Holland: Tulips and Windmills

Finally, our vacation wouldn't be complete to Holland without seeing fields of tulips and windmills. These pictures cannot truely capture how beautiful it was! AMAZING!!!

The coast of Holland- Noordwijk

We stayed along the coast of Holland in Noordwijk the last two nights of our vacation. We were very lucky to have nice weather and Ericka loved playing in the sand and putting her feet in the ocean. We just relaxed, enjoyed the nice weather, watched Lauren dance to live music, and ate dinner outside along the boulevard!

The Flower Parade

On Saturday April 26th we went to the annual Flower Parade of the Bollenstreek. This parade takes a 40km route and is the largest, most famous flower parade in the world. The parade has more than twenty floats and cars decorated with flowers.

Keukenhof Flower Garden

After our time in Amsterdam we headed south to Keukenhof Flower Garden. Keukenhof is one the most popular tourist attractions in the Netherlands during the spring. It is the largest bulb flower park in the work with 4.5 million tulips in 100 varieties. It not only contains tulips but many other perennials as well. There are 7 million flower bulbs planted by hand and the park contains over 15km of walking paths to view the park.

Amsterdam

Last week we spent 2 days in Amsterdam. One thing we learned very quickly....YOU DO NOT DRIVE IN AMSTERDAM!!!! The streets are very narrow, there are one ways everywhere and with all of the canals it's a huge maze of streets. Not only do you not want to drive in Amsterdam...look out for all of the bikes. We were more afraid of being hit by a bike than a car. Bikes are everywhere and most of them are very old bikes. Amazing!

While in Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank House (picture shown above of the famous bookshelf that hid the entrace to their hiding place), The Van Gogh Museum, The Red Light District (we just had to see it!), took a city bus tour, and a canal bus tour. Amsterdam is a very beautiful city, but very different architecture and history than many of the other places that we have visited thus far. Another big contrast- everyone speaks very good english! This made life much easier for all of us!

Mont Saint Michel

At the southern most point of the region of Normandy France is Mont. St. Michel. This was another location that our camera could not truely capture the beauty and size of this magnificent place. I would suggest you google Mont. Saint Michel for more pictures and information on its history.

Mont St. Michel was initially constructed during the 6th and 7th centuries. It is a small town with a a magnificent Abbey at the top that was constructed during the 11th century. This town is surrounded by water during high tide and mud flats during low tide.

Pointe du Hoc Monument

After the Normandy Military Cemetary, we then traveled 8 miles west to the Pointe Du Hoc Monument. This monument honors the rangers who scaled the cliffs using metal hooks to disable German guns that were shooting out over Omaha and Utah beaches.

You can still see the craters in the ground from the massive bombing that occured by the Americans prior to the rangers scaling the cliffs. The remains of the German bunkers can be explored here as well.