Our recent trip with Backroads to Holland and Belgium was fantastic in so many ways. And I've included a fairly detailed summary of our trip below along with a photo highlights and links to help us remember the trip and help others to get a taste of our travels as well.
But before I go any further, I want to offer a few words of deep gratitude and thanks to Grandma Judy, Gammy Peggy and Aunt Ahme who were collectively responsible for keeping Rosie & Sam safe, fed, clothed, entertained and loved for the duration of our 10 day trip. From handling pick-up and drop off duty at school, to preparing all of their meals, to tucking them each night, to closely adhering to the 10 page "Rosie & Sam User's Guide" that Marcee prepared (even the parts that I wrote that they thought were crazy:), the three of you truly went above and beyond the call of grandparent and aunt duty. We absolutely positively could not have done the trip without you.
So with that, on with the trip highlights...
Day 1:
We left on the afternoon of May 28th from Newark and arrived in Amsterdam at ~7am the next day to a torrential downpour. Bad omen #1. Then I proceeded to mistake the local bus for our hotel airport shuttle and got us a bit lost on the way to our accommodations. Bad omen #2. And then it actually hailed for about an hour once we arrived. Bad omen #3. But thankfully the day and the trip got better and better from there! Our boutique hotel room in Amsterdam was "cheap but chic", well located and had an excellent restaurant. And the weather cleared quickly in the afternoon. Both because we couldn't check into our room until the the afternoon and to help us adjust to the time change, we started our trip with a bike tour of Amsterdam Mike's Bike Tours which was a great introduction to the city. After a quick walking tour of the architecturally hip Eastern Docklands neighborhood surrounding the hotel and a tasty meal at the hotel restaurant, we were both passed out by 10pm.
After a good night's sleep, we were thrilled to wake up to a weather forecast devoid of rain! We started off with a traditional dutch breakfast of pancakes at a local micro chain called Pancakes Amsterdam and then hit up a local design store called The Frozen Fountain. We then spent the rest of the morning wandering around the Jordaan neighborhood and learning about the history of the canal system at a very cool interactive museum called Het Grachtenhuis. After a stop for some extremely tasty french fries (traditionally eaten with mayonnaise vs. ketchup in Amsterdam), we took a quirky boat but informative boar tour of the canal ring offered by a company called Those Dam Boat Guys which is run by some American expats. Afterwards we went on another Stephen Schwartz inspired architectural walk to a neighborhood called the Western Islands where we landed at a bar/restaurant called Worst which was the best and is owned an operated by an alum of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA which is the restaurant where I met Marcee's parents for the first time. After that our marathon day continued with a tour of the Red Light District which we were unfortunately too exhausted to find particularly interesting or informative. We took the trusty number 10 train line (our "go to" means of transportation throughout our stay) back to the hotel to pack for our bike trip.
Day 3:
Bike trip day! After another good night's sleep and tasty breakfast at our hotel, we headed out to meet our Backroads group at a nearby hotel. After a one hour shuttle to the the village of Alkmaar and a quick overview of our bikes, we were off. The weather was chilly but sunny with no rain and it was exhilarating to finally be on our bikes after months of planning. We rode for about 2 hours before stopping for lunch at an idyllic restaurant in the country. And after another 2 hours on our bikes, we arrived at Duin en Kruidberg, a former country estate turned hotel. As a special treat due to a late check-out by the preceding guests in our assigned room, the upgraded us to a suite which was bigger than Marcee's first apartment in Brooklyn! All told we put in 26 miles on Day 1.
We were a bit sore after our first day on the bikes but the weather forecast called for more sun so we were both very excited to get back in the saddle for another day of cycling. We started the day by riding through sand dunes along the North Sea (note: this is random youtube footage to give you a sense of the terrain, no need to watch the whole thing) and continued through some stunning active tulip farms before stopping at a greenhouse where the the Backroads team made us a tasty picnic lunch. After lunch, it was onto the world famous Keukenhof Gardens. While it was overrun with tourists, the flowers were absolutely stunning to behold and we easily understood why ~1 million visitors descend on it each spring to see the tulips in full bloom for the ~2 months that the Keukenhof gardens are open. After seeing the gardens, we shuttled to The Hague where we would spend the next two nights at the historic Hotel des Indes. After a tour of the city with a knowledgeable and witty guide arranged by Backroads and a delicious dinner at a local restaurant, we were fast asleep after an exciting 28 miles of biking.
Day 5:
Another day of sunshine! We felt very fortunate to have such good luck as the weather is always a bit hit or miss this time of year and apparently the trip the week before us got rained on every day. After a 45 minute shuttle to a cheese farm, we started our 3rd day of biking with a bang at the Windmills of Kinderdijk which our a UNESCO world heritage site. Click here to check out some you tube video that gives you a better sense of where we were---give it about 30 seconds in before you give up on the video. There's a famous saying that goes, "God created the earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands". In support of this quote, it's important to know that most of the country is below sea level and the Kinderdijk windmill system built around 1740 was a key piece of a larger system designed to carefully control the water level across the country and keep it from flooding. Click here for some youtube video (again, not mine!) of the windmill museum that we visited. After leaving Kinderdijk, we headed Gouda (pronounced Gow-da) which is world famous for its cheese where we had lunch in an old harbor house. After lunch we biked through the Reeuwijk lake district which for me was one of the most beautiful stretches of biking we did on the whole trip. I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures on this stretch but hopefully the google images in the link give you a sense of why we loved it. While Marcee & I both hopped in the van for the last stretch of the day, I jumped out about 10 miles outside of the city so that I could ride through the famed Hague Forest and past the Huis ten Bosch Palace which is the residential palace of the Dutch Royal Family. All told we biked about 35 miles on Day 5.
Day 6:
We said farewell to the Hague and journeyed ~2 hours by bus to the city of Vlissingen where we then hopped on a 20 minute ferry ride to the city of Breskens. After a scenic and mellow 17 mile ride through the countryside, we arrived in the historical city of Sluis for lunch. After lunch we rode a truly stunning 12 mile stretch along the Damse Vaart canal that led us over the Belgian border and into the city of Bruges. Click here for some video (again, not mine) to get a sense of how gorgeous the scenery was along the canal. We checked into Hotel de Tuilerieen, our hotel for the last two nights of the bike trip, Again, Backroads arranged a knowledgeable tour guide to orient us to the historic city of Bruges and then it was off to another fantastic meal. All told we biked about 29 miles while crossing from Holland into Belgium.
Day 7 was a special one for a few reasons. First, after spending the morning biking through a number of small Belgian Villages we arrived in the historical Flanders Fields that are famous both for gorgeous poppy fields and the brutal trench warfare battles that were fought there in World War I. These battles were memorialized by the famous war poem "In Flanders Fields" written by Canadian physician Colonel John McCrae and at lunch we had a chance to visit a sobering World War I museum sharing the same name. Second, it offered the longest stretch of biking we encountered on the trip with a 100k (60 miles) route that as you'll see below I was very proud to have tackled. After conquering the day's terrain, we had a beer tasting at local bar and finished off the last full day of cycling with one last group dinner.
Day 8:
Day 8 was yet another day of gorgeous weather but sadly also the end of the biking portion of our trip. We finished with a brief 12 mile loop around the Bruges countryside where I got the first and only flat tire that anyone in our group suffered. Thankfully our Backroads guides were there to take care of my flat in a jiffy and I was back on my bike in no time. Marcee however beat me back to the hotel where she used the extra time to procure some famous Belgian chocolate for her dad. After saying farewell to our trip mates we headed off to the Bruges train station for what we thought was going to be a fairly straightforward train ride back to Amsterdam. What we didn't know was that riding the train from Belgium to Holland on the weekend is akin to riding the subway in New York on the weekends---frequent delays, track maintenance and scheduled changes. Thanks to Marcee's smarts though we managed to get back to Amsterdam without too much trouble or delay. We checked back into the same hotel we stayed at on the front end of our trip with enough time to take a walk around some portions of the canal ring that we'd missed in our first two days and finished the evening off with a dinner at one of Amsterdam's better known Indonesian restaurants.
Day 9:
After breakfast at the hotel, our last day of site seeing started off strong with a trip the Van Gogh Museum. Thank goodness we purchased tickets in advance as their was a line around the block to enter the museum at 10am. Despite the crowds, we had a great trip to the museum thanks in large part to an award winning audio guide that helped us better understand not only Van Gogh's artwork but the artist and the historical context in which he lived and worked. After the museum, we used our well worn Lonely Planet to guide us to yet another tasty meal. After lunch, we returned to the Jordaan district to purchase some souvenirs for our family and spend about an hour lazing away on a canal side bench watching a steady stream of boats and bikers. We then headed over to our last tourist attraction of the trip, the Rijksmuseum, where we not only saw some of the museum's greatest paintings (Rembrandt's The Night Watch and Vermeer's The Milkmaid) but also grabbed some reclining chairs and soaked up the atmosphere in the adjoining gardens. After one last dinner at the hotel museum, we packed our bags and hit the hay early to be up bright and early for our flight home.
Day 10:
After an easy flight, we arrived safe and sound back in Newark and then hustled home after a custom's delay to the waiting arms of Sam, Rosie and Amy. I'm not sure if we were more excited to see them or vice versa but regardless we were glad to be back at home in Brooklyn after a truly memorable trip. While I think it will be awhile before we are able to wrangle all of the various resources necessary to slip away for 10 days, Backroads was an absolutely fantastic company to adventure with from start to finish and we would absolutely travel with them again in the future.
