......through the tulips.

April 23:
Our flight from England yesterday was totally uneventful. We were home in Amstelveen by about 4:30 pm and Michelle had a nice dinner awaiting us. Walking from the bus, we saw kids swimming in the Amstel River, which had been frozen when we arrive just two months ago. We caught up on the Julian/Michelle trip to Rome and Venice, and filled them in on our visit to England.
Today, Monday, the kids are back at school so Pat and I set off in the camper van again, to tulip country. We took secondary roads most of the way, through pretty countryside.
Our campground is Camping op Hoop van Zegen near Noordwijk, on a quite country road with some woods on one side and endless tulip fields on the other.
We bicycled in to Noordwijk on the coast. It is a big beach resort town, with gigantic hotels, carnival rides, casinos on one end, and somewhat more dignified beach clubs and hotels at the north end. The beaches are beautiful broad sandy expanses which no doubt will be swarmed in a month or two. As for today, still windy and cold.
A little later we cycled off in the other direction to see the tulips. There are miles and miles of flat sandy fields, many of which had row upon row of the most colourful tulips. They are usually set in long rows of different colours... maybe 10 metres wide of red and as much as 500 metres long, then s 10 metre stretch of pinks ones, then white, then orange, etc etc., often interspersed with rows of  narcissus and rows of hyacinth. Apparently they are not grown for the flowers, most of which are composted, but rather for the bulbs which are exported around the world.

April 24: Keukenhof Garden
We were unsure about spending almost $50 to go into the famous Keukenhof Gardens, when we had seen spectacular tulip rows in the fields, but it was worth it.
We bicycled to the garden from the campsite, about 9 kilometres. It was a cold grey morning, but the weather improved somewhat over the day. The complex is very large, and has many different sections of amazing tulip varieties, beautifully planned with patterns of tulips and hyacinths based on height, colour and texture of the flowers, and set off with trees, bushes, fountains, ponds, canals and sculptures.  There are about 5 pavilions with history of the tulip in Holland, special exhibitions, exotic plants, and of course coffee shops and souvenirs. Our timing was just about perfect, as the garden was in its prime. Indeed, the enormous garden complex is only open two months of the year. At first the crowds were light, but as noon approached bus load after bus load of tourists arrived. Kind of interesting really, to observe the huge variety of sizes, shapes and colours of people as well as the flowers.
After about 5 hours in the garden we left and rode a bit farther into the town of Lisse for a look around, then back to a park across from the garden with an 18th. century chateau and farm. This was free, and very quiet with only a small groups of students playing around.
Then back to the campground on a more roundabout route. At one point while riding alongside a lakeside beach, we were stopped by a security car and asked to stand by while a “parade” of “scootmobiles” passed. Scoot mobiles are what we know as mobility scooters, the little electric carts for of the darned things, decorated with flowers to varying degrees, and some with costumes, offering a cheery hello as they passed us. There was no audience to speak of, just ourselves and 2 or 3 other passers by. It is the week,of the big kings birthday celebration here, so I guess that’s what it was about. It was well organized, with 3 or 4 escort cars, an escort motorcycle. Then to the campsite, exhausted!

April 25: Leiden
We had kind of glimpsed Leiden back in November when we were here, but hadn’t done it justice. So we decided to stay at this campsite a third night, and bicycle in to Leiden, about 12 kms each way. The bicycle routes here are as well marked as the highways, and we had a map book from the tourist information. It was a lovely ride, through woods, sheep goat and dairy farms, along tulip fields, past well established residential areas, parks and golf courses and into the town.
We ditched our bikes and wandered the ancient canals, streets and alleys, it is one of the prettiest towns in Netherlands, with some of the oldest churches, markets and narrow labyrinths of alleys and canals, as well as some lovely open green spaces and shopping streets. We came across two or three particular historical references to the Plymouth Rock pilgrims who set off from Leiden in the 17th C for the new lands. Leiden is a university town, so we did see some of the buildings, galleries and courtyards, with some interesting historical markers for some famous figures of science, art, medicine and religion.
Our return route took us into the pretty lakeside town of Warmund where we stopped for our usual afternoon of grocery shopping.
There was some challenging wind again, so pretty pooped by the time we got back “home” to the campground.
Tonight will Ben our last camping night as we return to Amstelveen to look after Nyah while Michelle gets a last weekend off. Unfortunately we won’t see Julian much as he is off on his Duke of Edinburgh trek this weekend.