Category Archives: Netherlands

Four countries in one day

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The end of our roadtrip is here and we are finally back home with our two cats where we belong. Mom has taken such gold care of them while we’ve been away, they were so soft and well-brushed! It has been a truly amazing trip, we have seen so much, been spoiled by Mikael’s family and tried world-class adventure golf at Die Rheinpiraten! But all adventures come to an end eventually, and this one ended now. I really do want to go on another roadtrip now though!

We had a long day ahead of us and left Amsterdam at around 9 in the morning and we touched down at home at 22:30. Several breaks and four countries (Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden) later we are finally greeted by two cuties at home! The sunset on the way was so beautiful amongst fluffy clouds. And it was sad when we left Autobahn and were restricted with speed limits again, haha!

I’m sure we’ll meet again, Germany! I want to improve my German more. Surprisingly much came back after so many days there :).

Today’s numbers, excluding approx 1h of breaks.
The total numbers for this trip. Not too bad. I am not sure about the average speed though. It feels like we should have driven much longer stretches at much higher speeds. But there have been lots of city driving as well I guess

Amsterdam

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You can see a lot in Amsterdam in one day. Our butts still hurt, and we’ve walked a lot (20k steps), so I am almost excited to sit in the car all day tomorrow when we are driving home, haha!

 

RIJKSMUSEUM

The first stop of the day was at the Rijksmuseum which contains history and art related to the Dutch history. It was massive and I think we were there for almost 2 hours. It was expensive, 22,5 Euro per person, but it was a great museum! Each half floor was an era and it ranged from the Middle Ages to 2000. We skipped the 20th century and spent most time in the earlier days.

 
The Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler II (1815). How do you even paint something this big?
    
Rembrandt.

The Night’s Watch by Rembrandt.

 

FLOATING FLOWER MARKET

After the museum visit, we were hungry since we skipped breakfast and walked straight to the museum. Amsterdam is famous for pancakes so we found a place by the Floating Flower Market called the Pancake Company where we both had Poffertjes, a Dutch specialty. Basically small pancakes with topping. Really good!


Poffertjes, a dutch small pancake with nutella, whipped cream and strawberries. Yummy!

 

BEGIJNHOF

In the middle of it all, there is a preserved neighborhood which is super old, Het Beijnhof. The place had some old history relating to religion and the last standing wooden house from the 16th century still stands here. People live here, so we had to be quiet when walking around. Super pretty buildings.

 

CANALS AND SIGHTSEEING

After the quiet residential neighborhood we just walked around. Saw lots of canals, and honestly: they all look the same basically. At first,  the canals were built to be a part of the military defense system, but when the city grew, the more inner canals military function was lost and they were instead used for transportation. I have to admit though, that even if I have traveled a lot through the years, I’ve never seen a city like this. So much water, easy to navigate, old and preserved architecture. it’s really quite something. We thought we would get a lot of rain today, but we didn’t and actually even got some sun every now and then.


To visit Anne Frank House, you need to make an online reservation six weeks in advance. No tickets are sold at the entrance. We didn’t even know we were going to Amsterdam six weeks ago.
 
We had lunch at New Dutch and it was delicious! Right by the canal.

Damrak, the most photographed place in Amsterdam.

The central station was pretty pompous.

Dam Square, right next to our hotel.
Royal Palace (Koninklijk Paleis op de Dam) and De Nieuwe Kerk at Dam Square.

 

RED LIGHT DISTRICT

We took a short nap back at the hotel before heading out again. Mikael found a restaurant called CAU Steakhouse, just around the corner from our hotel. It was a bit pricey, but it was really tasty. We then walked a little bit further and ended up in the Red Light District. Well, it was interesting to see. But it honestly felt like a lot of tourists (and couples and families) walked there just to see it. Which is exactly what we did. Interesting, but kind of depressing as well. Also, something I haven’t written about yet, is the smell of this city. Wow, it smells bad. People smoking everywhere. When we drove into the city last night, the car started to smell already. Ugh!

 

Duisburg

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Ouch, our butts! They have withstood so much today, but what a super sweet day. It was our last day in Germany with Ina and Burki and we spent it in Duisburg where Burki’s mother lives, who celebrated her 85th birthday. The four siblings had arranged for a surprise party, including breakfast at her house, then a bike ride and dinner at a restaurant. Such a sweet family. We all had a great day, and Käthe was so happy that we had come all the way to Sweden and joined in on the birthday celebrations. Mikael have met her before and I got the introduction to the whole family. Lots of names and dogs to keep track of.


The pimped tricicle bike that Ina and Burki had rented for the day. Käthe rode in this one and everyone else had their own bikes.


Molly got her own cart and joined in. Ina had a really nice electric mountainbike, but had forgotten her battery. It must have been heavy.


We took a break at Egelsberger Mülhl and had peach cake and cherry cake bought in the Netherlands. Apparently, when Burki was young, they bought fancy cakes like this and took long bike rides. While we were resting here, Molly was picking blackberries off a nearby bush. Adorable!


We were told we were going on a bike ride. But we were not told it would be 22km and 2,5 hours. Haha! It was a beautiful ride along fields and lakes. My saddle was kind of soft, but it still made my butt sore, haha! Mikael had a very hard saddle and is also in a lot of pain. He also had troubles with his bike that he loaned from Burki. For the first 25 minutes after the windmill break, his rear tire got crooked somehow, it sounded and was grinding against the metal frame. Which made it so much tougher. Poor guy! It was supposed to be a leisure ride, but he was sweating like crazy when the rest of us were beginning to tire a little bit.

After the bike ride, most of us drove to a restaurant called Landgasthaus Sellner. It was not super special, and several people were not very happy with their food, but I really liked min. Pork filet with fried potatoes and mushroom sauce. Molly was adorable here as well. She picked up the bag of candies that is attached to the leash and tried to hand it to us, telling us that she wanted candies. She also came up to me and Mikael and tried to shake hands and pushed her head against our thighs. She is so sweet!

We didn’t stay too long, the tricycle bike had to be returned and we said goodbye to everyone and headed in the opposite direction to the border to the Netherlands.


It was POURING down some of the way. Like scary much! But after the clouds cleared a bit, the sunset was really pretty.


We reached the hotel, finally, but not without trouble. We came into the city very late and we are staying in the complete city center at Dam Square. There was a small road leading in to the hotel and the parking, but there was a taxi blocking the way when we arrived so we weren’t sure it was the correct way. So we drove on, put in the address again and called the hotel and they confirmed we were supposed to make a turn there. Oh well. 20 minutes later, because the city is full of tiny streets and one way roads, we arrived and the taxi was still there. We blinked, the taxi gestured for us to drive past. We insisted and he got mad at us and drove out eventually. Stupid!

We are here finally, super tired but will hopefully have energy for tomorrow’s sightseeing.