Nice morning in Breda. After a good nights sleep at the KMA (military academy), we enjoyed a luxurious breakfast there (it would convince one to join the army :-). We would really like to thank the KMA for hosting us so good with the meals and the sleeping places. Warm hospitality as the south of Holland is known for!

We started running on this beautiful sunny day towards Dordrecht.

On our way we crossed the impressive Moerdijkbrug, over the first big river we encountered in Holland, which separated us for 12 km from our runners. Luckily they had no swimming plans so we met them at the end of the bridge, where most of the team members joined in as we entered into the oldest town of Holland, Dordrecht.

We ran to the city hall which is absolutely impressive. It is built in 1383 and is a city hall since 1544. As we came closer we felt like entering another time in history, but the red carpet that was rolled out and the modern looking counsellor brought us back to reality.

Mr. Lagendijk, the city counsellor for sports, received us and offered a beautiful and touching speech. A few words he mentioned:

"Harmony is a very important word nowadays. On the one hand internationally because of the many serious problematic areas in the world, coming from a lack of unity and unwillingness to understand and accept each other. On the other hand locally, as in Dordrecht where close to 150 nationalities live together, with as much differences between them, and sometimes also tensions between people. But everywhere the solution starts with the readiness to bring the differences between people towards more harmony."

He mentioned that we are making a great athletic achievement which brings our message to the fore in a very powerful and convincing way. He thanked us for our inspiring example and then offered us nice and nourishing refreshments.

We felt very grateful for his kind words and offerings and hope to meet again in the future.

Our next goal was to run to Kinderdijk, a world heritage site from UNESCO, which has 19 windmills and is a must for all tourists coming to Holland.

It looks like windmill paradise and with the sun shining and a nice breeze we ran through the area feeling like running through a beautiful postcard.

We took a little ferry over another of the many waterways we crossed today. Then we had our final run which was very impressive as we ran into the second biggest city of Holland, Rotterdam, which is known for it’s enormous harbour (for a long time the biggest in the world) and it’s modern feeling.

The architecture is quite stunning too as you come closer to the centre. This year Rotterdam is also chosen to be the European city of architecture as it is the European year of architecture. There are also many different cultures in Rotterdam and it is known to have a very fresh and dynamic way of dealing with this diversity. Through sports, art, social programs, dialogue and many more ways they are building bridges between people.

But Rotterdam is not only building inner bridges, it is actually very known for two very impressive bridges.

And we were very grateful to have a unique meeting in between those two sights (standing at the shore) near many international flags, with the mayor of Rotterdam, Mr. Opstelten. We were very delighted that he received us as the cities main representative and were happy to meet him again, as he already met us twice, about ten years ago, when he was a mayor in Utrecht, an important city in the centre of Holland.

He offered the runners a beautiful and encouraging speech and a few lines from that speech were as follows:

“I know what you stand for, that’s also where the city stands for, which is good relationships of harmony, friendship and respect, mutual understanding. Sports is very important for that, so it’s an honour for me to hold this torch for a few minutes.”

And with his honour we were honoured and we hope to come more often to Rotterdam in the future.

After our meeting, which was in front of the very nice restaurant called ‘Blits’, we were invited there to have some great refreshments. Thank you very much! You have a great boss and a great working team! We enjoyed our time in this very modern and artistic restaurant (designed by a famous Dutch designer Marcel Wanders) while overlooking the river. Thank you Blits-team!

Afterwards we continued to Den Haag where we had a delicious meal, cooked by our friend Jagritee in the Madal Bal health food store (on the Denneweg 53). A few of our local coordinators work here. Healthy and delicious organic food with a great apple-pie dessert….

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Distance: 89km

Team Members:
Salil Wilson (Australia), Dipavajan Renner, Edi Brodtrager (Austria), Ondrej Vesely, Rosta Vagner, Michaela Pokorma (Czech Republic), Balavan Thomas (England), Rabinath de Lange, Pradeep Hoogakker, Roos de Waart, Peter Zuidema (Netherlands), Ieva Kurzemniece (Latvia), Akos Laczko (Hungary), Aleksej Egorov (Russian Fed.)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!

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