Venlo Bloesemtocht

Second training walk today, this time in the town of Venlo, in the province of Limburg and on the German border.  I had a hard time finding the starting point of the walk (the price you pay for writing down the wrong street name, and not simply printing out the map), which ended up adding almost 5km to the total walking distance.  Getting directions wasn't helped by the fact that I sometimes had a hard time following the Limburgs accent.

It wasn't a great day to be outside, and as a result I got drenched in a couple of heavy rain showers.  Despite that, it was a pleasant walk, which had the novelty of crossing the border and taking me into Germany (meaning that suddenly everyone I came across greeted me with 'Guten Tag' instead of 'Goede Dag').

As with last week's walk, everyone I spoke to along the way was very impressed that I'd traveled from Delft to come to their corner of The Netherlands.  The organizers were so pleased to have someone travel from so far, that they gave me a special memento of the day, and also very kindly gave me a lift back to the train station at the end of the day.

This week's walk certainly felt easier than last week's, helped in part, I imagine, by the fact that it was less hot.  At the end my feet were less sore, and I was pleased to find that I'd also kept up a faster pace.  Still a long way to go before I'm walking 40km, but things are going in the right direction.