KEUKENHOF - AMSTERDAM

The reason why I visited Europe in April - May besides to celebrate my special friend’s birthday it’s also because I wanted to visit one of my dream place since I was a kid – The Keukenhof.

Depart from Lommel; a city located in the boarder of Belgium and Holland, we did a road trip headed to Lisse where the famous tulip garden is. It took around 2 hours to get there and along the way (most of the time) I was asleep.

Tulip Field - Lisse, Holland

Tulip Field - Lisse, Hollan

Getting there, I was blown away by what the nature offered me. Hectares of colorful Tulip flowers on the field welcoming me at Lisse. What a fantastic feeling just being there and enjoy this beautiful scenery. Finally arrived on the site, we were holding the parking and entrance ticket already (as Jan booked everything in advance online) so we didn’t need to join the long queue ahead of us and we directly went in.

Indeed, the garden was amazingly magnificent. Never seen something more beautiful than that in my life! There were many flowers not only tulip and they arranged it so neat! And again, took out my camera and I’m ready to take pictures. Just so you know, this is the biggest garden in Europe and only open during spring (middle March – May) as it’s the best weather for tulip. I’ve been dreaming of visiting this place and finally I stepped my feet there, it was just awesome! We spent hours over there, took like million pictures and eat some waffles – something better than that??? I don’t think so…



Clog & Windmill

Keukenhof Garden

The great things that we also seen the Windmill as well as the Clog (famous wooden shoes from Holland).

Keukenhof Garden

Late afternoon, we left Keukenhof and drove to Amsterdam where we spent the night. It took like 30 minutes to get to the city center… After parking the car in special parking area (the parking fee is crazy expensive here and you need to reserve in advance for this) then we walked to our hotel. Took shower getting rest a bit and then we went out again to discover the city! Just so you know, Amsterdam is a bike city. You can find bikes everywhere, it’s like everyone using bike in their everyday life. That evening we went to the Dam Square – a very famous site but we didn’t stay long! There was also Madame Tussaud but we didn’t enter as I visited the one in New York before.

 I think we were there in a wrong timing, as that weekend was the Ajax Football Club just awarded as the winner of Eridivisie. You can imagine, lots of fanatic supporters were out there sang so loud and drunk! Many trashes on the street are not what I expected!

Anyway, we continue to discover the city until we feel starving and realized we didn’t have any lunch yet. Rumor has it, Holland food is not the best food on earth so we decided to have Indonesian dish that night. They have many Indonesian restaurants here as many Indonesian people lived here as well. We ordered 2 sets of Rijstafel menu and it was a lot of food but finished it as we were starving!

Amsterdam at dusk

Bicycle in every corner

 It’s getting dark and you can see the lamps started light the city. The view of the reflection of the building with the lights in the canals was just majestic! Perfect moment to capture!

We walked along the canal until we reached to the most interesting destination is Amsterdam – The Red Light District – My eyes popped out seeing all those (almost) naked women erotically dancing on the glass box trying to get some ‘costumers’ for the night! Most surprisingly there were many huge women ‘selling’ their self too… Well, beauty is a preference I guess!

Red Light District

We also went to some sex shops tried to find something for a souvenir but didn’t find any ‘interesting’ one! My heart was pounding when someone approached us and offering ‘coke’… I heard that kind of this is legal over there but I didn’t take any risk to try that kind of stuff! Getting late, we decided to go for a drink before headed back to the hotel. I saw many coffee shops around the place and (innocently) I wanted to go to one of those. Jan told me that they don’t sell coffee as what I thought but drugs!!! Hahaha what an experience… And we just had a glass of beer and back to the hotel.

Canal in Amsterdam

In Amsterdam I really wanted to have a picture with the I AMSTERDAM sign…. So the next morning I went down to concierge of the hotel and find out where this place is. They told me it’s located in front of The Rijksmuseum. I looked at the map and its like 45 minutes walk from our hotel. That’s perfect… Again we walked through the canals with many bicycles on the street.

I was so happy when I realized that we already arrived. The Rijksmuseum itself is a very famous museum with a lot of arts inside of it. When I was there this museum was just open again after a long renovation, so no wonder there was a long queue on the entrance….

I AMSTERDAM behind The Rijkmuseum

Like I care, I hunt down to find where the sign was and so happy when see that White and Red Letters of I AMSTERDAM just right behind the museum… Of course, click click click and many more clicks!!! Took a lot of pictures from different angles for my Facebook page J

What make it special at that time, there was a street footballer did his tricks with full crew making a video…. I didn’t want to miss it and I took the video as well! That was fantastic…

Street Soccer attraction

Well, we thought we seen quite a bit of Amsterdam then time to drive back to Leuven… On the way drove back home we were so sleepy and we made several stops to get some coffees!

 A short visit but it was really nice… Would love to discover a bit more if I have another chance!

Keukenhof: Cheked!

Amsterdam: Checked!