Netherlands the place of Color and fun.

Amsterdam is the place we visited. The drive from Brussels to Amsterdam was beautiful. We stopped by for coffee and lunch.

Checked in to ibis and I must say it is a pretty decent place. We ensured we did not stay anywhere in the main cities, since we wanted to enjoy the country side.

On the first day we visited zaansechans, this is a historic place where one gets to see the huge ancient windmills that were built in the 17th century. The place were clogs are made traditionally. And ofcourse loads of varieties of cheese. My personal favourite was the pesto cheese.

The place is very well maintained inspite of the fact that it’s so old and have do many tourists walking in.

The food at the Restaurant De kraai was very basic, but yummy with savoury ham and cheese and sweet strawberry pan cake.

And I was very pleased to meet by friend Daniel who took the day off and travelled all the way for 3hrs to meet us. Really appreciate it my friend.

The fishing village of Volendam was awestrucking. I personally like water fronts and this one sure was one of my favorites. The calamari, fish and chips from the carts were yummy no doubt.

One important observation was in Amsterdam people use bicycle extensively. The main station has a special reserved parking for bicycle. There are not hundreds but thousands of bicycles parked there and it’s a treat to see it. Not sure how people identify their bicycles, but I am sure they have figured it out.

The night life and boat ride at Amsterdam was fun. The boat ride gave us a brief history about the water ways and how efficiently it’s been used than and now. There are two thousand odd working boat houses were people live, pay their taxes and maintain it well. Somewhere I was dreaming about something similar in chennai. Since our water ways are just stinking and unused. And I believe dreams do come true!

The food options are many in the city, but since we were too tired we decided to get some shawarma and kebabs from a Palestinian food place.

Next morning was exciting since we decide to visit the most colourful keukenhof. The important information about this place is it’s open only for one month in the whole year. The Tuplis are beyond beauty. It is a place where one feels happiness, joy, love and peace. The colours can heal us totally. There are thousands of visitors every day. But everything is so well organised and there is no confusion at all.

Our experience was very pleasant. The drive was very smooth.

Our special thanks to our dear friend Dinesh who agreed not only to host us, but also drive us to this beautiful place and share a his previous experience of traveling through the length of Europe.

Save that little money from all your expenses to travel, it sure makes a lot of difference in the way you look at life. My travel experience has surely given me a different perspective and made me understand that people think, talk and act based on their experience. So there is no wrong or right. As long as we follow basic human rules in your life.