BHGreene: The Netherlands

I had a week break from classes over Easter. Sadly Brendan left for a job assignment the Monday break started... I had a difficult time trying to figure out if I could still do something (and feel ok traveling by myself). I decided the Tulip Festival in the Netherlands would be the perfect "Spring Break".

I flew in Thursday evening, checked into my hotel. Fell in love with the views right away!

The view across my hotel

I asked where I could get authentic "Dutch" food. They sent me to a restaurant called Haesje Claes. I tried a dish called Stamppot which is mashed potato with a veg mixed in. Mine was leek. It also came a meatball, sausage and bacon. Amazing!

Friday morning I took a tour bus to the Netherlands countryside.

This is the view on the walk from my hotel to the bus station (it was about a 15 minute walk) LOVE the beautiful houses along the canals. There were also many little boutique shops along the way.

BIKES EVERYWHERE! And Vespas.

Got my tickets - I am ready to go!

Me getting ready for the bus tour

Our first stop was a Windmill in Molen. Made in 1676. We got to go in and were given a guide as to how the mill works, then got to climb up to the top. It was VERY misty that morning.

The view from the mill

Our bus then drove through the country side. Here are a few things I remember (hopefully correctly) learning from the audio guide:

1. There is a distinct line between city and country (this was true--on one side of the highway was the city, on the other was the country). This is because land is so valuable in the Netherlands. The country is below sea level and therefore the water does not drain into the ocean.. it sits there. That is why they struggle(d) with floods and keeping enough dry land for crops. The king of the Netherlands has a Bachelors in water management --that is how important it is to the country to make useful land by draining the water and keeping up the canals ---water management is vital to the country. This is also why the city is SO well planned. (I love how organized their streets/canals/houses were... and their bike lanes don't randomly disappear...)

2. Carrots are not orange by nature. They are white, yellow and red. The orange carrot was created in the Netherlands by mixing red and white carrots.

3. William of Orange - hence why the color orange is the royal family's color and the pride color of the Netherlands.

4. It is a 5 year process to drain water to create work-able farming land. 2 years to drain, 2 (I think) to dry, then plant grasses to put nutrients in the ground (OR livestock to fertilize), 5th year to grow small crops, then finally wheat can be planted. ---something like that anyways. Even after 5 years, sometimes the area just cannot create the best crop-growing ground. If that's the case, it becomes feeding ground for livestock. Cheese is therefore one of their top products.

5. There is a canal tax to make sure water drainage is always kept up on.

6. Houses were made in a pyramid shape to keep well against the hard winds that blow across the flat lowlands.

Our next stop was the small fishing town of Marken. This town is on the largest fresh water lake in Western Europe. The houses here are built on stilts because of the constant flooding. BUT a long time ago (sorry, can't remember the date) monks built up mounds of dirt to hold the lake in and stop the towns from flooding. This is now a beautiful walking/biking path. Since then, people built a spare room where the stilts were BUT the front door entrance is still up a flight of stairs.

In this little fishing town, we saw a wooden shoe maker. He showed us how the shoes use to be made and how they are made now with machinery. He told us that wooden shoes are still very much worn today -- mainly by farmers and gardeners. This is because wooden shoes keep your feet both dry and warm from the constant wet, marsh-y lands -- it also doesn't hurt if a cow steps on your toes. :)

-He told us that fishermen would buy a pair of shoes, and while out fishing would carve a beautiful design on them. When finished, they would put the shoes on the door step of the girl they were proposing to. IF she brought them in that night, she was saying yes. If she didn't---well you had a pair of shoes to put on the doorstep of the next house :)

I LOVED this idea... really wish I had bought a pair.

If you look closely, the cow has wooden shoes... :)

The "proposal shoes"

Yes, I did try them on. Actually very comfortable!

This was my friend Sarah. She sat by me on the bus. She was from Milan, Italy.

You can see where the stilts use to be and where the front door is --- up the stairs.

We then took a boat across the lake to the town of Volendam. We walked through the maze of houses to a cheese maker. (This honestly was the most "tourist-y" place, so I didn't buy cheese here...)

Every house has different lace or window dressings. They also pride themselves on having unique doors even if all the houses are structured the same.

I also met another girl on the tour names Catherine. She was from Singapore. So I had lunch with Sarah (Italy) and Catherine (Singapore)

The bus then took us back to Amsterdam. On the way, our bus driver taught us some Dutch. I don't remember much (and def. couldn't spell it) EXCEPT - doch doch! - which he told us meant goodbye, but the literal translation looks like it means "yet, but still, but rather"....

Evidently, the Netherlands are known as a huge bird watching area. There were many different types of geese and ducks... I tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out well from the bus...

After that, I got an ANOTHER tour bus, which took me to Keukenhof Gardens. I spent 3 hours wondering the flowers and seeing new types of tulips!!! ---This is why I went. It was 70 degree out, absolutely gorgeous and SO relaxing to go around taking photos. --- Get ready for a lot of flowers. I tried to get the name of the ones I liked as well....