Hackney to Walthamstow

33rd consecutive weekend hiking!

Another weekend in London – another opportunity for hiking! Today was a lovely day – warm and sunny, with flowers blooming in the parks and dooryards. I was a bit short for time so I selected a hike on the northeast edge of London, from Hackney to Walthamstow at the end of the Tube’s Victoria line. Although most of the walk was along streets or paved bike trails, the scenery varied from residential areas, to pedestrian streets on market day, to the vast Victoria Park, to the locks and canal boats along a series of three canals, to the meadows and forests of Hackney Marsh and Walthamstow Marsh.

Broadway market in Hackney, east London.
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Amsterdam and tulips

A perfect weekend to visit!

The tulips are in full bloom in Holland!    For my “hike” this weekend, Pam and I joined our friend Jen for a weekend in Amsterdam. (It’s only four hours from London via train!)  Jen kindly arranged a bike rental in Lisse, a small village south of Amsterdam surrounded by vast fields of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths – all in full bloom – where the air was sweet with the scent from hundreds of thousands of flowers.  We spent a lovely few hours riding the bike paths – the Netherlands are heaven for bikers, because nearly every street and road has an adjacent bike path, with dedicated signage. 

Vast fields of tulips, hyacinth, daffodils, and other flowers – outside Amsterdam.
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Corinth Canal

An hour-long transit of the narrow Corinth Canal – barely wider than our own ship.

The Peloponnese is a vast peninsula that forms the southern portion of Greece, and is attached to the mainland by the incredibly thin isthmus of Corinth (see map below).  The Romans once built a wall across the isthmus to protect the peninsula from the mainland.

This narrow strip of land separates the Ionean Sea from the Aegean Sea, and forces ships to sail around the entire peninsula to reach one from the other, a 700-kilometer (430 mile) journey. Even in antiquity, sailors dreamed of digging a canal to shorten the voyage – with the first attempt dating to the 7th century BC.  Finally, in 1893, a viable canal was completed [Wikipedia].  Our own ship, Le Bougainville, is nearly as wide as the canal – with just 2m to spare on either side – and is thus quite an exciting transit!  See the photo gallery.

Isthmus_of_Corinth
Map of the area, and (inset) of Greece, from Wikipedia.

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