July 21st

On Sunday the group and I had the opportunity to tour the countryside surrounding Utecht by following the river Rhine, as well as experience the suburb master-planned for bike use known has Houten.

The ride to Houten was absolutely beautiful. Full of great views, WW2 bunkers, tons of sheep and cattle, and even a stop to swim, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A lot of this ride was either on or adjacent to the roadway in which cars and motorcycles were going pretty fast. At first, this was a scary thought, but to our luck, the power bikes have over moto vehicles in the city carried over to the countryside. Cars and cycles would either wait until they had a safe way to pass us and go around if needed and all of them slowed down significantly when coming near and passing us. This reassured me that I, in fact, was safe. This experience was a little to me. Not that I felt unsafe biking around the countryside of Denmark or Sweden, but here it really felt like I was the most important in every situation. I'm beginning to understand why people say Copenhagen is the best biking city in the world, but Holland is the best biking country in the world. 

While the ride was pretty and eye-opening, the suburb of Houten was a lot more interesting. A suburb that really began to take shape in 1979 it began to grow because of its intense master plan. What sets Houten apart from other suburbs is the fact that it was planned completely around the bicycle and metro system. In fact, you can't even drive on a lot of streets, and the ones you can drive pon have signs saying that there are bikes here and cars are guests.  

This once again displayed the significant importance of bicycles to the nation of Holland. in my mind, I envision suburbia as a bunch of family homes with front yards and two cars in their driveway. Here you can have the yard and house but still, bike everywhere. Do you work in the city? That's ok because there's a metro line that takes you there in about fifteen minutes... and it comes every ten. If this shouldn't be the model for what modern suburbia should be I don't know what we're doing. Not only is it making a whole suburb greener and more healthy, but it's also promoting more social use of the area, and the streets specifically. Without everyone in their cars they're out and about meeting and talking to people around their neighborhood. To be honest it almost felt like Disneyland at some pints because of how idealistic it was. It's something I still can't fully wrap my head around.