- First off, as has been mentioned numerous times in this blog, the Dutch are bike-crazy! We’ve never been involved in so many near misses in our lives, particularly in the larger cities. Amsterdam was the worst by far, but Gronigren in the north was also quite bad. We almost saw a fight break out between a pedestrian and a bike rider there. If you are walking, the cyclists view you as a simple impediment to ride around (or through if necessary)…there is no right-of-way except theirs. Bear this in mind.
- The bicycle helmet has not been discovered in the Netherlands. The prevailing attitude seems to be “I’m good at riding bikes, why should I wear a helmet?” You will see people riding on the back of a bike, riding side saddle on a bike rack, little kids wrapped around the front of an adult, little kids in carts attached the bike…and not a single helmet.
- A sidewalk is for bike parking, not for walking. Duh!
- In the larger cities of the Netherlands, a Coffee Shop is a store where you can buy and smoke the wacky weed. You know if you are near one, as the smell is permeating.
- Around 15,000 bikes are salvaged from the canals in Amsterdam every year. A lot of the bikes are thrown in by vandals, but quite a few end up in the canal due to heavy drinking or having visited a coffee shop recently.
- The Netherlands is a foodie paradise. A lot of their restaurants offer fixed price tasting menus, with anywhere from 4 to 7 courses, as well as the ubiquitous “amuse bouche”. They also love their “surprise” menus, where you get whatever the chef felt like making that day. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint, but damn was it hard to not gain a shit-ton of weight on this trip!
- A lot of people refer to the Netherlands as Holland. This is incorrect. The Netherlands is made up of 12 provinces, and only 2 of these have the name Holland, South Holland and North Holland. The fact that the three largest cities, Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam are in these two provinces is where the common terminology of Holland comes from.
- Credit cards don’t always work in the Netherlands. A lot of places, like grocery stores and certain gas stations, only accept a debit card. Make sure to have Euros on hand, although we visited several places that were “credit card only”. It got a little frustrating at times. It seems the Dutch expect everybody to have a debit card with a PIN number.
- There are more Teslas here than anywhere we have been in Europe, by far. They are almost as common as they are in California. I would say at least 10% of the cars on the road were Teslas. No sign of a Supercharger network though.
- Nearly everybody in the Netherlands speaks English. They have the highest rate of English speakers anywhere in Europe.
- We must look very Dutch, as we were always spoken to in Dutch when we first met somebody. A few people appeared to be asking for directions, and as soon as we spoke English they said “never mind”. This happened multiple times.
- If you like this painting by Vermeer, you are in luck!
This is “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, painted by Johannes Vermeer in 1665. It’s without a doubt the most popular painting in the Netherlands. You will find this painting on plates, mugs, spoons, napkins, jewelry, umbrellas, scarves, coasters, postcards, luggage…pretty much anything you can plaster it on! We saw it in every city we visited in the Netherlands. - The Dutch absolutely love the Royal family. Their biggest celebration of the year is “King’s Day” on April 27th, when everybody in the country wears orange, the national color. The celebratory day started in 1885. On August 31, 1885, “Princess Day” was celebrated for the first time for Princess Wilhemina’s 5th birthday. Princess Wilhelmina became Queen in 1891, and the day was changed to “Queens Day”. The name was changed once more (as well as the date) to “Kings Day” in 2014 in honor of the current King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. All of the stores were stocked with anything you can imagine in orange.
- Speaking of Wilhemina, every meal in the Netherlands ends with the check and Wilhemina mints. I ended up with mints in every pocket, and only found some of them after getting home.
- Lastly, much like Belgium, the Dutch don’t expect a tip, but very much appreciate getting one. If you do want to tip in a restaurant, the key is to tell the staff to add the tip before they present you with the credit card machine. They don’t have those obnoxious machines that shove the tip options in your face, which seem to be popping up everywhere in the US. As usual, thanks for reading!
Our last stop, Haarlem and the amazing tulips of Keukenhof
We made our last stop outside of Amsterdam in the small city of Haarlem. Staying here has two distinct advantages; you are near the airport for the flight home, and you are just a half hour from Keukenhof, what I’d refer to as the Disneyland of Holland. The day we arrived in Haarlem there was a flower festival happening in town. We missed the parade, but walked around and found most of the floats getting prepped to be hauled away.
The locals were walking around trying to get flowers off the floats, but they were still pretty intact. Reminded us of the Rose Bowl parade.
We only had one full day to spend here before our flight, and we spent it at one of the top attractions in the Netherlands, Keukenhof.
The entrance to the place is absolutely JAM PACKED with people, but if you walk maybe 100 yards into the garden the crowds thinned considerably. I wonder if some of these people walk in, take a million photos at the entrance, and leave? If so they are missing out on the best flower display we’ve ever seen.
There are over 7 million flowering tulips, daffodils and other bulb flowers to be seen in the Spring. Our timing was perfect. For reference, we were there on April 24th.
It’s like something out of a fairy tale, or a really expensive wedding! The place really does feel like Disneyland, without the rides.
Just beautiful flowers everywhere you look. The name “tulip” comes from the Persian word “tulipan”, which means “turban”, the shape of the tulip bulb. There has been a tulip garden at this location since the 17th century.
The tulips in the Netherlands originally came from Turkey. The Austrian Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey gave the first bulbs to the Dutchman Carolus Clusius, who planted the first bulbs in 1593.
I don’t know how many times I said “wow”!! I heard the same thing over and over from others in the garden.
There are little signs all over to identify the type of tulips and daffodils you are looking at. There are several growers in the gardens who are selling their bulbs, so you can identify the ones you like the most if you want to buy some. The growers will help you decide which flowers to get based on your location. Unfortunately some of the ones we liked the most don’t do well in Northern California, but there are plenty of options!
The “flamed” or “striped” tulips originated because of a virus carried by aphids from one plant to another, so these popular tulips were actually diseased. This one is called “United States”…maybe because they look like the flame on the Statue of Liberty?
There’s beautiful and more beautiful! Somebody literally proposed directly to the left of where Kim is sitting just a few minutes prior. Fortunately she said yes, or I would have been forced to post a video of the aftermath.
We were here for nearly 3 hours. It never got old!
I was trying to take a selfie so some kind lady assisted us since she could tell I’m a boomer with limited selfie skills.
Near the entrance is this field of mixed tulips. I was shocked we didn’t see people walking into them to get their Instagram shot (although we saw plenty of Instagrammer types throughout the park…ugh).
If you look in the background of this photo you will get a feel for how crowded certain spots were. The line to get into the windmill was massive. Fortunately we have already visited several windmills in the Netherlands.
Directly adjacent to Keukenhof are fields of flowers. We saw these all over this region as we were driving from spot to spot…they really stand out from the surroundings.
Keukenhof was definitely one of the major highlights of our trip. Our trip to the airport the next day was uneventful, and the flights were pretty much on time. Overall a very successful trip, and the Netherlands are definitely something you should place on your bucket list, particularly if you can get here in April!
Next up, we have one final post on the things we learned about the Netherlands.