Why there are no STOP signs in the Netherlands

at last not in my neighborhood.  Or in any other Dutch city that I have visited.  At the end of an intersecting street, the street pavement ends, because there is a continuous sidewalk and bikelane on the main street.  When a vehicle approaches the end of the street, not only does the pavement end, there is a light bump to demarcate the sidewalk, then there is the bike lane, and then another bump (drempel) before the car an enter the main road: (I tired to include a video, but Blogger would not cooperate 👎)

You can see the white car waiting for the cyclist to pass by, with the front of the car on the sidewalk.  Notice the end of the red pavement of the road for that car.  The result is that speed limit signs and STOP signs are pretty much superfluous - as a driver, you only drive as fast as you feel safe to drive.  Plus cyclist have the right of way, as long as their red pavement continues.

It is definitely springtime....

And I do plan to visit the tulip fields in a few weeks, so photos of that to come.  Yesterday, I took a trip to Leiden and was hoping to see tulips on a quick bike ride outside the city but, apparently, the fields are further away than I expected.  I did manage to find one of the least attractive towns in the country - Zoetermeer - although, to be fair, I was not in the old city center.  When I found this place, I was so discouraged that I drank my coffee and rode back to Leiden.

I didn't spend enough time in Leiden to really appreciate the town (I'll be back another day) but I did see the birthplace of Rembrandt:

And since I went by train (of course) I had time to observe more of the Dutch 'cleaning' tradition.  Here it was, a bank holiday morning (Good Friday), and these two were actually power-washing not just the floor of the platform, but scrubbing the grout in-between the tiles!! (these tiles were on my side - they had not gotten to them yet...)

And have I mentioned that I LOVE the Dutch transportation system.  No need to check schedules, just go!  And the entire system runs on wind-powered electricity - except when it doesn't run at all.....

That's right, the ENTIRE system was shut down for 12 hours.  This happened two weeks ago, when I was in Maastricht, a two hour train ride from Rotterdam and so I had to stay at a hotel.  Believe me, there are worse places to be stuck than Maastrict.  There is a great museum and a bookstore in a what used to be a church.

                    

Until next time,

Judy