Volendam - Tourism on the Edge of Europe

We also visited the little town Volendam to explore "old time Holland", or at least "old time Holland filled with tourist shops".

This little town was built on a dike that keeps the North Sea out of Holland.

Looking out over the sea, we could see some modern windmills!

Lunch was an Amsterdam specialty - fried veal, that was soft enough to spread over bread once you broke through the crispy outside.  Very good.

Keukenhof - Seeing the World through Tulip Colored Glasses

Going to Holland in the spring is awesome.  Why?  One word.  Keukenhof.

It's the largest botanical garden I've ever been in.  It's only open in the spring, tulip season!  It has billions (literally) of tulips and other flowers arranged artfully in the lawn, plus much more.

Hubby resting in the gardens as his crazy wife goes shutter-crazy.

Neat, huh?

They had some giant klumpa to try on!  

Of course, hubby tries to escape with them.

They had a giant greenhouse filled just with orchids.  It was amazing.  They were hanging from the walls, on shelves near the ceiling, all around us!

Some are unlike any I've seen before.

Poof ball!

These look like spiders.

Of course, my husband wanted his chance to look like a wife.  The other women, waiting in line to try on the "wedding gown", did not anticipate a guy taking a turn too.

Now for some tulips.

And I even got my obligatory tulip and windmill picture!  

I got to go inside.  Very cool!  See me way up there?

Got a kick out of these.  Windmill and klumpa shaped lollipops.

Bram loves the giant klumpa.  

Now the tulip room.  It was awesome!  They must have had a billion flowers, and a million different types.

Inside the prism of flowers.

We saw some really interesting tulips.  Some with skinny petals and striped leaves...

fuzzy tulips...

some as big as your hand...

and some that saturated the red in my camera!

Jumping through the lake.

Finally, tired after waiting for his wife to take pictures all day.  I have such a patient husband.

Family and Small Town Life in the Netherlands

We stayed with Bram's cousins and family in a small town in the Netherlands.

Here we are with cousins and their mother (our aunt).

And cousin and his family.

The little town we stayed in was next to a huge lake.  (There's a lot of water in the Netherlands.  I bet my husband's grandparents had quite a shock when they moved to the desert.)

More canals.

The name of the town we stayed in (second from the top).  I find it funny they had to hyphenate it to put it on the sign.

Another interesting part of small town living.  This is a two way road.  But it only has one lane.  

Rotterdam - In the Steps of Toto

Rotterdam is a very modern city.  Since there was a lot of destruction during the war, most of the buildings are very modern, with little of the old style architecture we saw in the other cities we visited. 

A collection of really weird  buildings.

Some cube shaped houses.  I imagine it would be hard to put anything against the wall, and the people who live inside probably hit their heads a lot.

 

This car had recently driven out of the parking structure.  No really, we are not sure if it did or if it's just someone's idea of art.

We visited what Bram's friend called a "boat graveyard", filled with an assortment of old boats.

We can never decide who's in charge.

In the boat graveyard, there was also some pretty heavy duty ship yard equipment.

Another example of the Dutch language.  Check out that word.  Not only is it 19 letters long, it also has a jfsh next to each other. 

 We came across Rotterdam's "Walk of Fame", with the footprints and handprints of various celebrities.

Gloria Estefan:

The band members of Toto!

Roy Charles

John Denver

And... Shrek?

 

Two dimensional trees are all the rage in Holland.