Netherlands

After Cologne, we continued a few more hours up into the Netherlands to Amsterdam. We found our hotel and walked to dinner enjoying the beautiful city streets, canals and old buildings.

I got this picture from Jamie along with a reminder about our hilarious story of how the night went. It involved driving on a sidewalk and assuming our waiter didn't speak English. We were screaming tourists that night!

 After a great nights sleep we woke up and went to pick up LaDon who had been in Russia all week on a work trip. We then headed to Zaanse Schans which is Old Holland!

Old Holland couldn't have been more picture perfect! It was BEAUTIFUL!!  Netherlands used to have lots of windmills but over time they had less and less. They have relocated quite a few up to Zaanse Schans and basically re-enacted what it used to be like. 

Such an amazing little city. I loved the colorful houses with the fun roofs.

It was fun to see the clogs hung up or sitting on the back porch. Not sure if they are really still used or set there to make us tourists believe but either way it was adorable!

We went into a small clog factory. They had a small history of the different designs and methods used over the years. 

We then headed into Amsterdam. Our original plan was rent bikes since it is known as the 'city of bikes' but we ended up foregoing that plan due to the chilly temperature. I am glad we did because it was a little chaotic and I would have been nervous on a bike. There kind of seemed to not be too many rules when it came to driving, bikes and pedestrians. Everyone just seemed to do what they wanted and it just flowed. I guess there are about 30K more bikes than people here and it was insane to see all the bikes. EVERYWHERE!!!!

The city also should be know as the city of canals because it has double what Venice has...... It is such an incredible city. I loved the canals, boats, bridges, houses, buildings etc. It's very cramped but so amazing!

Royal Palace

Anne Frank House. We wanted to go in but tickets were sold out long before we planned this trip. So, maybe another time!

Another place we'd like to go back and explore was Rembrandt's house and museum

We then headed SW and stopped to see the tulips!!!! I was so thrilled! We couldn't have picked a better time to visit then during tulip season!! The colors were so incredibly vibrant and it was a sight to see!

I loved the red with a few yellow flowers intermixed

Last stop in Netherlands was the The Haag Temple. Small temple but very pretty. (grounds not so much)

Absolutely loved Netherlands! I was most looking forward to this country for this trip and it didn't disappoint. I would go back in a heartbeat. The countryside was beautiful and quite flat and we loved how much farmland there was. Europe seems to have very crowded cities but as soon as the city is done it turns into country/farmland, they don't have many suburbs.