In this newsletter, a few Via Gaia news items, something about the upcoming renovation of our house, and our summer plans. This photo was taken from Rijnsburg with a view of Valkenburg. If I had taken two steps to the left, the photo would have been taken from Oegstgeest. In the photo you can see the small Valkenburg ferry, which we use frequently.
Via Gaia news
All the fair materials have been put away for the time being. After no fewer than six trade fairs between late January and early April, I can finally take a bit of a breather. The last one was FietsFika (Cycling Fika) in the Santos factory (Santos is the brand of my bicycle), which was once again a great success. The idea is to make this inspiration day for Scandinavia cyclists a recurring annual event in the autumn. The next one is already on the agenda: November 1st, 2026!
In the coming month I'll be giving a few more lectures, but these are all in Dutch (and in the Netherlands). In September, I'll be giving a lecture in Stavanger, Norway, about the Kystpilgrimsleia. More information to follow.
FietsFika:
Meanwhile in Valkenburg
Alongside all the Via Gaia-related work, Remy and I are on the eve of a major renovation. We've now been living happily in Valkenburg for almost a year, and we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do with our house. It turned out to be very useful to first just move in and live there, to discover what does and doesn't work and what is and isn't practical in terms of the layout of the rooms.
Work will begin before too long. First the (leaking) roof will be completely replaced, and then we'll work our way from top to bottom, ending with replacing the floor that we keep slowly sinking through.
In the meantime we're not sitting still and are already knocking down some walls. I wanted to use the sledgehammer for this, but Remy said "No, that needs to be done carefully." Remy's idea of carefully:
And the two of us on opposite sides of the wall could also have ended badly:
Cycling, kayaking and hiking holiday
For the upcoming new guide, the Coastal Pilgrims Route, I don't have much more to do in Norway, at most it will take a week. Several people have already noted that this is convenient given the impending renovation. But… renovation or not, we're absolutely tacking on a full five weeks of holiday. Our last holiday was in May 2024, and we haven't even managed a weekend away in between. During our two-week Christmas break, I was ill for a week and then Remy was ill for a week. Exactly in the middle of all that, we had or 'holiday': cycling to Leiden, five kilometres away. But when it turned out that the Sunday before Christmas wasn't ideal due to a large Christmas market, we were quickly back home. Our shortest holiday ever!
But now we're really going again! We're travelling by car and taking along: the tent, our bikes, the tandem kayak, and our hiking boots. At various locations in Sweden, Finland, and Norway we'll be doing multi-day trips in different modes. For the first time, we're going to Finland! Although that might partly be work too: from the Finnish city of Turku towards Sweden runs the St. Olav Waterway, a pilgrimage route across the Åland Islands. And maybe a guide will come out of it…
Sourse: https://stolavwaterway.com/en/maps/
And in Valkenburg we have our own 'waterway'