A world of color
Though we had passed through Amsterdam many times during our journeys, we never had an opportunity to visit Holland. We had wanted to see the tulip gardens for quite some time. Recently, my wife, Indira, and I finally took a trip to the Netherlands along with two other couples from Memphis.
We went to Amsterdam on a Delta flight and stayed at Nh Amsterdam Center, a centrally located hotel close to all the important places. First, we visited all the places of local interest.
The entire city is infiltrated with a web of canals. Unlike Venice, the canals are well planned and well constructed. There are three main canals and several small ones connecting the main canals. We took a canal cruise that took us through the main canals, and from the boat we could see all the important monuments, beautiful and colorful gabled buildings, and places of interest. Finally, the boat took us to a new harbor area where cruise ships are usually docked to pick up the tourists. Near the harbor, the buildings are modern glass-walled skyscrapers, contrasting with the ornate buildings of the past. During the boat trip, we saw Anne Frank’s apartment on Prince’s Canal, where she wrote her famous dairies about the horrors of the Holocaust. No wonder, with so many canals and bridges, the city is called “Venice of the north.”
Many people own boats on the canal, and they live in them as their permanent residence. The boat trip lasts about an hour, and it’s worth taking to see the city and take pictures.
There are several worldclass art museums in Amsterdam. Some of the important ones are Rijksmuseum, Vincent van Gogh Museum and Museum of Modern Art. We visited Rijksmuseum and saw several paintings by Rembrandt and also some other world-famous paintings like “The Kitchen,” “The Night Watch,” “The Jewish Bride” and “The Winter Landscape.”
Just opposite to the museum is the gem-cutting factory where they demonstrated to us how they cut and polish gem stones. We visited their showroom, where loose diamonds and diamond jewelry can be purchased.
Most of the people use tram cars and bicycles for local transportation. There are about a million bicycles for a population of 800,000 in the city, and there are separate bike paths even on the main streets. Cyclists have the right of the way on any road. Each bicycle stand can accommodate thousands of bikes. People go by bicycle to the stand, leave their bikes there and take the local train to their place of work.
At noon, we went to a pancake place on the canal zone and sampled the local pancakes ( pannekoeken) with sugar, syrup and fruit toppings and washed it down with popular local Heineken beer.
That afternoon we saw the famous Red Light District, which is a popular tourist attraction. Amsterdam is a liberal city and prostitution is legal. As the name indicates, these houses have red lights in front of them. In the same neighborhood there are sex shops and “coffee shops” where pot is sold and smoked. No photography is permitted in this area unless one wants the camera thrown out into one of the nearby canals or destroyed.
The Netherlands is famous
The flower fields at Keukenhof Gardens attract tourists and their cameras daily. for its windmills, wooden clogs and tulips.
When the Dutch reorganized the city of Amsterdam, they wanted to preserve the ancient buildings and the ancient way of living. They built small townships with traditional 17th century gabled houses and moved their working windmills and shopping malls to that area. It is a very convenient way to show their old culture. Next day, we visited such a township about 10 miles north of Amsterdam and saw a fantastic working windmill. Only 1,000 out of 10,000 windmills are still operational. It is a spectacular structure, built in 1725. The sail blades are 42 feet long; made of wood, they make a loud roaring noise when they are working and rotating. This rotator force is transmitted through several gears to the bottom of the mill where it turns the pumps to pump the water from flooded fields to a higher ground. As most of the country is below sea level, flooding of the fields with tidal water is common, and these windmills were very useful to pump out the water.
Opposite to this windmill there is a cheese-making factory and wooden clog factory. In both these places, local people in colorful costumes demonstrate the working of these factories to the tourists. The clogs are made of poplar wood.
That evening, we visited a quaint fishing village in a very picturesque setting and had traditional local dinner with beef stew and Danish beer.
Next day, we visited the world-famous Royal Delft Pottery Factory where handmade and painted pottery items are made. These are blue paintings on white background and we saw these skilled craftsmen at work.
The next day was a very important day of our tour. We went to the flower auction at Aalsmeer, which is a part of FloraHolland. It is an unbelievable place where the largest flower auction in the world is held every day. About 1.7 million flowers and 2 million plants are auctioned and sold every day under one roof. About 5,000 employees bring these flowers and plants to the auctioning area by trains, trucks and trolleys. About 10,000
A Dutch woman at a cheese factory explains the cheese-making process to visitors. suppliers who grow the flowers and plants under strict specifications send their goods to the auction place every day.
The auction takes place from 7:30 to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday.
This indoor auction place is several football fields in size — 2.2 million square meters. Thousands of visitors daily watch this auction from the visitors gallery. Several hundred auctioneers sit in a glassenclosed space with their computers and look at gigantic TV screens in front of them where quality, grading and quantity of the available flowers and plants will be displayed on the TV screen and bidders look at information, make bids and buy the goods at an extremely fast pace. The entire process is completed in a couple of hours. The flowers and plants are shipped immediately to all the destinations in the world by trucks, trains and air. By evening, the flowers reach consumers all over the world.
From the auction place, we went to Keukenhof Gardens. On our way we saw miles and miles of tulip and other flower fields. Keukenhof Gardens is an unbelievable place, the largest flower park in the world. More than 7 million bulbs are planted over 70 acres by hand every year. Hundreds of visitors see these beautiful gardens every day from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. during the blooming season, which starts in January. About 50 million people visited this place during the past 60 years. The peak flowering and visiting season is during the last two weeks of April. We were extremely lucky to have excellent weather with plenty of sun, beautiful blue skies and nice clouds during our visit. The gardens are really well laid out with plenty of walking paths and resting places to sit and relax, and restaurants to dine. There is a beautiful lake in the middle of the gardens with scores of swans brought in especially for this floral season. We enjoyed our lunch in one of the restaurants looking at the beautiful flower gardens. In addition to different varieties of tulips, there are fields of gladioli, hyacinths, lilies, narcissi, daffodils, crocuses, irises and dahlias. The season extends till the end of May. Bus loads of people will be constantly coming during the entire season.
In addition to these flower fields, there are special areas with special arrangement of flowers.
A windmill from 1892, surrounded by flowers, is located in the midst of the gardens. We got up to the top of the windmill and had a spectacular view of several acres of colorful flowers.
There is canal around the gardens and crisscrossing the tulip fields. A boat ride in that canal took us very close to the flower fields. It is really worth taking that trip, which takes about 40 minutes.
We spent as long as we wanted in the gardens, about three hours, and took scores of pictures. They say it is the most photographed place in the world.
To put it simply, it is heaven on Earth.
If we rush through, it easily takes half a day to see all the flowers and all the fields.
There are several gift shops where we can buy packed bulbs and bring them home.
This trip is extremely nice and rewarding. For those who are interested in nature and flowers, it is a must-see preferably during the later part of April.