Camping on the edge of a Dutch lake this week, a night in Amsterdam and today touring Huskvarna in Sweden, I came to a realisation that city life only works when housing and retail are jointly combined and inter developed. In Amsterdam for example, all the shops and supermarkets are within housing complexes and flats – no real out of town centers and yet the city center thrives, the same has to be said for the beautiful town of Huskvarna… I got chatting tonight with Ingrid from Israel, now settled in Sweden ‘for love’ she tells me, she was fascinated by my shoes (5 Fingers) so much so that she nearly got run over watching my glossy black toes – she said I looked like I should be going for a swim…what could I say, ‘packing light’ loses a lot in translation.

P&O came to fore again and bumped me to an early boat – and riding through Flanders I was struck by the sheer numbers of vivid red poppies growing as far as the eye could see which bought to my mind the the three battles of Ypres. Calling into the town of Ghent for lunch and basking in the shadows of the city’s medieval architecture I got chatting to a couple of BMW riding Dutchmen who recommended a good stopover in Amsterdam so… at the end of day one, I find myself alongside a canal having a beer near Stadhoudersnade in the setting western sunlight with a small plate of hand salted Norwegian smoke salmon for company.