We left our place in Mayen, Germany and Tom, the cat, and drove to Oegstgeest, The Netherlands, and checked into our new bedroom. It's an upstairs bedroom in a very nice townhouse. Our host, Robert, wasn't there but his brother was and gave us good advice on touring.
A short bus ride took us to Leiden, where we visited the ancient "castle", which is really just a round stone wall on a mound, built anciently for people to flee flooding.
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| Leiden "Castle" |
We bought goodies from a pastry shop and enjoyed walking all over the historic downtown area admiring the beautiful buildings, dodging the pervasive bicyclists, and smiling at the odd-looking Dutch words.
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| I don't know what "Geef Ook" means, but that's a lot of bikes! |
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| Making Friends with Locals |
(So far, everyone we've met in Holland speaks passable English. The lady in the pastry shop told us not to try to learn Dutch, because it is too hard.) We also saw the huge windmill that is now a museum charging 8 euros, so we just walked around the outside.
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| Windmill & Canal of Leiden |
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| Plaza, Canal, and Buildings of Leiden |
Then we drove to Amsterdam, made a few wrong turns, finally found the Park & Ride, and rode the tram to downtown. By then it was about 7:45 but this far north it stays light until about 10pm. We took a photo of the Royal Palace and Dam Square, bought some more pastry shop food, and then took a 1-hour boat tour through the canals. Amsterdam has an amazing spiderweb of canals going all over the city.
One of the first things we noticed upon entering Holland is that the German hills disappeared and the land became perfectly flat. Also, the drivers on the freeway seem more sane than the autobahn drivers. We did a lot today, but we somehow missed seeing dikes, tulips, or wooden shoes.
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