What do Windmills, Tulips, and Neon Green Have in Common?

A trip to Belgium and the Netherlands, of course!

We planned our trip to Brussels and Amsterdam for the last weekend of April before we realized that April 29 is the biggest Dutch holiday: Queen's Day. After finding every hostel booked we went to plan B: bike camping. . . . We know it's almost May--a little early for the camping equipment to come out and a little too soon for the gloves to get packed away--but we went for it anyway.

Alex arrived in Brussels in the early afternoon and did some sightseeing. The old town hall:

It's never good when you're cell phone is telling you things in Czech while you're trying to make a call in Belgium. A picture of frustration as I sit outside my friend's office unable to call him:

The Belgian flag on the Hall of Justice:

The town hall again, this time at night:

After a night in Brussels, we started our adventure to Amsterdam. . . .

She's arrived at her very own cafe!

We were in a hurry to get the rental bikes and get on the train so that we'd have as much daylight in Amsterdam to find a campsite. But other than that, we were very relaxed about everything. So we had time to take a picture of us and our rental bikes near the center of Brussels:

Soon we had the bikes on the train. The conductor kicked all the people out of the seats in the bicycle area to make room for us. It was a very pleasant ride through the Belgian and Dutch countryside:

The train from Brussels to Amsterdam stopped at Schiphol, which is probably familiar to about one third of all American tourists travelling to Europe. It's the name of the Amsterdam airport, which is your main point of entry if you don't fly to Paris, London, or Frankfurt. We got off our train in Schiphol and saw thousands of people waiting to board the next train to Amsterdam for Queen's Day, and decided that a bike ride from the airport to town would be better than trying to wrestle our bikes onto a crowded train. We were right: It was beautiful despite a stiff breeze.

The Dutch flag flies with the extra orange flag for Queen's Day.

We arrived in Amsterdam from the south, and long before reaching the city center we were slowed down on our bikes by hordes of people wearing orange. Why is orange such a popular color in The Netherlands? Well, the current monarch is a member of the House of Orange, a powerful family with lots of history you could probably find somewhere on the internet... maybe here. This weekend it was the trendiest color to wear. Luckily, the exposed sleeping pad helped us blend in:

Unfortunately we didn't have matching shirts like this group, who were enjoying a live concert.

Canals run through the center of Amsterdam, and because the ground isn't that firm many of the old houses are slowly sinking and close inspection shows them to be learning this way or that.

We found a great campsite in the city (about a 10 minute bike ride from the center) and set up camp.

The trip to Anne Frank's house started with a big line: According to some reports almost 1,000,000 people visited the hiding place of the Frank family and their guests last year. Here is the Westorkerk, the church across the street. Anne references these very churchbells in several of her journal entries:

The building directly behind this tree is the building that the Franks and their friends hid in. The front was a spice factory during WWII, but now the outside has been renovated and the inside has been restored and preserved.

As you can see, it's a must-see part of Amsterdam. Walking through the house is very different from looking at pictures of the different rooms because in the real annex there are many more stairs than you would think. In the movie and in most dramatic productions there are only two floors, but in the real house there are several and their hiding place is much more maze-like. Unfortunately taking pictures inside was strictly forbidden.



A trip this loosely planned was sure to have at least one disaster, and when it struck there was nothing to do but hang our heads and cry. A flat tire forced us to walk for about 30 minutes until we found a place to fix it.

Nothing puts a stop to flat-tire blues like chips drowned in mayonaise. Yum!

We couldn't help but take this picture out a cafe window. Prague is romantic, but there is something about canals that just makes you want to slow down and hold hands. Awwww....

Speaking of romantic, I hope that a certain uncle of mine recognizes our t-shirts:

Amsterdam is known for its bikes. . . . it is not known for bike helmets and despite all the crazy spectacles we witnessed all weekend, we apparently were the craziest thing around. You wouldn't believe all the comments we got about wearing helmets.

So, the only really long bike ride of the trip was going to be a pleasant jaunt from Amsterdam to The Hague (Den Haag, in Dutch - a 55km ride) through fields of tulips and past windmills. It would have been a good day for windmills, as there was a steady wind. Unfortunately it brought rain with it. Which was great, at first! We got to try our new pannier covers! No batteries needed and look how bright they glow!

Don't worry, we did see a few windmills. They weren't spnning, though. But it wouldn't be Holland without them.

Perhaps the best thing about this biking trip was that we had bikes lanes for about 99.3% of the trip from Amsterdam to The Hague. I think we climbed perhaps 20 feet in elevation over the three hours of riding.

Not only are the paths smooth, but they are clearly marked as well, with special signs for cyclists:

Yes, we saw tulips!

Tulips and tulips and tulips!

And then whole fields of tulips!

Even though the Dutch Queen and Senate are located in The Hague, our hands were too cold to take pictures of anything. The rain had pretty much soaked all the clothes we were wearing. Good thing the panniers were waterproof, so that we had something to change into! Holding hot chocolate to try and warm frozen fingers:

We're practicing for The Amazing Race. We left Amsterdam by bike at 8:45 and arrived at The Hague by 1:30. Caught a train to Brussels that put us into the Central Station at 4:20. A sprint to the bike shop, returned the bikes, ran to the main street, hailed a cab, jumped out at the Central Station and caught the 4:53 train to the airport, and made it in time to catch our 5:50 flight back to Prague. All this while wearing helmets and biking tights!

Back in Prague, and everything is green! The tradition is that on the first of May you should kiss under newly blossoming trees. Cherry trees are best, but since we were coming in from the airport we made do with what we could find. You can see the hillside of cherry trees blossoming on the other side of the church:

Spring is here. Travelling during this season is wonderful because every time we leave Prague we return to a more colorful city!

We'll be reuniting with an old friend on a Spanish island in the Mediterranian next week. Is this for real? Perhaps we'll wake up from this dream any moment now. But in the meantime we'll try to keep posting pictures and stories...