In a country so Kansas-flat, no path is more difficult than any other. There's no traffic, so you can bike side by side, and peddle safely in and out of each other's lives. This is not ooh-and-ah country but a world of neat villages, isolated farms, windmills and cows. But if you're like me, you'll find happiness wheeling along a sliver of pavement through forests of birch--the path so narrow at times that the new leaves reach out and touch you as you pass.
Americans have this strange notion that if you bike you're supposed to rough it. Europeans know otherwise, and cycle from inn to inn. If you want to follow in my footsteps (bike tracks?), spend a few days in Amsterdam, then arrange for outfitters to meet you with bikes at Heiloo, some 20 miles northwest. Visit Hoorn, a lovely old sea port, then follow the coast to Enkhuizen, take the ferry across the Ijsselmeer to Stavoren and call it a day in the sleepy little port of Hindelopen. Then head northeast to Friesland. Boats glide by on hidden canals, their sails appearing over the horizon like swarms of white cabbage butterflies. Then through the town of Workum, through windmill country, to Sneek and east to Beetsterzwaag and a hot tub and elegant dinner at the posh Hotel Lauswolt.
You can plan a trip of your own through backroads.com, vangoghtours.com or www.holland.com.