Friday, April 15, 2016
We left our Viking Ship Eir on Friday morning and took a taxi to the place we rented a car and began our trip of touring Holland. On the way to Aartswoud where we would stay for 2 nights, we stopped at Alkmaar for the cheese auction. We got lost a few times on the way but we didn't really care. The cheese auction was fun to watch and I took a few pics.
After leaving Alkmaar, we went to the North Sea just to see it. It was a freezing cold rainy day and windy too and we had to walk a bit to see it. By the time we got back to the car we decided it was time to get to a cafe to warm up and get a bite to eat. We could not read the menu but we each ordered a fish sandwich, thinking that we would get...well, a fish sandwich. This is what a fish sandwich looks like:
The bread is actually under there somewhere, but it was more like a fish salad. Incredibly delicious though! It filled us up so we were ready to go get lost again. This is how we travel in foreign countries. We rent a car, get a map and go. No GPS, no phones, no other helps. Most of the time we can't find street signs, so that makes it a bit more challenging. When we do find street signs, they don't really help much because the streets change names every couple of miles. So we are constantly getting lost, but at the end of the day, we know we have seen the best stuff while lost--things we would have had no hope of seeing if we had stayed on the "right" highways.
We managed to get stuck in a parking garage today. In Holland there are machines where you pay to get out of the parking lot. We put our credit card in and it kept asking for a pin which we do not have. And we didn't have cash either. So we were stuck until someone came along and tried to help us. He put our card in for us and after a couple tries said we were good to go. I think he just paid it for us.
One of the sights we saw on our way to Aartswoud was a windmill by the side of the road with tulip fields just behind it.
On to Aartswoud where we would stay on a dairy farm. The farmers wife runs the B & B and she has these cute little A-frame cottages where we stayed. It was called Restinn Aartswoud and her name is Jeanette Nieuweboer in case anyone is ever interested in staying there. We found it on booking.com. In addition to dairy cows, there were little lambs, a goat, and several free range chickens. Here is what it looks like:
Our cottage
A few cottages
The canal ran right behind our cottage
Free ranging
Dairy barn
The farmer's house
Pet goat
Lambs
Windmill
The windmill was just adjacent to the dairy farm on the canal. The farmer’s wife (Jeanette) brought us a breakfast with fresh milk and homemade yogurt and butter with freshly baked rolls, farm fresh eggs and various meats and cheeses. To die for.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
On Saturday we were planning to visit the Eenigenberg Museum which is dedicated to my Eenigenberg relatives and has all kinds of information about the family and a model of the ship they took to America. It was closed, but a waitress at a nearby cafe looked it up and said it was only open on Sundays.
I was not unusual for us to see our name in various places. We saw it on street signs and on the sides of trucks. Seems to be a popular name there.
In the afternoon we visited two little towns called Edam and Marken. They were both quaint little places that had interesting shops along the canals. Here are some pics of Edam.
Marken is a very touristy place with lots of souvenir shops and a wooden shoe factory that you can tour. I am not as fond of touristy places, but it was fun to walk around.
It was another chilly day, so after walking around for a while, we went to a little cafe where I ordered a mint tea.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
On Sunday we spent the morning relaxing and listening to an online sermon given by our pastor the week before. Then we tried once more to get into the Eenigenberg Museum and it was still closed. A neighbor then told us it was only open May-October. That was a huge disappointment! But we drove around just going to any street that looked interesting and we found a farm that was owned by one Strooper Dekker just across the street from a tulip farm! The Dekker farm had some pretty cute lambs running around so I got a few shots of them too.
After this we moved on to our new digs, a little country B & B near Zelhem. It was run by a lady named Yolanda and it was a truly beautiful place to reside.
Dining area
Entry Hall
Outside view
Two very senior citizens riding their bikes down the lane.
Here is the kind of breakfast you can expect from a country B & B in Holland:
This did not even include the cereals and yogurts that were on another table. Enough food for about six people. We usually made sandwiches from our breakfast food and took them along for our lunches. Amazingly, the Dutch are not obese. I guess it is from all that bike riding.
Monday, April 18, 2016
We visited the city of Maastricht today which was about 2 1/2 hours from where we were staying. The weather was beautiful and it was a great day to spend just strolling around an ancient city enjoying springtime and taking photos.
As you can see the city is ancient with fortresses and walls and lots of history. Now it is a University town and so is filled with students as well as tourists.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
We went to our final B & B today--another little farm in Meerkerk. Our hostess was Marlies Broeks and she took great care of us! We took a break today and just explored the little town we were living near and spent the afternoon relaxing on "our" farm and reading. We went into town in the evening to get some food from a little cafe and took it to our B & B where we could eat while watching the lambs play in the back yard. The lambs were quite entertaining as they would gather on one side of the yard and then all run for the other side like they were racing. Then they would all gather together again and race to the other side. It was hilarious.
Breakfast at Broeks Bed En Brood
The crazy little lambs that like to run races at night.
Look hard to see the hiding kitty.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Today was the day we had been waiting for for a while--our visit to Keukenhof Gardens. I cannot say enough good about this place. It was almost like seeing the Garden of Eden. I will let the pictures tell the story.
There are over 7 million bulb flowers planted at Keukenhof Garden and there may have been as many people there that day! (Kidding.) One might wonder about how long you would have to wait at the restrooms, but they had so many restrooms everywhere that there was no wait at all for the most part. One time I had about 35 women ahead of me and only had to wait about 5 minutes. The Dutch know about these things.
This was my favorite part of Keukenhof--the river of flowers. The funniest part was that there were a couple of ducks waddling through the flowers so it looked like they were floating on the "water". Unfortunately, you can't see them in the pictures.
Right after we left Keukenhoff, we were involved in a car wreck. We were stopped in traffic and Vern was looking in the rearview mirror when he said, 'Hang on--we're going to get hit.' Bam! There were 2 cars stopped behind us and a third came flying into them and so there were four cars all together. Now remember we had no phones with us. So there we are in a foreign country, not speaking the language and all these folks are out and talking and we have no clue what they are saying. They were all on their phones. Fortunately, the woman right behind us spoke perfect American English and she helped us fill out our papers when the police arrived. The policeman was kind of funny. He looked at Vern's driver's license and said, "You are Dutch! And you don't speak it?" He did not speak English very well, but he called our rental car place and did that report for us. It all went very quickly. The last two cars in the wreck had major damage and had to be towed, but we were on our way in 40 minutes.
Our next destination was the Zuidam family restaurant in Haarlem. For those of you who don't know, my dad owned the Van Zuidam family restaurant in South Holland Illinois, so of course we had to visit this one. It is set right on the canal, so we could sit on the terrace and enjoy the sunshine before going in to eat dinner. The dinner was fabulous!
View of Zuidam's Restaurant from across the canal
A perfect ending to a perfect day!
Thursday, April 21, 2016
This is our last day to tour Holland. We went to the city of Delft and enjoyed another perfect day weather-wise. We spent the morning strolling around the town and climbing yet another cathedral--this time 376 steps.
We were above the clock when we climbed up the cathedral!
After our cathedral hike, we took it easy for a while and took photos of all the bikers while we waited to go on a canal ride. Bikers in Holland are in every age group from 5 years old to nearly dead. They ride in all kinds of wind and weather and even in pouring down rain. We saw some folks riding holding an umbrella in one hand and steering with the other. But today the weather was perfect and I just snapped anybody who went by. You can see that the bikes and cars and buses all share the road and no one gets mad and honks their horns.
Our boat finally arrived and we went on a guided canal ride which was really fun. After that we headed up to a Delft Pottery Factory where we got to see the Delft artists at work and look at all the beautiful pottery in the gift shop. Amazing!
This board shows the process from start to finish.
Artist at work
Gift shop
The next morning, we headed out to Schipol Airport in Amsterdam to start our long journey home. We arrived home about 8:30 p.m. after traveling for about 19 hours. Glad to be home!
