These boys were so excited to say farewell to Jakarta for the summer and head on a big adventure. Even after a 16-hour flight to Amsterdam, they were pretty bright-eyed and ready to explore.
What a gorgeous city! We picked it because it fit into our plans geographically and I'd always heard it was a great place to visit, but I had no idea how much we would love it.
We dropped our bags at our apartment and headed straight out for lunch and a canal tour. We were extra lucky to have an absolutely perfect day. Apparently, these don't come around that often.
It was fun learning about the history and architecture of the city and marvel at the character that has been preserved for centuries.
Captain Ron let Ben take the wheel for the second half of the tour. I'm pretty sure he never heard another word but he had the time of his life.
Alex passed on driving and took a few minutes to close his eyes instead.
Major goal - touching as many bridges as possible!
Even the candy is charming in Amsterdam!
One of the highlights from the boat tour - finding the smoked goose boat that sells the most amazing sandwiches. I wasn't hungry in the least but couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it and was greatly rewarded.
Alex was a pretty big fan of all the bakeries! After a rest and a nice dinner, we made it an early evening to sleep off some of our jetlag.
On Saturday, we discovered that Amsterdam is a sleepy town in the mornings. The first bakery opened at 6:30 and we were starving while we waited. But full stomachs and cool weather had us invigorated and ready to explore some more. We missed tulip season by a few weeks but still found lovely flowers everywhere.
Lots of Indonesian cuisine here because of the East Indies influence. We got a laugh at the Pondok Indah restaurant and kept on walking. We were taking a few months off of nasi goreng.
We wandered through a few Saturday markets that were so perfect they seemed unreal.
Everything was just beautiful and unbelievable charming.
We tasted cheese EVERYWHERE. It was AMAZING.
Our next stop was the Van Gogh museum, which was very informative and interesting.
No pictures allowed but I had to sneak a quick pic of one of my favorites.
If you look this much like Van Gogh, you deserve the 2 euros for a picture.
After the museum, we had brunch at the smallest house in Amsterdam. Four stories and one room per floor, 6.5' wide and 16' deep.
The family no longer lives there and has converted the ground floor into a tea shop and the first floor into a tea room, with the kitchen one floor above.
It has exactly one table so reservations are a must!
The house was so tiny but amazingly functional and our host was incredible, even though he had to go up and down the stairs to serve us a lot of the food.
We enjoyed a huge traditional Dutch brunch with cold cuts, cheese, and all kinds of fresh baked goodies and pies, while our host gave us the history of the house and introduced us more to Dutch culture. It was probably my favorite experience of the weekend.
As if that wasn't enough eating and drinking, we wandered over to IJ brewery to sample a bit more. It has the last remaining windmill in the city.
A flight of beer and fresh cheese and cold cuts...delicious!
We passed through Dam Square often because our apartment was right around the corner and something interesting was always happening...either a demonstration, street performers, or just hundreds of hungry pigeons.
Our final morning, we checked out early and enjoyed the scenic walk back to the train station to head to the airport. We were able to check our luggage and then rent a car for the day.
The Netherlands is just postcard perfect everywhere you look!
We visited Kinderdijk to enjoy the windmills that were built in the 1700's. The engineering that went into designing them and turning swamps into farmland was so impressive.
Have to get the obligatory wooden shoe photos!
The actual workings inside the windmills were fascinating and any open space was the resident family's home.
We drove back toward Amsterdam through Gouda, mostly because I wanted to buy some cheese there. We had no idea what a perfect little town we'd find there.
I used this word over and over because it was so true - it was absolutely charming. We walked out into the square on a perfect, sunny day and a local drama troupe was singing something and people were enjoying their Sunday afternoon at many little outdoor cafes.
Even my salad was perfect! Locally grown fresh fruit and locally made cheese.
The canals in Gouda were picture perfect as well. It's so much fun to wander into a city knowing nothing about it (other than it should have some good cheese) and falling in love with it.
Matt was happy because he got to drive. It was his one request for the weekend since he wouldn't be making the trip to Texas for the summer and wouldn't have another chance to get behind the wheel for a very long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment