canal north of Nieuweschans. I couldn't actually get to the canal from either side, so I'm having to guess at its longitude. I think this pictured point is more eastern, but they aren't different in longitude by more than 30 meters/100 feet. Oh, well.

I cross safely back into the Netherlands, and the map shows this really complicated looking little town ahead, with a nice bypass on the south side. I start for the bypass, and then I notice that the fine print over the town: "vesting". An old fortress town. I turn towward Bourtange.

Good move.

The typical moat and gate are promising.
 

But the circular central plein strikes me speechless. In college and for years after, I have collected "attractive spaces", places that make you feel good just standing there. The northeast corner of Jackson Square, New Orleans before they put in the noisy Chart House restaurant. The cliffs west of Piana, Corsica. Any number of hidden, cozy creek bottoms in Texas (e.g., ending of the film Lonesome Dove). The park in Winter Park, Florida, which I loved so much I moved there. Now I have another one: the plein in Bourtange, Netherlands. I cannot remember breathing in a space and feeling so...I don't know...wholesome. It is not large, it is modest; and I cannot decide exactly why, but it seems to me a perfect space, simply perfect.
 

 
 

The homes are quiet understated without being boring.
 

Bourtange lost much of its active Jewish population during the occupation. The names and ages at disappearance are listed--80 years old, 6 years old, 50. Several in a row with the same last name.
 

And Bourtange is even smaller than most walled, fortified villages, and before I knew it, I was out the other side. Not a soul noticed my leaving.

Well, almost no one.
 

And now follows a tale of chills! and thrills! and deering-do!!!

I wouldn't have waved friendlily to the pictured sailor if I had known he was going to leave the stupid drawbridge up. The locks were closed, that I could see. And I could see the bridge controls on the canal's other side--and while I'm for 100% sure totally unauthorized to operate them, how hard could it be? I mean, it's not like this is a nuclear reactor or jet fighter. I figure: UP/DOWN about covers it. But the canal was too wide to jump, and there was nothing I could float across on. It was a LONG ride in either direction, and the only way home is to get to Emmen train station, a long way ahead. On the other side. This is not good.
 

OK, then I read the instructions: push in the button. I wait. I wait. No one. This entire day's ride plus hours and hours on the train are going to be busted if I don't get across this stupid canal. No one stirs from the shack or the rusted trucks on the other side.
 

I look left. Sigh. I look right. Sigh. No--wait. Look--there. THERE.

THERE. (See it?) My smirking turns to maniacal laughter. Oh, no, this is stupid. This is crazy. If you mess this up you are in deep, deep feces. Right, then: it's what I'm going to do.
 

I figured there was nothing magic to crossing narrow, bending planks with a large, heavily loaded bicycle and water on both sides. Just hoist the front of the bike up, hoist the back up, hold on as I hoist myself up. Catch my balance, start across. Nice and easy does it, just inches at a time. QUESTION: if I start to fall, do I push the bike to the rail and fall myself to spare the bike (and camera and GPS and maps), OR do I sacrifice the bike so as not to hurt myself out here by myself. The question is easy--without me the bike is probably going to roll in no matter what, so I would hold on and (groan) let it go. The hardest parts of getting across were (1) the outside bend, and (2) that thoughtful post on the near side that I hit my foot on and then held on for dear life while I judged whether I could simply throw the bike from there.
 

I'll stop with the cruelty: I made it. No policeman within sight, no one else either. All in a day's ride, another life skill I couldn't have imagined needing. Que hombre. I roll south.

On the way to the flatlands and to pitiful little Barger-Compascum and past the refineries south of Emmen, and on the way to enduring disapproving looks from the train conductor at over my filthy, filthy bike tires at Emmen Bargeres station, the ride home in the dark...before all that, I had a positively transcendental ride. Along the Ruiten Aa kanaal, rolling along and along for two hours all to myself, almost too much to bear. I close with the memory of today's ride that I will keep longest.