Netherlands

So here’s the funny thing, the weather in Germany has just turned gorgeous and we leave for a beach town in the Netherlands where it is freezing cold. Today was only slightly warmer than yesterday. However I am determined to see the tulip fields and park, Koenkof.
After breakfast we strike out on our bikes again. We are armed with some pretty crappy directions from the tourist office that will get us to this park. The route is listed as 25 km but we are unsure if this is the round trip or only half way.
After about an hour and a few miracles we arrive and save 6 euros on parking We bypass the lines at the ticket office because we printed ours online. Soon we are engulfed in beautiful displays of flowers and plants. Our first stop was a huge greenhouse that had hundreds of different types of flowers. The tulips were so open they didn’t even really look like tulips anymore. Some had funny names like honky tonk, traveler, backpacker and Elisabeth. Of course I got photos of nearly every plant as you can see

Orange tulips in the park

Flaming Parrot flower

Sunburst design in flower

Orange tulips with frayed edges

The traveller flower

more tulips

Close up tulips

Easter tulips

Open Purple flower

There was a room full of lillies.

a blow up couch was out for people rest....or take photos.
The entire day was spent strolling the park and checking out flowers, swans and a windmill.

Apparently the theme for the year was the connection with the United States so they had a display of the statue of liberty. It was an outline of her head so you couldn’t really tell what it was – kind of disappointing.

Along with flowers they had a few birds of prey that were close enough to get great photos of. Not sure how that connected with the park but they were beautiful anyway.

On the way out we hit some of the flower fields for more photos before riding home.

After burning all those calories we were starved and ended up again at an Italian restaurant. It had many fireplaces and a piano karaoke guy so it was a fun dinner.
Tomorrow will be the ride home which I’m sure will be a warm and sunshining day

The beautiful weather from yesterday vanished and the morning greeted us, gray, foggy and cold. We braved it to the car to get our bikes and found the tourist information office. When asked what we could do indoors that woman directed us to the next town over with lots of museums. Well this isn’t really our style so we decided after much debate to put on all the clothes we brought and bike to this town.
The town was Leiden and it is a university town about 12 kilometers from Noordwijk. For us it was about 16 km because we followed road signs instead of the bike signs initially and started by going in a giant circle. The landscape is beautiful but it was a bit cold to be adding to the ride.

Windmill in Leiden
By the time we hit Leiden we were ready for lunch and a thaw. One of the first restaurants we saw looked promising and warm. Lunch of paninis and fries hit the spot but the best was yet to come. The cherry fly pie is a Netherlands dessert. It has a soft bottom sort of like a cheesecake and then cherries on top – delicious!!!
Haarlam street was a main street full of shops and we hit pay dirt, of all places, in a lamp store. They had a stained glass lamp of a giraffe and elephant which we had to have for our African digs. The only problem arose when we had to figure out how to get this giant box 12 km home on our bikes. In the end Curt found a way and wore out his forearm trying to hold it. But he made it and we were back in Noordwijk for dinner.
For some reason we always want Chinese and of course they are everywhere. The buffet in town was great and we ate our weight in Chinese food. Unfortunately it was too cold to stroll on the beach so the day was done for us.

Mermaid marking hotel in town Noordwijk.

A long seven hour car drive landed us in the beautiful coastal town of Noordwijk in the Netherlands. After sailing by fields of flowers and a bunch of windmills we were ready to get on our bikes and take off. The Netherlands has a great network of bike trails where you don’t have to fight the car traffic and there are special trail signs connecting the towns. We got the lay of the land and returned to our less than stellar hostel – the Flying Pig Beach Hostel. It was one of those no frills places in the Netherlands that has to post a sign asking you to please smoke your cigarettes and marijuana outside.

Noordwijk has a strip near the beach lined with restaurants and cafes. The weather was nice enough to eat outside so we hit a pizza joint. Soon after exhaustion from the work week and the long drive took over and we headed back to the hostel.

Lighthouse in Noordwijk.