Lisse: Keukenhof tulip fields

We started off this trip to Europe by a bike ride around the tulip fields near the small town of Lisse (Keukenhof).

Actually, this is not quite true. We started by a trip to Decathlon, where I bought a raincoat and fleece jacket to combat the unexpectedly copious pelting rain and the fiercely cold wind. 

I bought this frumpy raincoat, which is low-priced and cheaply made, but it sure did the trick! I ditched the belt, as on me it ended up as an empire waist, which was just too weird. As I disposed of it, I said, "Ik wil geen riem," using the little bit of Dutch I have learned.

Suitably geared up, we made our way to Keukenhof, where we found a large parking lot to leave the rental car. There was a little booth with bikes for rent. We had our own bikes, but I stopped there to ask about the routes. The guy explained that we could follow signs for the route of our choice: green (20 km), purple (10 km), or red (5 km). If it had been a nice day, we would have ridden both the green and purple, but since it was so miserable, we opted for purple, which wound through the streets of Lisse and past the tulip fields.

Lisse, like every Dutch town, has beautiful churches, so we decided to take a short break from the rain and pop into this one, St. Agatha.

After returning the rental car at the airport, we took the shuttle back to our hotel, where we packed up our panniers and got our bikes ready for the train trip to Frankfurt. We left our bike suitcases at the hotel, planning to pick them up before flying back to Canada.

Then it was back on the hotel shuttle to go to Schiphol, where we caught the train to Amsterdam Centraal. Or so we thought. After a few minutes on the train, I looked at the screen with the names of the upcoming stops and got a bad feeling. I asked another passenger, who had the train app on her phone, and she confirmed that we were headed to Amsterdam Zuid, not Centraal. So, we got off and waited for a train back to the airport, where we made extra sure to board the correct train!

The train to Frankfurt was right on time, and we had no trouble loading our bikes and baggage. 

A few sights from the train station: 

  

A hot sandwich vending machine. 

For our daughter-in-law, Diana, this is among her favourite things!

Couldn't resist snapping a pic of this guy in his Toronto Raptors jacket.

And on the train to Frankfurt. We were running a little late, and the speed just kept creeping up! This was the highest I saw.

We arrived at Frankfurt Hbf (Hauptbahnhof) - main train station -- at about 22:45.

From the station, it was a short ride to our hotel, but because it was dark and there was a lot of construction, it felt a lot longer than it was. We made it, though, and managed to sleep a few hours.

Amsterdam and area - Day 10

We arrived in Amsterdam in the afternoon and took a shuttle to our hotel in Hoofdoorp, planning to get a car to rent for the next day, our last day before returning home.

According to Google, there was a Sixt car rental office not far from the hotel, so we wasted some time riding there and waiting in line, listening to what sounded like a heated argument/negotiation between a customer and the desk clerk. They ended by striking a deal and shaking hands quite amicably, so maybe the conversation was friendlier than it seemed.

When it was our turn, the clerk listened to what we wanted and said, "Oh yes, I have ___" only to find out that he didn't really have it. This happened about 3 times, and we finally gave up, deciding to take the shuttle back to the airport and pick up a car there.

This turned out to be a good idea, and we ended up with a Ford Puma, a small SUV, which had an automatic transmission and lots of room for our bikes, as well as an almost magically good GPS system.

When we told the woman at the rental desk about what we wanted to do, she made some additional suggestions, so we were quite excited to set out the next morning.

First on our agenda was Edam and the last cheese market of the season. This was about 35 minutes east of where we were staying, and there was a large parking lot on the edge of town where we left the car, and then we rode our bikes to the downtown area. 

Being a little early, we had some time to ride around a bit and even stop into an old church, de Grote Kerk. I have learned that almost every town in Holland has one of these churches, and they are all amazing in their own way. This one had some beautiful stained glass windows from the early 1600s. 

"Edam Grote Kerk 05" by Hnapel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The cheese market was situated in the centre of the town, along a canal, amidst these wonderful old buildings.

There were a lot of people dressed in traditional clothing, and there were speeches, some kind of ceremonial weighing, and then a process of loading the boats with the rounds of cheese.

It's true that it might have been more interesting if we'd been able to understand everything, but we felt like we got the general idea just by observing.

After this, how could we not have lunch in a pub that served a cheese board?

One of the canal bridges

After lunch, we set out again, heading west to Zaanse Schans. This is a very touristy place to see lots of Dutch windmills. I've been to Kinderdijk, which is more natural and less commercialized, and I've also seen lots of one-off windmills in Dutch towns, but this place was also charming. 

The windmills are nicely painted and set just off a street of older homes and shops, many of which are painted green. We started off on the shopping side of the canal and walked to the end. 

Then we went back to get our bikes and rode across the bridge to an area that was more residential. We rode around in this area for about an hour, exploring the nooks and crannies, and then decided it was time to head west again, this time to the beach at Zandvoort. The town was quite busy and it took a bit of time to find a place to park, but we finally found an underground parking spot and then rode our bikes down to the beach.

Holland might not be the first place you think of when you think about beaches, but in my opinion, their beaches are first-rate. 

The sand is fine and clean, and the beach seems to go on forever.

The weather was gorgeous, and we enjoyed swimming and relaxing for a couple of hours. 

One of the highlights of this beach visit was the place we changed afterwards. When we first arrived we didn't know about this service, so we just changed in the public washrooms, but when we were ready to go we noticed people going to a sort of shop/tent/hut type structure. There was a woman selling new-age-type things (crystals, oils, etc.) but she also had changing rooms. For a couple of euro, you could use the washroom and a changing cubicle. It sounds really sketchy, but somehow it wasn't. Everything was clean and nicely maintained and we were very grateful to have found it.

By now it was time for dinner, so I used Google Maps to find this wonderful Indonesian restaurant, "Toko Bintang". The food was delicious, and as we ate, we listened to people, obviously locals, coming in for their takeaways and exchanging conversation.

I noticed that as they left, most of the people said, "Eet smakelijk" ("enjoy your meal"). I recognized this phrase from my Duolingo Dutch lessons, but it also rang another bell somewhere in my mind. Then I remembered that when we watched the Rick Steves video about the Netherlands, he mentioned that it is a common Dutch custom to say this as you leave a restaurant. So, when we were ready to leave, I casually said this to a diner as we passed.

Last day in Europe:

Our flight was scheduled for late afternoon of the next day. We drove to the airport, where we returned the car and checked our large bike bags. It would have been nice to keep the bikes with us, but it was easier to be unencumbered, as we wanted to do a little more sightseeing.

We took a train to Leiden. We had been here before, on New Year's Day in 2019. That day everything was closed and there was debris from fireworks everywhere.

We walked around the town a bit and when we came upon this windmill museum, we decided to go inside. This was interesting, as it showed how the windmill operates and gave some history of the town.

I liked this white goose -- it is real, not a plastic lawn ornament!

All too soon, it was time to get back on the train and return to the airport and real life. I always feel like I am in a dream world when I visit Holland -- where else are bikes given such priority and where else is everything so neat and orderly? 

Tot ziens!

August Trip to the Netherlands & Scandinavia

 Day 1 - arrival in Amsterdam & Train to Den Haag

We arrived in Amsterdam this morning and after dropping off our luggage at the Radisson Blu Hotel, we took the train to Den Haag. We decided not to take the bikes, which we later regretted. Note to self: always take your bikes when in the Netherlands!

Our first plan upon arrival in the Hague was to climb the Groot Kerk tower, but unfortunately we were too late to book a spot for the last climb of the day. Instead, we wandered around the beautiful old city and then started walking towards the beach. It is not a really long walk, but because our time was limited, we wanted to get there as fast as possible. We decided to try to rent bikes. There was a choice of Donkey or Lime, but both failed because we didn't have a phone number (we were using eSIMs). So we continued walking. It was getting hot and we kept seeing the tram whiz past, obviously heading to the beach. 

Finally, I approached a woman who was waiting at the tram stop and asked her if she knew how we could pay for a ride. She said she thought we could use a credit card, so we decided to try. When I got on, I scanned my card using Apple pay and it made a noise and showed a check mark, but nothing appeared my phone as an indication that payment had gone through. We got off at the beach and enjoyed a walk along the shore (we didn't have our bathing suits with us). When it was time to go back, we decided to try the tram again. I scanned my card and got the green check mark, but again nothing happened to show a payment. I had no idea what to do, so we just kept riding. I scanned again as I got off, thinking maybe that was the secret, but still nothing. It makes me wonder what happened when I scanned, as I got a green check mark each time. 

I love the city of Den Haag and I had a very positive visit there in 2019, when I stayed in a hotel and rented a bike from there, but this time I felt slightly annoyed at how unfriendly it seemed to tourists. Of course, if we had brought our own bikes, everything would have been hunky dory.